Who owns the rights to GunForce II?

I know it's not a Neo Geo game, but its obvious connection to the Metal Slug games compelled me to ask here. In the new book, Metal Slug: The Ultimate History, Takushi Hiyamuta ("HIYA!" in the game's credits) says, "Irem sold the rights to GunForce II to another company before its release." (p398)
I'd love to see this game, along with In the Hunt for that matter, get released to Arcade Archives on the current consoles. With six of the Metal Slug games on there already, it stands to reason that demand for related games would justify such an endeavor. Would the rights issue make it hard to accomplish?

Irem. And whoever owns them now.

Kid Panda said:

Irem. And whoever owns them now.

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I believe that would be Sony (they had the Irem Square on PSN) - but could be wrong. EIZO Corporation produced a whole lot of pachinko/pachislot stuff (Hammerin' Harry licenses) so it could be them as Irem are now a subsidiary of Eizo Corp.

J-P said:

I believe that would be Sony (they had the Irem Square on PSN) - but could be wrong. EIZO Corporation produced a whole lot of pachinko/pachislot stuff (Hammerin' Harry licenses) so it could be them as Irem are now a subsidiary of Eizo Corp.

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So, does the Nazca (Irem) team still exist? Are they still making games? It would be good if they were still working on Metal Slug games.

Hmmm. Really odd that they made a game so similar (even with shared devs) I always heard with MS they started to make a vehicle combat game then changed it to character run and gun. You think they just fell back into what they "know what worked" when or if the Tank based combat wasn't working out? The art influence is a no brainer though. You can clearly see the games share development employees.

Unsatisfactory site tests of the vehicle only version brought about the change, which allegedly caused a lot of upset with a majority of the development team. According to the book, GunForce II didn't start out being developed by the future MS guys, but they were brought on further in as the status of Irem's game division was starting to become uncertain.

Im pretty sure Hamster and Granzella has rights to the Irem catalog in Japan. Retro-Bit has rights in North America.