Last Guardian producer joins London startup

Following last week's news that Team Ico lead Fumito Ueda has resigned from full-time employment at Sony, it has emerged that The Last Guardian executive producer Yoshifusa Hayama has also left Sony. He has joined east London based social game startup Bossa Studios as creative director.

Announcing his move, Hayama says that, "Together at Bossa we have plans to bring a plethora of games to Facebook and eventually other appropriate social media channels, which include 3D elements and can be enjoyed by all age and interest groups."

Basso is currently working on Monstermind, a realtime strategy that currently has 380,000 monthly users. "Thanks to recent developments with Flash 11, there is no reason why a social game can no longer be as visually stunning and as compelling as the big console titles," Hayama says.

Hayama has held various positions over a long career in game development. He worked as a game designer and lead technical artist on Shenmue for Sega, creating the QTE, was a 3D artist on Final Fantasy IX, X and XI, was creative lead on Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast at Sumo Digital, and worked on a large range of games for Sony's Japan Studio, including Gravity Daze, LocoRoco 2 and Kung Fu Rider.