Atari news

[philip]

This is a quote I got from the NWVault which got it from the official atari site:

Grok -Public Relations, Atari - NWN2, BG3 All crap...? You either need to expand your sample size or refine your expectations. Here are some fantastic recent Atari titles: Godzilla: DAMM APEX Battle Engine Aquila DBZ D&D Heroes Civ 3 Rollercoaster Tycoon NWN Unreal Tournament Unreal Championship Huge titles on the horizon: RCT3 NWN2 BG3 Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone Driver 3 And, several others. There's good and bad with any publisher folks. We've got more good than bad although at times it can be hard to see when you're particularly frustrated with a single title or recent experience. It's the same with every publisher in the business...we're not in the business to stick it to consumers we just miss the mark on some titles. More: No April Fool's Joke. We've got dozens of titles in all stages of development. We're currently talking with several top developers about creating the next generation of our strongest D&D RPGs. This really shouldn't be a surprise...lots of RPG goodness in the future from Atari. And more : Atari is the sole licensor of all D&D interactive properties. We could bring back Gold Box games if we were so inclined...and maybe we are... Man, I loved those adventures. My purpose here is simply to make sure you all understand that we're well aware of the importance and popularity of the franchise (meaning D&D ) to most of you. We've got some fantastic titles in our catalog and we are absolutely planning to do something with them. The whos, whats, wheres and hows...well, that's what we'll be saving for a full-fledged announcement.

Hope it's not an april fool's joke. edit: the bg3 and nwn2

[ 04-03-2004, 03:37 PM: Message edited by: philip ]

[Albromor]

Yeah, philip, I was over there yesterday and read that piece of information. I, too, hope it wasn't an April Fools joke.

[andrewas]

Mostly likely they refer to BGA2 as BG3, which is just the kind of crap I expect from a major publisher these days.

[philip]

That could be it really well

But NWN2 isn't known to being created. And HotU is out for some time so they can't refer to that. Though if they 'lie' about real names of games I doubt the rest will be true.

[Dreamer128]

Apparently, they still claim the list is correct. Besides, we have comfirmation that several of these titles (such as Driver 3 and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 are being worked on). Does anyone know if Neverwinter Nights sold as well as they hoped?

[philip]

On the NWVault someone mentioned that Atari might be working on NWN with another developer. I believe Bioware more when they say they don't work on it than Atari who says they do work. So either Atari's lieing or they'r e working with another developer which is bad as well

[Kakero]

If it is true ( if only ). I wonder how are they going to make that DBZ game? fighting or rpg?

[Mr_Krift]

I think it would make a cool RPG.

[philip]

Again from the NWVAult:

A few days ago we reported that Grok, Atari's PR person made a post on their forums that both NWN2 and BG3 are in production. To followup on that, IGN has gone to the horses mouth and spoken to Atari's Brandon Smith to clarify what's going on. What he has to say clarifies the matter slightly as to what's really going on. Here's an excerpt: Well, now that we're into the working week, we've had a chance to check with that very same Atari PR rep, Brandon Smith, as to just what's going on. As it stands right now, neither title has been officially announced. Rather, the point of his post was to say that Atari owns the rights to both of these franchises (and all new Dungeons & Dragons videogames for that matter), and has no intention to abandon either of them. In other words, even if Baldur's Gate III is not in active development right now, Atari has every intention of producing another Baldur's Gate title for the PC. Further, they know very well that another BG title has big shoes to fill, given the glowing reception that the first two games received from both critics and players. Atari wants to do right by the series. So the bottom line seems to be that, both NWN2 and BG3 will not be forgotten. When they will be produced and by whom, is totally unclear at this time.

That's quite a bit different than the guy said earlier. I even think it comes close to 'better to keep your mouth shut and make people think you're stupid, than open your mouth and remove all doubt' After all he was saying this to counter someone saying something bad about Atari

[Chewbacca]

If NWN2 and/or BG3 isn't made by BioWare, I would be very skeptical about blindly lending it my full support.

On the other hand Bioware has more or less stated they veiw their secret upcoming game based on thier own intellectual propety to be a "spiritual successor" to NWN. This sounds promising as is cuts out the third party license holders (Atari, WOTC) from nixing creative design decisions for thier own reasons.

I do think Atari's best choice would to be to tap BioWare for future incarnations of NWN and BG simply because they have an excellent track record doing these types of games and have the built-in name recognition to support such titles as well. Of course Im just 'little ole me' with very little say beyond ramblings on a message forum.