Hironobu Sakaguchi Forms Independent Studio
The longtime Square stalwart is off on his own now.
Sakaguchi described his studio as a small group of elite creators, similar to a Hollywood production company -- he mentioned artists Yoshitaka Amano and Takehiko Inoue (the former the famous Final Fantasy character designer, the latter the artist of popular comic series Vagabond and Slam Dunk) as likely future collaborators.
Sakaguchi was ousted from any position of significant responsibility at Square after the multi-million-dollar boondoggle that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Though he received executive producer credit on Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XI, he had little or no involvement with their development.
Mist Walker has been at work in some form since May of 2001 (that's its trademarked logo shown above left), and it's registered a domain name for its official website at www.mistwalker.co.jp, although there's no page there as yet. We'll watch out for more news of its upcoming projects in the near future.