Gothic II, Interplay and Sony

Friday already and here we are on the very cusp of May. This week in the news we discuss Gothic II's non-existent expansion pack, Interplay's jackassery and Sony's trials and tribulations as demands for a PS2 price cut continue to escalate. Honestly, with E3 a couple weeks away there's next to nothing happening in the news worth deiscussing. Bah!

Atari doesn't plan to release the English version of the Gothic II add-on

I did hear earlier that there definitely won't be a US version of Night of the Raven, however, Atari UK still appeared to have plans for a UK launch. This news, if true, saddens me as the English market is going to miss out on an excellent product. I didn't write down a review for the sake of producing an article, but for the purpose of giving the Gothic II fans here an insight in what's oncoming.

It also bites because the games has actually already been localized quite a while ago. Of course, what it boils down to is that Gothic II didn't sell that well in the English markets, and Atari/Infogrames doesn't see how they could make any money out of a follow-up product since usually only 20-40% of the owners of a game also tend to purchase an expansion. I hope there's still is a chance that JoWooD gets some kind of deal arranged.

- Spunior

So long as it's released in the UK Gogamer.com can take care of my Gothic needs. The first game was really a lot of fun once you got into it and judging by Spunior's review of the German language version the expansion is well worth playing.

- Certis


Pressure on Sony for PS2 Price Cut Grows

You can't say this console pricewar hasn't been good for consumers. If Sony drops the price, which looks likely, all the major consoles will be less than $150. I think I found a Gamecube in my cereal box the other day. The XBox sales results are suprising though, actually outselling the PS2 would be a sign of the apocalypse. The next console wars are going to be very interesting. Ma, it's time to clean up my shootin iron!

- Pyroman[FO]

Are people still buying PS2s? I guess the Final Fantasy fans out there still need their fix, but the system has been off my radar for a while now. All of the consoles have vast libraries of games (of varying quality). And, what worked in PS2's favor a couple years ago (the fact that they came out first), is beginning to work against it now. The thing has more bolt-ons that an Integra now.

- Sway

Being outsold or not in one month doesn't really matter, I think. Let's not forget that Sony is ahead of their competitors by like 55 million units and that the PS2 at this point is more successful than the Playstation was 3 years after its launch. Also, considering the previous performance and the fact that the system already launched in 2001 it's understandable that the market becomes saturated and the sales will go down. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the system at some point could be outsold by its rivals and if it's only temporarily.

The 'shock' about the PS2 not meeting the sales expectations is, in my very own opinion, simply based on overly europhic projections by some analysts who didn't take certain other market factors into account.

- Spunior

I don't think Sony is sweating it too hard, the real work will be the next gen.

- Certis

I think Sony is right to not jump when Microsoft says "boo." They won this round... Sony has such a lead on installed base that any even moderately good-selling game bolsters their cash flow. They can afford to "lose" to Microsoft for a month due to a Microsoft price drop. And they'll pocket that additional $6 million worth of margin for a bit longer while people keep buying PS2s for the asking price of $179.

- ColdForged


Interplay not doing particularly well

If Interplay is going to screw around and go bankrupt, fine. Why did they have to take Black Isle with them? I also don't like the fact that there's one less publisher around, competition is good. At this rate all we'll be left with is EA on the PC side. Still, they had it coming. I can't think of a good Interplay game that's come out in recent memory.

 - Pyroman[FO]

Interplay should have placed Black Isle on a big piece of floating wood while their ship sunk. Then Black Isle and Interplay could have held hands (Interplay floating half-dead in the icy water) and Black Isle would be all "Never let go Interplay" and then it would fall asleep and Interplay would slip quietly into the ocean depths, never to taint Black Isle with their incompetence again.

- Certis

Comments

What do you mean there haven't been any good Interplay games lately?! There was . . .

uh . . .

Oh, right.

Yeah, good riddance to bad rubbish. Interplay used to be one of my favorite publishers, putting out great things like Fallout 1 & 2 and Freespace. But now? I don't think I've bought an Interplay game since Fallout Tactics (which was actually fairly decent BTW).

Proof of their desperation can be seen in the fact that they are "re-releasing" Freespace 2 and selling the 5 year old game for the rock bottom price of $49.95! They really must believe people are stupid. I can find Freespace 2 in any EB for about $5-10. They also have NO titles listed under "Coming Soon."

Morons.

Interplay should have placed Black Isle on a big piece of floating wood while their ship sunk. Then Black Isle and Interplay could have held hands (Interplay floating half-dead in the icy water) and Black Isle would be all "Never let go Interplay" and then it would fall asleep and Interplay would slip quietly into the ocean depths, never to taint Black Isle with their incompetence again.
- Certis

Sniff... sniff.... that was beautiful.

I can find Freespace 2 in any EB for about $5-10.

I've actually never seen Freespace 2 in any EB here. Not even when it came out, I think I need to find a new mall.

It's not like there's anything left at Black Isle at this point anyway. All the talent is long gone from there. They have the intellectual properties like Fallout, but no talent to do anything with it.

One thing I think is great is that they gave up the publishing rights for BG3, which BIS was fairly close to finishing with a new engine and lots of new stuff, in favor of making BG: DA sequels up through 2008.

According to their 10-K, they're probably going to lose the distribution rights for BG: DA2 now because they can't make the fee payments. So, basically, BG3 would have probably been out by last summer(2003), and BG: DA2 out when it came out. BG3 could have funded the fee payments on BG: DA2 and a sequel to that in 2005 perhaps. But, since they have a bunch of guys in charge there who think consoles are the only way to make money, they screwed themselves over and basically might end up losing both titles, only getting a few months revenue from BG: DA2.

That's why Interplay is pretty much dead.

Also, I doubt Interplay will declare banckrupcy. Herve Caen, the CEO, just bought 9,000,000 shares of Interplay last week. If he declares the company banckrupt, he'll lose $450,000 of his money in about two weeks time. I think he bought that stock with plans on finding a buyer for Interplay, which won't be easy. In the mean time, he'll have to mothball everything and stall as much as possible.

He might sell off a few more intellectual properties, but each one that he sells means the value of Interplay will be less and less when and if he finds a buyer. No one will want Interplay just based on it's name. They'll want Interplay and all the rights it has, so if he sells off those IPs, he'll basically have lost that $450,000.

A poor buddy of mine bought stock in Interplay because he liked one of their games so much

Interplay bankrupt got also be a good thing.
I would think that someome else would go buying the Fallout rights.

If they go into some sort of restructuring it could be a new and more interesting company comming out in the other end probably with different owners.

My 0.1 cents,

Xino

Yeah, but then you have the problem of who would get it. EA could afford it, sure.. But do you want to see Fallout done like the last Ultima games were done? MicroSoft could afford it, but who do they have that makes CRPGs? Gas Powered Games? Their idea of interactive environments are doors and chests. Nice engine, not much of a game.

Vivendi might have the cash, and they have the Lead Designer of Fallout working for them in Chris Taylor(Not the Gas Powered one, the ex-Interplay one). They haven't done any PC CRPGs to my knowledge, though, and taking Fallout's name and slapping it on something like one of their LOTR console games wouldn't be too cool.

Atari.. After ToEE, no thanks. They're refusing to QA the second patch for the game right now.

Strategy First might, and if they're going to do to JA3 what they've been promising, they'd be a good place to take Fallout. Then again, I'm not sure they can afford the asking price for the license.

Who the heck is still buying PS2s at $179? Highest price, worst graphics, and worst build quality of the generation - quite the trifecta, Sony!

I'm willing to bet that they're going to introduce a cheaper, slimmed-down version of the PS2 at E3. It's costing them too much to manufacture the current version, and they need to drop the price or risk losing momentum in a segment that's become extremely important to Sony's bottom line.

KillerTomato, people are still buying the PS2 even with the overinflated price simply because of the PS2s huge stable of exclusive games. I'm getting so sick and tired of seeing cool game after cool game come out as PS2 exclusives that I'm almost tempted to get one myself. However, they'd have to drop the price to $100 or less before I'd consider buying such outmoded technology. I can think of plenty of games off the top of my head that I'd love to play, but can't because they're only available on the PS2.