The American division of Namco Bandai today revealed that they've secured their Dragon Ball license for five more years.


Namco Bandai Games America today confirmed that it has secured exclusive North American rights to publish future official videogames for the longstanding classic anime and manga series, Dragon Ball, across all major consoles and hand held platforms. This agreement will run for five years beginning in January 2010 and supersedes the existing rights granted to publish titles on the Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation 3, PSP and Xbox 360.

Additionally, Namco Bandai Games America Inc. has secured the right to initially publish three titles in 2009, Dragon Ball: Raging Blast for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo exclusively for Wii, and Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans exclusively for Nintendo DS.

The Dragon Ball anime and manga series is a worldwide, multi-million dollar entertainment franchise. Originally penned by famed Japanese manga artist Akira Toriyama in 1984, the Dragon Ball series has spawned several entertainment franchise sequels (Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT) spanning 11 years of manga, over 500 television episodes, 23 feature films, and countless mass merchandising products. FUNimation Entertainment currently holds all U.S. distribution rights to the anime series.

The Dragon Ball Saga follows the orphaned martial arts boy Goku as he grows and matures into an adult throughout his many adventures. During his early formative years, Goku meets life long comrades, defeats diabolical superhuman enemies, and eventually settles down and forms a family. The Dragon Ball series is known for its often comical action adventure themes which are interspersed with long standing testosterone-driven, action-impacted battles which escalate drastically over time into full-on conflicts for the survival of mankind. By the end of the Dragon Ball saga, the baton of planetary savior is passed to Gohan and Goten, Goku's son and grandson respectively.