President of Star Fox Zero dev PlatinumGames steps down (update)

PlatinumGames president Tatsuya Minami stepped down from his role leading the developer late last month, according to a report from GamesBusiness.JP. He has been replaced by Kenichi Sato, who was the executive director.

The news comes as the company celebrates its 10th anniversary and just a day before the global release of PlatinumGames' and Nintendo's Star Fox Zero, which has received mixed reviews.

As with many of Platinum Games' core team, Minami started his career at Capcom. In 2006, he left the company to found ODD Incorporated. ODD later joined forces with Seeds, Inc., a company created by former Clover members, to form PlatinumGames.

PlatinumGames has a history of making unusual games including its premiere title, MadWorld, gun-for-shoes action game Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101. Its latest game, Star Fox Zero, came out today in Japan and hits most of the world tomorrow.

Currently, Star Fox Zero has a metascore in the low 70s with a very mixed reception. In our write up of the game, reviews editor Arthur Gies wrote that the title demonstrates everything bad about Wii U game design and declined to review the game.

The game was co-developed by Nintendo EDP and PlatinumGames. You can read more about that process, and how the game was designed to bolster the use of the Wii U's Gamepad, in our interview with PlatinumGames from last year's E3.

We've reached out to PlatinumGames and will update this story when they respond.

Update: In an email to Polygon, PlatinumGames confirmed that Minami is no longer with the company.

"As you may or may not know, this year is our 10th anniversary," a representative said. "We feel this is the perfect opportunity to reform our internal structure in order to strengthen our position as a developer, and changes in personnel affairs are a natural part of that.

Minami has been replaced by Kenichi Sato, who released his own statement:

I have recently assumed the position of President & CEO of our company, following the departure of Tatsuya Minami at the end of March 2016. With this, our board of executives now consists of myself, Seigo Tabira and Atsushi Inaba.

Please note that this change in staff structure in no way affects our dedication to our craft. I have utmost confidence that we will continue to create games to the same high standards that our partners and fans have come to expect from us.