This week probably has the most shocking and industry moving news of the week, as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo start to play nice — and their players get to play together.
This week’s news includes:
Let us know what you think.
PlayStation 2 fans may recall a little title called Okami, it’s an action adventure game developed by Clover Studios and published by Capcom. The original Okami title received fairly high reviews by many popular game sites, although there were a few flaws, the receiption seemed well received.
Clover Studios was closed after the release and all the intellectual properties went back to Capcom, the company that funded the studio, leaving Capcom responsible for future sequels.
Christian “Sven” Svensson said “I think we need a lot more people buying the current version before we seriously consider a sequel”. A harsh statement on the game’s combined sales figures, perhaps, but also probably an accurate one. (Kotaku)
This is the sound of a developer not so happy with prior performance and finding it too risky to try for a second title. Although many sequels outshine their parents there is some truth to the fact that slow selling parents will create slow selling sequels, there is something to be said about learning form past experiences.
The game had good reviews, isn’t it worth trying to make a second game based on that? Maybe people just aren’t jazzed about Japaense folklore, myths and legends as the basis for a game.
Now that Blizzard feels their engine is solid, it’s time to move on to creating content for the full game. Jay Wilson, Diablo 3‘s lead designer, says the game engine is in an advance stage of completion and much of the art team has moved onto Act 2. Don’t read into that, he said game engine.
Blizzard is obviously not hurting for money, given the success of World of Warcraft and they’ve always taken their time with projects to make them solid products. Blizzard’s name is on the line and they’re brand consists of three major franchises: Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. When you produce so few games you’re expected to do them perfectly.
How do they do it? As Wilson says, “If we haven’t rebuilt something five times it really doesn’t deserve to be shipped. That’s pretty much our policy.” (eurogamer) While a game engine is the foundation for a great game experience, the content is king. Blizzard is deep in the mire of content production so, although the engine might be solid, the final product is probably still far from complete.
End result, expect a high quality product once again from Blizzard.
This podcast is delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, but there’s plenty of banter between Jonah and Scott, and 30 minutes of the podcast were removed to be aired as an outtakes at some point. Oh, and there’s plenty of cursing and NSFW content in this particular podcast, so be warned.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
