Former Capcom USA president launches new publisher

Industry veteran Bill Gardner, who was formerly president of Capcom North America and was instrumental in the founding of the Japanese company's European operations, has announced that he has started up a new publishing and distribution company.

Called O~3, the firm is still in the early stages of its inception, but will be present at E3 next month in Los Angeles - where it will be evangelising a new approach to game publishing that favours small to medium sized developers and original titles.

"There are a lot of high quality games being left on the table because they aren't the next instalment of last year's licensed blockbuster," lamented Gardner, commenting on his reasons for founding the new studio. "O~3 Entertainment's approach to publishing will lead to more diverse and creative choices for gamers at retail."

The other founders of O~3 are also Capcom veterans, with Chris Jelinek joining as VP of sales and marketing, while Hanako Watanabe will be CFO of the new publisher. The company plans to provide a complete end-to-end publishing solution for titles, and will handle sales and distribution, marketing and PR, replication, warehousing and shipping for titles.