A new deal completed today by Atari Inc. will send its Humongous Entertainment division to its parent company, France’s Infogrames Entertainment.
Infogrames, which owns about 52 percent of Atari’s stock, will gain Humongous Entertainment’s license rights, intellectual property, and existing inventory.
Atari said that around $2 million of the $10.3 will act as a down payment for future platform royalty advances, milestone payments, and manufacturing costs.
Exclusive distribution rights for Humongous products will remain with Atari through around March 2006 in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
This news comes in the wake of rumblings that the two companies were drawing too close, evidenced by the departure of Thomas Mitchell, an Atari board member, one month ago.
Atari has published games such as Neverwinter Nights and Unreal Tournament 2004.
THQ Inc. and Majesco Entertainment agreed today to an international sales and distribution agreement that will permit THQ to sell and distribute 14 Majesco titles for the PC and current generation consoles in Europe for two years.
Ian Curran, THQ’s senior vice president for European publishing, stated that the agreement represents a “great opportunity for THQ to expand its portfolio of products internationally” while Jesse Sutton, president of Majesco, claimed that the initiative represented a “significant” expansion of Majesco’s global presence.
The agreement covers such titles as Psychonauts, Jaws Unleashed, Nanostray, Aeon Flux, Age of Empires 2, and Black & White Creatures.
It seems not everyone agrees on a clear link between violent videogames and real-world violence. As a recent example, on Tuesday an Alabama jury convicted 20-year-old Devin Moore for the murder of three police officers, despite the defense’s claim that the man’s fondness for Grand Theft Auto was to blame.
According to a report on Gamasutra today, the jury convened for only an hour before rejecting Moore’s pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental defect. Moore’s lawyers had claimed that time spent playing Grand Theft Auto games, as well as childhood abuse, explained the murders.
Never one to miss an opportunity, staunch game critic and Florida lawyer Jack Thompson, fresh from attacking Killer 7 and, oddly enough, The Sims 2 for sexual content, filed civil suit on behalf of the victims’ families. Thompson is naming Wal-Mart, GameStop, Sony, and Take-Two in the suit.
“What we’re saying is that Devin Moore was, in effect, trained to do what he did. He was given a murder simulator,” said Thompson.
Vivendi sent out word today that The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction has officially gone gold. That’s fancy game industry speak for “we’re all done with the game now, so be free, little guy, and make the masses happy!” You can understand why we use the shorter version.
In any event, the game is now code-complete, and will enter manufacturing to hit its August 23 street date.
In Ultimate Destruction, players can jump anywhere, climb anything and smash everything — even destroy entire buildings. Gamers will create their own Hulk-powered weapons from anything they can rip out of the environment; unlock new moves to battle huge enemies in epic boss fights; and partake in free-roaming non-mission and side-mission gameplay.
Are all the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest fans out there ready to reserve that PlayStation 3? You may want to do a bit more scouting first. Recent comments from Square Enix president Yoichi Wada suggest that his company’s two prized series could be taking a multiplatform route in the next generation.
Commenting to Japanese site Mainichi Interactive on August 3, Wada explained, “The market for next generation game machines will be split into ‘high end’ and ‘low end’ according to the type of user. Rather than one hardware dominating, the various machines will carve out their own share.”
Final Fantasy is already known to be taking a multiplatform path, as the Crystal Chronicles and Final Fantasy XI offshoots will be appearing, respectively, on Nintendo’s Revolution and Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Square Enix has confirmed that the Final Fantasy series will come to PlayStation 3, although it hasn’t gone into specifics.
Multiplatform development of Dragon Quest, on the other hand, would be a surprise. While Square Enix has brought offshoots of the Dragon Quest series to Nintendo’s portable systems, with a DS version of Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest due shortly, the series has stayed a PlayStation thing on home consoles since the original 32-bit PlayStation system.
Publishing giant Electronic Arts today announced that it has signed sexy celebrity Maria Menounos to star alongside Sir Sean Connery in its upcoming videogame action title, From Russia with Love. The actress will lend her likeness and voice to the game, becoming the latest in a celebrated series of EA-developed virtual Bond girls. Click here for a picture of Menounos.
Menounos will play the role of Eva, a character developed exclusively for the new game.
“I am honored to be a Bond girl and be a part of the Bond legacy,” said Menounos. “To star in a video game with Connery, the original Bond, is incredible.”
Menounos recently appeared in the 20th Century Fox blockbuster Fantastic Four. She is also the spokesperson for Pantene hair products, but she may be best remembered as a host for Entertainment Tonight.
From Russia with Love is based on the famous movie of the same name, and is scheduled for release on GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox this fall. In the third-person action title, players will once more assume the rule of super agent 007 and combat a host of enemy threats.
Stay tuned for much more on the game in the coming months.
For seasoned adventure gamers, the era of LucasArts adventures was a golden age of gaming — and few titles garnered as much devotion as Sam & Max Hit the Road. Based on characters from artist Steve Purcell, the game followed the sharp-witted adventures of a trenchcoated dog and an insane rabbit.
Just a few years ago, LucasArts teased us with promise of a sequel, even releasing first details and screens of the game. Alas, Sam & Max: Freelance Police was canceled in early 2004, leaving dedicated fans in rage and despair.
While LucasArts may have underestimated the Sam & Max following, in an interview over at GamaSutra, Purcell — who now works at Pixar — reveals that the rights to the characters are back in his hands. Even better, he may do something with them.
“Would I get back into games? Sure,” Purcell said. “The [Sam & Max] license is back in my hands now so we’ll see what happens in the near future.”
Sounds pretty good to us, Steve. We’ll have to wait and see, but at the very least, you know you’ve got plenty of support.
Blizzard Entertainment announced today that the company plans to centralize its PC game development teams at the studio’s Irvine, California headquarters.
According to the studio, this decision was made to increase the “efficiency and effectiveness” of its teams and the majority of staff from Blizzard’s Northern California office will have an opportunity to relocate to the Irvine location where they will continue to work on an “unannounced project.”
Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, stated that the consolidation represents “an opportunity for all of our teams to have regular, direct input on each other’s projects.”
Blizzard went on to state that the company does not believe that the relocation would result in “significant delays” on any of the projects currently in development and that plans for future products would be revealed at a later date.