Tales Studio, the developer responsible for the Tales series of RPGs since 1995's Tales of Phantasia, has been closed by parent company Namco Bandai. Although a reason wasn't given, Tales Studio has been having financial problems for some time and bankruptcy rumors have been floating around throughout 2011.
This closure actually prevents the developer being shut down for financial reasons and has allowed Namco to move development of the Tales series in-house. As such, the Tales series will continue and Namco Bandai has several games to release, including Tales of Xillia, and the 3DS port of Tales of the Abyss.
Originally founded in 1986 as Wolf Team, the developer was renamed to Tales Studio when acquired by Namco in 2003.
I'll be curious to see what the net effect of this is. I'm guessing nothing, but at face value it does seem like the Tales series is in serious danger. Only time will tell, I expect.
I heard that this was more of an "absorption" of the Tales studio than a simple closing down. That considered I would say that the Tales series is in no real danger of disappearing.
I hope it's an absorption like Jesse says, as opposed to a closing. I like what they do at Tales and the Tales series itself it beautiful. I'd be upset if anything happened to it.
The quality of the series may be questionable, as the people working on the series may be vastly different, but its existence is secure. Again, this closure prevents it from being shut down completely. As far as I know, no layoffs have been issued. So in a sense, it is an absorption but they're calling it a closure.