Ubisoft has involved a decent amount of its teams on the Assassin’s Creed games, but each has been led by the Montreal studio. While there are no imminent changes to that approach, there’s a possibility that a separate Ubisoft division could take the charge on a new entry in the series.
Ubisoft senior vice president of sales and marketing Tony Key expressed openness to having one of its groups – such as Ubisoft Toronto – handle the bulk of development on a future Assassin’s Creed:
“Never say never. Montreal has been the lead on every Assassin’s Creed, but that doesn’t mean they always will be. That’s still to be determined. But for sure, I could see it, of course, if there’s a scenario where it’s an established studio with a good track record. It’s a really important brand to us. We would have to have a lot of confidence to move the lead for that game to another studio. Jade [Raymond]’s team is obviously very experienced. They’re finishing up their first game now. They’re getting more and more people into the studio. So I could foresee a day when that studio could take that role. I don’t know if that’s in the cards or not.”
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata made a few comments earlier this year suggesting that he could resign if the company continued to experience poor sales performances. Iwata never actually used the word “resign”, but his remarks pointed in that direction somewhat – and the Japanese media also pointed to the possibility of Iwata stepping down.
But no need to worry: it doesn’t sound like Iwata has any intentions to resign.
During the company’s latest investor’s meeting, someone asked the CEO directly if he would leave if Nintendo is unable to reach his “commitment” to hit a business profit goal of ¥100 billion.
Iwata responded: “I don’t recall saying I’d resign.” He also said that Nintendo should be focusing on achieving its goal rather than concentrating on failure.
Nintendo had been engaged in a legal battle over the Wii MotionPlus accessory, which was thought to have infringed on one of Triton’s patents in the US. However, the patent-infringement lawsuit as been dismissed. Judge Richard A. Jones of the U.S. District Court rejected Triton’s legal arguments.
Richard Medway, Nintendo of America’s deputy general counsel, said in a statement:
“We feel vindicated by the court’s ruling. Nintendo’s track record demonstrates that we vigorously defend patent lawsuits, like the Triton lawsuit, when we believe that we have not infringed another party’s patent. Consumers respect Nintendo because we develop unique and innovative products, and because we respect the intellectual property rights of others.”
Source: Nintendo PR
System: Nintendo 3DS
Release Date: July 12th (EUR), July 13th (AUS), July 18th (JPN) August 11th (NA)
Developer: AlphaDream
Publisher: Nintendo
Author: Spencer
Nintendo’s hit RPG series Mario & Luigi lands its first entry on the 3DS on August 11th. As the famous brothers make the leap to 3D, they’re bringing new adventures, puzzles, battles, and unique gameplay along with them. Plus, the spotlight this time around is not on who you might think. Hit the jump to learn more about this exciting new first-party title.
Richard Perrin, the creator of Kairo, will probably be bringing his next game to Wii U.
Journal is a new adventure title that emphasizes character interaction, dialogue and narrative choices. You’ll be playing as a young girl who experiences childhood issues including lying to friends, cheating on tests, and more.
It sounds like Journal has a pretty good shot of hitting the eShop when it launches (hopefully) later this year.
Perrin said the following when asked if he intends to get the game up and running on Wii U:
Yeah, because Nintendo have been a lot more open with indies than they necessarily have historically, and I think that’s a great sign of this generation where even the big companies are looking more to indies, and so I met up with the Nintendo guys at PAX and GDC earlier this year, and now they’ve already sent me out a devkit and the equipment needed to take a game like this and get it onto their platform.
I’ve already managed to get rough bits and pieces working, and the hope is that this will eventually come out on Wii U later in the year. Obviously, Nintendo still have an approval process, so I can’t guarantee it, but I don’t see that there’d be any problems.
