Bandai Namco Holdings has announced that Bandai Namco Entertainment will absorb Bandai Namco Online on April 1, 2025. The online game-based subsidiary company will cease to exist in name in the new fiscal year.
The group originally established Bandai Namco Online in 2009 as a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Games—which has since been renamed to Bandai Namco Entertainment. The former would focus on releasing and managing online-exclusive games.
However, the online-focused publisher ended up getting infamy from the failures of its two major releases, namely Gundam Evolution and Blue Protocol. The Gundam-themed first-person shooting game had shut down simultaneously worldwide in November 2023. Meanwhile, the anime-style MMORPG Blue Protocol is slated to close in Japan in January 2025, with its international releases also canceled.
The closures of Gundam Evolution and Blue Protocol do not mean that Bandai Namco Online has completely run out of titles. The subsidiary is still managing titles like Gundam Tribe, SD Gundam Operations, and Idolish7 as of November 2024. The group simultaneously announced that Bandai Namco Entertainment will take over the management for all those titles after the merger in the 2025 fiscal year has taken place.
Bandai Namco Entertainment will absorb Bandai Namco Online at the beginning of the new fiscal year on April 1, 2025.
Published: Nov 20, 2024 11:00 am