Katamari Forever

Bandai Namco has filed a trademark for something called Amazing Katamari Damacy through the European Union Intellectual Property Office.

UPDATE 23/12/2015 12.45am: Tap My Katamari has been confirmed as a 2D clicker-style spin-off for iOS and Android devices.

Glitch, a cute free-to-play browser MMO from a team that includes Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi among its ranks, launches today, developer Tiny Speck has announced.

Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi has returned to game development with Glitch, a massively multiplayer browser game.

New trademark filings suggest quirky collection series Katamari is set for a return.

Katamary Damacy and Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi has for the first time explained his decision to quit publisher Namco Bandai after 11 years working for the company.

The field is empty. It is night. There are no paper clips, tin soldiers, scraps of sushi, teddy bears, bicycles or classical guitars to roll up here. Instead, a lone man sits at a bench, straining through the gloom to read a book.

Hills roll off into the distance around him, their shape and form suggested by ten thousand pinpricks of light: lantern fireflies bobbing in a silence unbroken by the flitting of their tiny, spastic wings. Your Katamari rocks in the breeze as YMCK strike up a mournful chiptune ballad. The wind sighs and the reeds bow their heads in sympathy. Then, just as you begin to feel lost in an absurdist joke, the King of all Cosmos pops into frame and, in his stoner/child patois, begins to explain.

One week earlier, when showing off how high he could jump, the king bumped his head on an asteroid, in doing so clouding his memories. It's in one of these half-rememberings (first seen in the second game, 'We love Katamari') that you find yourself now. "Look, someone studying having trouble reading..." the king says, pointing to the man on the bench.

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Demos for Katamari Forever, FIFA 10, Fat Princess and LittleBigPlanet are the star attractions on the PlayStation Store this week.

Namco Bandai has released a demo of Katamari Forever on the Japanese PlayStation Store to coincide with the game's launch in the region.

Atari becomes Bandai Namco Partners today and pin-points some release dates in the process.

London's Namco Centre, the location of this evening's hands-on event with Katamari Forever, sits almost exactly opposite the Houses of Parliament. Cast in the tall shadow of Big Ben, this busy arcade - the likes of which you'd never find in a marginal constituency - provides an ideal stop-off point for MPs to throw down some expenses on a quick game of Time Crisis after work.

Namco Bandai has announced that it's to grant a North American and European release to its PS3 exclusive Katamari Damacy Tribute, renaming it Katamari Forever in the process. The game will be out this autumn.

Although it probably won't come as much surprise to series followers, Namco Bandai has confirmed to Eurogamer that Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi is "not involved" in production of the upcoming PS3 version.

At his talk at last week's Game Developers Conference, Namco Bandai's Keita Takahashi revealed that he intended his first game, cult hit Katamari Damacy, to be a comment on consumer culture.

Namco Bandai is working on a PlayStation 3 version of Katamari Damacy for release later this year, according to the latest issue of Famitsu.