Yesterday, Activision Blizzard issued the following press release to news outlets…
Further strengthening its foundation for future growth, Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced that the company will broaden its product portfolio by adding Vivendi Games’ multi-million unit selling properties Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age(R) and Spyro(R) to its roster of proven franchises. The company will also retain two new intellectual properties that are currently in development — Prototype and a second game that has not yet been announced.
Additionally, Activision Publishing will continue to support the Vivendi Games’ catalogue including The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor(TM), which was launched on July 22 in conjunction with the release of Universal Pictures’ theatrical feature film.
Seeing that some games were missing, some sites immediately assumed that Ghostbusters, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and Brutal Legend (among some other titles) were canceled.
After doing some research, it seems that no one is ready to say what the true story is, with most people we called saying, “No Comment.” Are these games canceled, or are sites making false assumptions? We believe that sites are making posts a bit too quick, and making false accusations. With the brand new merger of Activision Blizzard, everything is being re-evaluated, and some games and divisions haven’t been completely analyzed yet. Its possible that these games will still be coming out, but under a different name other than Activision. Maybe they will still be under the Sierra name, or another name we haven’t seen yet. Either way, Ghostbusters has had some very good press lately, and we can’t simply forget these facts…
- Ghostbusters has been receiving good previews
- Last seen a few days ago at Comic-Con 2008
- Plenty of assets released at E3
- The amount of money and time already invested into the game, including the real voices of the characters.
We also can’t forget about the bolded “Cautionary Note” at the end of the press release which pretty much says, everything mentioned in the press release can change.
Therefore, we just wanted to alert our readers that we still believe some of these games will see the light of day. But we still need to worry about the future of XBLA games with the following mentioned in the same press release,
The company also is evaluating options regarding two non-strategic business units Vivendi Games Mobile and Sierra Online, which provides casual games for the PC and Xbox(R) Live(R) Marketplace, including the possibility of divesting these business units.
