Capcom today announced plans to dissolve its wholly-owned subsidiary Clover Studio. The company announced this decision following today's meeting of its board of directors. Originally established in July 2004, Clover Studio was to give creators such as Atsushi Inaba (of Viewtiful Joe and Steel Battalion fame) more freedom to create original games. In addition to the Viewtiful Joe series, Clover Studio was also responsible for the development of the critically acclaimed action adventure Okami and the recently released Shinji Mikami-directed God Hand. Since Capcom is drawing up an efficient development plan, management decided to close the shop and bring the developers back into the internal development structure of Capcom. The closure of Clover Studio, effective March 31st 2007, will cost Capcom approximately 400 million yen ($3.35 million US), which will be booked as extraordinary losses in the balance sheet for the first six months of the current fiscal year.

• Official Capcom Website (Japanese)