The name of the developer may not be familiar to some but could one of Spark Unlimited next projects be Resident Evil 6?
On several occasions Capcom has stated its commitment to outsourcing projects to Western developers. Last year after the release of two sales failures, Bionic Commando and Dark Void, Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimota revealed a new strategy to use western studios for ports and sequels.
This brings us back to the California based Spark Unlimited who is currently working on two new projects for two different publishers. One of those new projects has gone into pre-production as of November 2011.
That project, according to job listings found on Spark Unlimited’s website, is an “unannounced high-profile, popular game sequel for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC release.”
Unfortunately it looks like there's yet another developer shutting up shop - or at least it certainly seems that way.
Well in the landscape where the middle-market doesn't exist, I'm not surprised.
It does seem to be you either prosper as a AAA developer or get relegated to mobile, if you can't do either you die. It's a sad reality :(
Why jump to that conclusion when a much more logical one is that Spark Unlimited failed, because there games were generally awful?
There are a fair number of 'middle market' developers that see success, but they do so with less conventional methods such as kickstarter or publishers tailored to the smaller scale developments (e.g. Deck13, Devolver).
Chronojoe in this particular context you are correct. The lost planet games never lived up to the potential many writer's thought the series had.
However I do believe that the pricing landscape, especially within brick and mortar stores, is in trouble. I would like to see publishers branch out a bit. particularly grandiose games can go for $70. Smaller games couls go for $40. right now it seems as if games are $20 or $60. no flexibility.
^brick and mortar stores actually caused that pricing situation to begin with...or at least the ones that sell used games, did...
and i totally agree...the pricing structure of this industry is a nightmare...there is no value vs. cost assessment for the buyer other than his/her own research...every 'retail' game is $60 (with day 1 DLC available at an additional cost, etc.)...but one of those games could be a pile of shat, the other great...yet cost the same...that is dumb, and always has been...
the PC sector is the only one fighting through this...as hardware loyalties are not part of it...but even they can't really figure out a good way to gauge what a game should sell for...a hopeful dev may make a fantastic indie game, that sells a lot, but they didn't know what to charge...didn't charge enough...still went belly up and aren't making any more games...
either way, i think we're all in somewhat of agreement...Chrish1990 is right that there is no middle ground for a specific game right now...but that is only because nothing is priced in that middle ground...as a buyer you look at a $5-$20 game as a small release with little content before even knowing what it really is...or a $60 game as the greatest thing to happen in a decade...I'm saying this as a trend with gaming consumers...the issue is that these stereotypes are in place because the publishers haven't even tried to adjust them...the fallout is occuring because low budget full release titles (which they know are not very good) are still plopped out at $60 and go absolutely no where...where if they sold for $40 they could've easily doubled their sales...and actually made more money...
Not really, they could have went independent and formed their own IP as suppose to being contract for higher. I don't really get the idea of this "AAA" or just "indie" we have many games that I wouldn't really all "AAA" in terms of budget or concept.
Kickstarter has created many, many games with medium, to huge budgets.
You don't need a huge budget to exist in gaming. I'm sorry but those AAA games are not even the norm of game sales.
What Capcom, Square and many of those companies where doing where trying to make money off of a type of game that isn't again the norm of game success and development. That is like trying to make a movie like Transformers just based on Transformers money...
They can still make a damn film without seeking such returns......yet indie films exist, yet independent games exist. One doesn't need to make a AAA game to exist in this industry, more games exist that are not AAA, then that are and the lack quality in those games isn't really something to desire in many of em.
They did bad because they made bad games, they failed because they decided to work for Capcom.
Haven't you noticed all the bad games that got outsourced by Capcom?
They didn't just get better. I'm sorry but no, the industry if ANYTHING has gotten much better then years prior in terms of diversity. With the self publishing we are seeing with many developers on console, we are seeing many games finally being able to get a huge share of the console market.
Look at the Walking Dead game!
http://www.techtimes.com/ar...
That AAA? Yet....they made lots of money. They made a great game, thus got the sales to reflect that. Its one of the few times, I bought a game, literally right after playing the demo, the concept sold me on the game very, very fast. I love old school point and click adventures and it has been years since I've played a great one.
Games budgets do not determine their success. Many might cite COD or Halo...consider those games had followings long before those budgets got there. They play them because they like them, the budget isn't just selling the title for them, they love the concept.
This team closed down because they made bad games.....that it. Being AAA was't some how going to make them not close down. IP's don't just sell on their own, I've said this sooooo amny times on this site.
Lost Planet, Dead Rising, DmC, RE....Capcom outsourced these games out later on and they did really, really bad.
Surprised? Turns out having a team that never worked on the IP doesn't just mean the game will sell off of name alone. The reality is, once the original creators or team is gone or not working on the ip, the chances of that game doing poorly rise significantly!
This isn't a shock.
OR the more likely scenario they were an extremely mediocre to awful developer who made crap games...Yaiba sucked balls and they worked on it, and Lost Planet 3 was generic and generally terrible and they developed it...There are zero games they made that were successful
......too funny. Yes...bud, but one thing. 1 and 2 where never done by this team. They did 3 and its good thing you didn't play it, its the worst of the series.
Their highest rated game was a port of Call Of Duty.......
I played Lost Planet 3 and couldn't believe the complete garbage I was playing. There should be scientific studies on how bad the game was.
Never have I seen a series go completely down hill as the Lost planet series did.
They didn't make Lost planet 1 or 2.
Edit: _-EDMIX-_ beat me to it.
I enjoyed Lost Planet 3 very much and I would have liked for them tonhave made more games. So many projects they could have tackled?
What do you do when you ran out of fresh ideas in one of your leading franchises? Of course, you create the prequel. Capcom knows it best, so after DmC, Lost Planet also got its prequel. But how god (or bad) is Lost Planet 3?
It appears Yaiba: Team Ninja Z, a Ninja Gaiden spinoff with zombies, will be for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
I'm really interested by the concept of this game. Not because it's Ninja Gaiden necessarily but because Inafune is in charge of this.
I agree. He's a genius and can't wait to see more of this game. Though I kinda wish he would have saved it for next gen consoles. Something to build hype and excitement even more once they're revealed. Here's hoping japan gets its groove back for next gen like it had when they ruled the ps1 and ps2 days.
Ninja Gaiden 1 and Ninja Gaiden 2 were good Ninja games.
But Ninja Gaiden 3 (PS3/360) was not a good ninja game.
I think, YAIBA: Ninja Gaiden Z will be much better than Ninja Gaiden 3!
Absolutely Day 1 buy for me!
What? Why would they not release on the highly succesful Wii U? It is perfect for hardcore gaming and Nintendo has a great past with Ninja Gaiden, and really third party studios all together.
Now to figure out of that was sarcasm.
Lol funny.
But I think its a bit to early to call the Wii U a success.
Motorola RAZR i
wii u isnt getting any publisher support beyond what we have already seen.. EA, Ubi, Capcom, n a few others.. Mostly casual titles from them & a few good ports MAYBE.. I know a handful of good 3rd party exclusive titles will come to it one day.. Whether its only the east or both east & west.. Either way, itl only be a handful & the rest will be 1st party games that are worth looking into AGAIN!
wow man, the console just came :D :D :D give it some time, I remember how it was with ps3 untill great games started commin, now look how many great games ps3 has, Wii U will get lots of great games too, plus many indies will come
LOL I heard there also developing Star Wars Battlefront 3! Hope Its true.
Capcom needs to take whatever engine Dead Rising runs on and make a darker, more serious zombie game. I'm sure that's not what this is, but I had to get that off my chest. Again.
I definitely remember that name. I would not directly say it is a positive association, but at least they had some very good ideas back in 2008.