Tecmo Declines Square Enix Proposition

Square Enix, like many developers today, look to combine their efforts with like-minded individuals making video games for our industry. Recently they put out a bid to pickup Tecmo and expand their development archive to new heights by jumping into a few more genre’s without starting at the ground floor.

Tecmo, has decided to opt-out of the friendly bid for the company and has decided to persue a merger with KOEI instead. Square Enix could opt for a hostile take-over bid, much like we’ve seen occur to others in the industry but their smarter than that, Square Enix President Yoichi Wada went on record saying:

“If they truly dislike Square Enix, there is no point. All creators would leave the firm the moment the deal was done. It would be the equivalent of buying a building.” (reuters)

Although Tecmo hasn’t spit upon Square Enix and said they “hate” them, declining the take-over bid explains a lot about the direction Tecmo plans to go, and those plans don’t include Square Enix.

It would have been interesting to see what direction Square Enix would take with Tecmo. Perhaps Square Enix will look to another development company to bid on.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Imagine a Free World of WarcraftImagine a Free World of Warcraft

Once upon a time the folks at Blizzard Entertainment thought they could support the entire world of World of Wacraft by ad revenue. This would have created an MMO experience which would cost you nothing but a bit of annoyance by ad providers; what would the total audience be if the game was free?

Had WoW launched free of charge they would probably have significantly more users playing the game, but the ad revenue from the sheer amount of people would be nothing compared to a monthly charge for eight million subscribers.

Although only a small number of those subscribers are US based, they’re still raking in the cash compared to an ad-based model, even if they were to have triple the subscribers.

However, the Blizzard exec noted: “We didn’t want to charge a subscription, but as we researched market conditions, we realized that wouldn’t support us.”

It’s possible, perhaps, that Blizzard would have fallen under its own weight had they created a world where anyone could play for no charge. Imagine the server utilization, the volume of traffic and the support calls they would get for triple or quadrupal the player base with only ads paying the checks.

Granted, a free system would be excellent in theory, but in practice, making us pay is the only way to throttle our addictions. Sad, but true.

(Thanks, gamasutra)

Rumor: Wii Motion Plus DelaysRumor: Wii Motion Plus Delays

Wii Motion Plus is Nintendo’s next big hardware up sell, an add-on that should make the Wii controller more realistic and flexible when playing highly sensitive “real movement” games. The hardware has been looked at by many in the industry as fixing imperfections in the current hardware, a patch of sorts.

wiimotionplusThe Wii Motion Plus is going to be bundled with Wii Sports Resort, a title that’s obviously playing off the biggest Wii hit Wii Sports. Latest reports are showing the game title missing from the upcoming release lists, so, it’s not too far fetched to assume the hardware will be delayed along with the game, considering this was the first game to rely on the Wii Motion Plus hardware.

The delay is rumored to be due to a few problems with the Wii Motion Plus, more than likely during the final stages of testing the prototype products. In Nintendo’s defense, they’re usually very good about due diligence when it comes to producing hardware and software, taking the time that is needed to get something into the customers hands that’s acceptable quality. All eyes are on Nintendo with the Wii Motion Plus because people see this as the final “fix” to make the Wii controller do everything it was promised to do.

While Nintendo doesn’t see the original controller as broken (nor do the millions of customers buying them everyday), this new hardware should make it more sensitive for games that require perfect movement… games like Wii Sports Resort?

At this point we’d expect to hear news of a slight delay by Nintendo soon. We’d rather see it arrive late than utterly broken and useless.

(Thanks, Kotaku)

Microsoft Shoots for Number Two In Console WarMicrosoft Shoots for Number Two In Console War

Microsoft recently announced their price cuts on the Xbox 360, effective today, but what is motivating them? Microsoft’s not going to make much additional money by passing off the savings to the customer but they will, more than likely, sell a bunch of great new Xbox 360‘s to a new crowd of gamer.

Motivation? Sony.

“I’m not at a point where I can say we’re going to beat Nintendo,” says Don Mattrick, senior vice-president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business. Indeed, Nintendo is likely to run away with the lead in the current generation of console gaming, leaving Microsoft and Sony to battle for second place. (businessweek)

Who would have thought Sony and Microsoft would be battling out this generation for second place while Nintendo breezes through with their Wii console and a handful of games with mediocre game reviews? Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question. If you saw this coming and you’re not on the marketing or project planning for one of these console makers you better prep your resume!

The battle isn’t cooling, Microsoft drops their price to compete with their big competitor Sony which also brings it closer to the price tag on the Wii getting two bird with one stone. The reason Wii is winning is clearly due to its broad demographic of grandpa and grandma non-gamers along with hardcore gamers who have to collect all the consoles and younger gamers that want to fit the trend.

Microsoft’s clearly shooting for second place by installing more units into the consumers home as possible. They’ve got a great library of first person shooter titles, a few RPG’s and RTS titles and the typical contraversial titles like GTA and Saints Row with more hot blockbusters (read: Gears of War 2) arriving soon.

I see this as a great opportunity for casual game developers to get into the Xbox Live Arcade market and start making themselves (and Microsoft) some money off the new gamers that will buy their first Xbox 360 for $199 and up. Microsoft’s getting closer to the low-budget gamer crowd with their price cuts so it would be great if they can take advantage of that market with lower cost titles as well.

If you’re a game developer looking for console stick time and you want to grab the attention of a large pool of gamers, the Xbox 360 isn’t a bad start!

While Microsoft isn’t aiming at Nintendo just yet, there is no doubt Nintendo will be in their sights if they can smoke the pants off Sony in the near future (by this holiday).