Tales of Absorption? Tales of Dissolution? Namco Bandai announced this morning that it plans to absorb the Namco Tales Studio, producers of the company's successful Tales series, on January 1, 2012. No reason was given for the move.

The Tales Studio is a wholly owned subsidiary of Namco Bandai formed in 1986 as Wolf Team, changing its name in 2003 when Namco became the majority shareholder. It has since been the lead studio of the publisher's flagship RPG series.

It's not like Namco Bandai is planning to get out of the Tales business, since the publisher just raised its financial forecast based on the success of Tales of Xillia.