Majesco Opening Casual-oriented Internal Studio

Majesco today announced the formation of Majesco Studios, a division that will henceforth handle internal development for the publisher. The company previously relied upon third party developers to create most of the games it published, such as Double Fine's Psychonauts (PC, PS2, Xbox) and Office Create's Cooking Mama series. Former Sega senior VP of development Bill Petro will act as the Majesco Studios' VP of internal development, with the new studio said to "specifically focus on products and properties that resonate with the casual gamer." Titles aimed at the casual gamer, such as Cooking Mama on DS and Wii, have proved to be among Majesco's most popular recent releases. The DS edition sold over 500,000 units in Q3 2007, with the sales of DS software accounting for 66% of the company's Q3 revenue. "Creative and technical talent is at the heart of all great games and enduring intellectual properties," stated Majesco executive Gui Karyo. "Majesco Studios provides a means for us to leverage our resources and add the best players to our team for both the projects that we develop internally and the majority for which we utilize third party development."