Late last year, Capcom pulled a P. Diddy and shut down their Clover studios, which was a big shock since Okami and God Hand got such good reviews. Most of the employees just joined the core Capcom staff, but a few decided to go their own way, including Viewtiful Joe's producer Atsushi Inaba, Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, and Devil May Cry's director Hideki Kamiya. Since then they've started their own studio, named Seeds, and have already gathered 51 people for their game team with this message for gamers:

"We are the Seeds that caused the vibrant flowers Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Steel Battalion, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami to come into bloom ... with a renewed spirit, we want to once again challenge the world of entertainment. But to do this, we need many, many more seeds... Would you like to make some 'preposterously amazing' games with us?"

For all the random talents combined into this team, they're basically the Harlem Globetrotters of gaming. They haven't announced any game projects in development yet, but I'll bet that Microsoft is already trying to get an exclusive game from them.

Yesterday IGN claimed Capcom was thinking about bringing their Okami game to the Wii, which makes perfect sense due to the game's paintbrush gameplay. Capcom has replied though, saying that "officially we have no plans for Okami on Wii at this time. Research and development are always looking at possibilities but given Clover is now closed for business, I think it highly unlikely a Wii version would be possible." It didn't sell too well in America, so a Wii revamp would surely help sales a lot, but it doesn't look like Capcom will pursue the remake.

Two years ago the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) released its annual list of gaming award nominations for 2005 and Capcom wasn't too happy to find that Resident Evil 4 was not on the list. I'm not a fan of the game, but even I know it deserved many of the Game of the Year nominations it got across the Internet. RE4 fans were outraged and decided to write in the game anyways, which caused AIAS to contact Capcom telling them they would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to become a member and get the votes to count. Capcom decided to let it go until this year when the AIAS nominations for the best game of 2006 left off both Dead Rising and their Clover studio's Okami. Capcom has announced the lame "pay to play" policy of this association, but refuses to give in to their nomination demands. AIAS of course denies the allegations, but Tecmo, Majesco, and Eidos also refuse to pay to enter, and all have also never been nominated. Basically, when the 10th year of AIAS awards occurs at the D.I.C.E. Summit in Vegas on February 8, 2007 (a few days after I'm in Vegas for the Superbowl) pay no attention to the award winner.

Le gasp! If this was a black and white film 3 women would have just fainted. You hear that Clover! P. Diddy's shutting down the studio again, go get us some Cambodian breast milk *clink-clink.*

For those of you new to Clover's history, Capcom created Clover Studios with a talented group of people to focus on making original content such as God Hand, Viewtiful Joe, and expecially the new gem Okami. But of course the harsh gaming industry doesn't really give a shit that Okami is one of the best games this year, possible one of the best PS2 games ever, and sales aren't too phenomenal apparently compared to all the sports game clones and sex appeal titles. Capcom has announched that they will be closing down the studio by the end of March 2007, but haven't announced what will happen to the team of people yet. I can't imagine they'd let them go, but if they do I'm sure other places will gobble them up like PS3 eBay pre-orders.

For more awesome Okami wallpapers check out this gallery.