The Videogame Roundtable has been around since 2009 and it’s hit its 400th episode, separate from TD Gaming Podcast! Former co-host Dan Quick offers his congrats, and the guys discuss electronic music.
This week’s news includes:
Be sure to listen to the outtakes after the end of the podcast!
One of the great downfalls of an acquisition or merger, in the game industry, is the loss of great franchise titles. Sierra, or Sierra Online, once stood on its own as a company with great gaming titles but later fell into the depths of Hades under many different company names.
Sierra’s last stop on the acquisition highway was Vivendi, years after much of Sierra’s steam had slowed. Now, they’re part of Activision Blizzard so we had high hopes they’d find a great use for some of the old Sierra properties long since collecting dust. Space Quest, Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and especially Gabrielle Knight were some of our favorites, but times have changed.
“We are retaining only those franchises that are a strong fit with our long-term strategy including Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro, as well as Prototype and a second game that has not yet been announced. We will not publish any other titles that previously were part of the Vivendi Games portfolio and we are currently reviewing our options regarding those titles,” says Activision Blizzard (joystiq)
This is unfortunate news, Activision Blizzard now has a large set of franchises on their hands, many of which have collected dust for years. Those dust collecting franchises could rise from the dead and reinvigorate their old fan base… or be dropped to the earth as unwanted scrapes after a big hunt with the vultures awaiting their take (sorry, too much watching of Animal Planet)
A reworked Kings Quest or Gabriel Knight could have seriously awesome potential in this time and age, imagine a dark comedy version of Gabriel Knight or a huge scaled world in King Quest using todays graphic engines. Although, these titles could also go the way Atari has gone and taken a well remembered franchise and made mud of its great name (*cough* Alone in the Dark).
Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know the distance an old franchise could go in this new world. We’ll have to pull out an old copy of our prized posessions and remember just how great they once where.
The success of the Nintendo console, the Wii, has proven to change the industry in many new and creative ways including reinvigorating slow product sales at Toys R Us. “The company went from a loss of $42 million at the same time last year to a profit of $13 million for the three months ended August 2nd,” says Gamasutra who spoke with CEO Gerald Storch.
Revenue was up 6.3%, in part, thanks to the Nintendo and its hot moving Wii and Wii Fit products. While Nintendo struggles to supply enough units for the strong demand, Toys R Us has no problem emptying their stores of any hardware they receive.
Months after the Wii launch we witnessed parents waiting in lines before the store opens just to see if they had Wii’s arrive for the opening. Although we’re sure it was a hassle to answer the phones with the typical response, “no, we’ve got no Wii’s in stock,” the long term plan has proven successful.
Have you finally managed to get yourself a Wii? Did you pick it up at Toys R Us?
The next big Wii title will be Castlevania and it’s going to be a 3D fighting game. Stop laughing, it’s not a joke, it’s what Nintendo Power is saying. Picture Street Fighter but with classic Castlevania characters and lots of smashing and bashing for victory.
“GoNintendo’s report from the mag hints at appearances from characters like Simon Belmont and Alucard, the use of sub-weapons like holy water and boomerangs, and (surprise!) motion controls.” (kotaku)
This is a creative direction for Konami to take, given their very inexperienced with fighting style games. They could build a team of experienced fighting style game developers, but why? What’s wrong with a classic side-scrolling style game using the WiiWare system like Mega Man 9?
Hopefully, Konami can pull off this fighter in a world where people do not seem to be as enthusiastic about fighting games especially on a system with the graphical power of the Wii. Well, it is rumored to have “motion controls.”
I’d love to see a remake of Simons Quest.
