Clover Studio was founded on July 1, 2004 and funded by Capcom Japan. Atsushi Inaba was named CEO of the company and was joined by Hideki Kamiya and Shinji Mikami. These men lead the creative force behind Clover and its games.
The company's first game was a PS2 port of the first Viewtiful Joe. This port led to them making the sequel to Viewtiful Joe 2 on both the GameCube and and PlayStation 2. The studio was also given full development duties to the other games in the series: Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble and Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble.
On September 16, 2006, Clover released the now cult classic game, Okami, on North American shores. Despite the the game being a critical darling, the game didn't have the amount of sales that both Capcom and Clover wanted.
Clover released their last game, God Hand, to American audiences on October 10, 2006
Closing
On October 12, 2006, a decision was made at a Capcom Board of Director's meeting to dissolve Clover Studios. The reason being explained in this Capcom IR Release:
Clover Studio Co., Ltd. has met the goal of developing unique and creative original home video game software, however, in view of promoting a business strategy that concentrates management resources on a selected business to enhance the efficiency of the development power of the entire Capcom group, the dissolution of Clover Studio Co., Ltd. has been raised and passed at a Board of Directors' meeting.
At the end of the dissolution, all of Clover's IPs were left with Capcom, leaving them with the opportunity to create sequels to the games if they want. At the end of Clover's run, they had a total of sixty-four employees on staff.
On August 1, 2007, former Clover employees Inaba, Kamiya, and Mikami founded Seeds. Inc. This company later merged with ODD Incorporated to become Platinum Games. Along with the founders, the company has many former Clover employees.
