Nintendo Teams with Smash Bros. Creator for New Project

Smash Bros. Brawl director Masahiro Sakurai is teaming up with Nintendo for a new project. Nintendo announced today the formation of Project Sora, a new subsidiary that will be headed up by Sakurai and will develop a new game under Sakurai's direction.

The new studio has capital of 200 million yen and is 72% owned by Nintendo, with Sakurai's own studio Sora and some other parties covering the rest. It officially opened for business on January 22 at an office in Tokyo's centrally-located Idabashi area.

The studio is seeking out employees, including programmers, 3D modelers, and game designers, via a special website.

While details on the new project are being kept under wraps, the special site has a moderately revealing interview session between Sakurai and Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. The two indicate that the game will be something totally new. Iwata refers to the project "a new experiment, both for Sakurai and for Nintendo." It will not be a new Smash Bros. game.

Sakurai also offers a few suggestions that the game will appeal to core game players. In fact, Sakurai specifically states that he wasn't interested in doing something along the lines of the Touch Generations series of games.

Details on platform and game content are not revealed at the site. The site does, however, state that the game is set to have a two year development period, suggesting a release in 2011.

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