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Nintendo vs. Capcom Highly Unlikely
Those darn game developers– always getting our hopes up. Back in January, Capcom Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono happily said he’d love a full-on Nintendo vs. Capcom game, in the vein of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and next week’s Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The problem is, Ono had to apologize to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata for the off-the-cuff remark, since everyone on the internet had clamped down on this statement as some kind of confirmation.
The topic came up yet again on this Friday, when Capcom’s Christian Svensson, vice president of strategic planning and business development, was forced to address the question during a live interview session at Capcom-Unity.
“Why are people coming to ask for something we have no control over?” Svensson said, a bit flustered. He added that Nintendo or Capcom’s developers would need to reach out to one another before the concept could even begin to crystallize, but given what happened between Ono and Iwata last week, folks may not want to hold their breath.
Source: Cubed3, IGN, Capcom-Unity
Activision May Buy Take Two
Speaking of rumors, the ever popular source “unnamed senior executive” leaked to MCV that Activision is in talks to buy out publisher/developer Take Two, which houses, most notably, the Rockstar studios (GTA, Red Dead) as well as the developers behind the 2k sports line.
“There are very strong rumours amongst people at a very senior level within the global business,” the mysterious source said. “But there’re not much more than that at the moment – they are just rumours. And, of course, given Activision’s news this week [eliminating the Guitar Hero franchise and True Crime: Hong Kong, tabling Tony Hawk], everyone is now looking to see what their next move is. But you can definitely put two and two together and make four-ish.”
But of course.
Take Two’s numbers are looking rather well this year thanks to Red Dead Redemption, boosting the company’s price tag, but the publisher is just as well-known for massive delays and hype that don’t always turn into blockbusters. (That’s not to say that Borderlands, Bioshock, Duke Nukem, Mafia and more aren’t great.) Would the conglomerate enjoy being ushered into Activision’s stables? That’s hard to guess, especially given initially amicable and outright hostile takeover attempts by Electronic Arts that failed in 2008. If this new merger happens, it would be the third biggie for Activision, after gobbling up Vivendi Universal and Blizzard. Great write-ups of the possibilities are linked in the source, but tell us what you think of the possibility in our comments below.
Analysts Debate Guitar Hero’s Ability to “Wise fwom Its Grave”
It wouldn’t be a Noah News Roundup without some analyst fodder. Analysts by the droves have responded to Activision’s decision to pull the plug on Guitar Hero (and, presumably, DJ Hero). In general, most analysts say they weren’t surprised– after 2009’s flood of mediocre Hero games across multiple platforms, and the lack of those games to perform at 2008’s record-breaking levels, there was writing on the wall. Yet will the Hero rise again? Most analysts (except Michael Pachter, of course!) agree that it will– perhaps in the next console generation, or perhaps as a download-only situation where you buy a guitar at the store and then hook up to an online service for everything else, which is something Activision CEO Bobby Kotick once mentioned desiring a couple years back.
Console-free heroes? Hard to imagine, but with OnLive and Gaikai clawing their way into mainstream awareness, it’s possible. And regardless what Activision does, Rock Band is still around, and Harmonix, while feeling the news is “discouraging” (for fans! Not for Harmonix, of course! ‘Bye, competition!), the original creators of Harmonix are thrilled to go for the brass ring in the music genre and deliver the innovation the genre needs, which, implicitly, other developers have not. As a true Harmonix fan boy, I’m all for them to take control over the limelight, and hope this doesn’t discourage other great music game developers like iNiS (Elite Beat Agents, Gitaroo Man), NanaOn-Sha (Parappa the Rapper), Namco (Taiko Drum Master), Q Entertainment (Lumines, Every Extend Extra) and, yes, Nintendo (Rhythm Heaven, Band Brothers), from making more great games.
