Namco Bandai to lead iPhone gold rush

Namco Bandai is increasing its efforts on iPhone, promising to announce a new title every week in order to be a part of the format’s ongoing gold rush”.

The publisher has hired Jonathon Kromrey, a former iPod and iPhone games producer and designer at Apple, to lead its own development for the platform.

In an interview with Kotaku, he said: My charge is to make games that are the best for the iPod Touch and iPhone. There is a gold rush to Apps for the App store and Namco is at the forefront of that movement.

In the past Namco has been known for its depth of arcade experience with games like Pac-Man, Galaga, Soul Calibur and Tekken. I’m excited to be here and see a lot of those franchise come out on the iPhone. I’m here to champion new things, new IP, to discover what the new Pac-Man is for the iPhone.”

He added games such as Soul Calibur and Tekken would be great additions to the App store, but the complexity of their controls would make this more challenging.