Big news out of Japan today, for anyone interested in the inner workings of the industry. According to sources, Akihiro Hino, President of Level 5, has announced that he plans on bringing the Layton and White Knight developer to North America via a new office. While the branch wouldn't focus on development, crushing my dreams of being hired to write Professor Layton games without learning Japanese, their publishing emphasis would mean one important thing: faster localization for US titles. This means the five-hundred Professor Layton games already released in Japan might eventually come out in America before the cities crumble. Some of them, at least.

In America, the developer needs to rely on US publishers to handle most of their franchises, while the Japanese side is fairly self-sustaining. The only exception is the Professor Layton series, which is handled by Nintendo in both countries. This could also mean the developer is looking to start work on a number of new titles, with potential sequels to Dark Cloud or Rogue Galaxy, topping the list for gamers who enjoyed those games on the PlayStation 2.

Either way, this means good things for the developer and US consumers, and we hope to hear more news soon. That, or we'll just take faster game releases. Either one works for us, to be honest. We just need more Layton, and fast.

[Source]