Ninja Gaiden 3

Following in the footsteps of Bandai Namco, which was Namco Bandai up until this April in every part of the world except Japan, Tecmo Koei will also be pulling the old swapperoo on its company name. In Japan, the company is already known as Koei Tecmo, and now the American and European branches have been adjusted to match.

Tecmo Koei America and Tecmo Koei Europe have officially become Koei Tecmo America and Koei Tecmo Europe. See what they did there?

"It is our belief that in this manner we can further expand the Koei Tecmo brand under a common name globally," the company says in the presser.

This name change shadows the Bandai Namco name change so much that it has to be more than just coincidence. In Japan, Bandai is definitely the bigger, more popular half of the moniker with its popular anime licenses, but worldwide, Namco is more recognizable with huge names like Tekken, SoulCalibur and Dark Souls.

The same could be argued for both Tecmo and Koei. Tecmo receives more worldwide recognition and praise for Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, but in Japan, Koei is bigger with the Dynasty Warriors and Romance of Three Kingdoms games.

Together, the companies combine for one of the biggest publishers of games in Japan. Koei Tecmo is currently working on a high profile collaboration with Nintendo to make Hyrule Warriors for the Wii U, and most likely, it has a new Dynasty Warriors and Dead or Alive sexy costume DLC package in the works somewhere.

The unification of a worldwide brand name makes sense, but as I said with Bandai Namco, it just means I have to get used to writing a new tag. Shoot.