TiesMorskate.nl

One of the biggest publishers out there is looking badly while preparing to launch a game within one of the biggest IP’s in the world: Star Wars. EA has taken on all responsibilities, not even sharing them with IP holder LucasArts, making it even riskier. (The development cost of $100 million was already said to be impossible to earn back.) A pending $400 million lawsuit with main rival Activision, the recent industry track record for paid MMO launches and even EA’s past performance in launching Warhammer are all said to be cause for concern from investors. Combining Bioware, one of the best RPG developers, with a big IP like StarWars should be a killer combination, but whether it is will remain to be seen. To be updated.

In the post on Viacom selling Harmonix from last week I already mentioned Reuters calling the consumer ‘sick of rythm games’ and now Gamasutra publishes NPD group’s report on the US game retail industry saying music games went through a fivefold drop in just 2 years. The quite recent genre was positioned to be one of the major players on the gaming stage for some time to come, sadly, it turned out to be a hype. Maybe in a few years it’ll steady itself but for the years to come music game sales will probably be around 500 million in the US (1.6 billion in 2008). What’s the next hype to come along?

I already wrote about Activision Blizzard and their new upcoming MMO, but they have even more ideas to share. How about a future without consoles? They do acknowledge the fact that consoles are a big part of the business, but services like OnLive make a console-less future very possible! (more…)

Normally, Blizzard does not speak out about upcoming titles. The company, nicknamed ‘Fortress of Solitude’, did manage to slip some information to the public at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference; telling gamers to expect something with a broader appeal than World of Warcraft.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said:

What we’ve announced at Blizzard is that we have Starcraft II coming, Diablo has been in production… and a new, unannounced MMORPG that has a little more broad appeal

So the new title will NOT be a competitor to World of Warcraft, they will try to find an additional audience. To make sure this happens, Jeff Kaplan, the World of Warcraft game director, has been moved towards this brand-new property.

The upcoming changes to Battle.net; Battle.net 2.0, will also be incorporated in the new MMO, so the upcoming and current Blizzard titles; Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft and now the unnamed new title, will all be woven together on one platform. Adding cash play and more rewards and recognition systems will likely expand their audience even more, if they manage to integrate it all, it will make for one hell of a platform!