So SK is owned by Sega now? Or is it just partnership? I'm betting the reason why SK fell out with Nintendo is because they wanted to be purchased just for a nice taste of security. I would feel completely screwed over working for Sega management considering their track record of blunders. Maybe Nintendo will finaly come around and buy Sega...lol

Well this kind of indicates to me we won't be seeing SK on the REV for a while, if ever, sega doesn't seem very interested in working with Ninty except with the Sonic property.

I am completely and utterly confused now!

(Ack, Sega + SK = worst sales ever?)

This is really the farthest thing from what I expected. Some of Sega's teams like Nintendo. Hopefully Silicon Knights still likes Nintendo. Maybe this will lead to better Sega support on the systems... and by Sega support I mean Silicon Knights support.

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Originally posted by: Bill Aurion
I am completely and utterly confused now!

(Ack, Sega + SK = worst sales ever?)

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It says they are only "collaborating on a new franchise", which doesn't indicate any sort of takeover. Sega will be the publisher of this new game franchise while SK is the developer. Now if only we knew what kind of franchise would a company like Sega want a company like SK to develope for? Something more mature? An RPG perhaps?

Pretty suprising. I would have thought SK would like Konami more


Too Human published by Sega on the X-box 360? Id say so... For shame,

I didn't see this coming at all. How could they have differences with Nintendo, but then embrace Sega like this? No sense...

Leaving Nintendo for Sega? Is SK living in 1992 or something?

Sega sucks now. Ever since Sammy bought them they just release total junk with formally well respected franchises names on the box. Their fanbase has given up on them and they for all intents and purposes are no longer the same company.

There's no advantage to working with them. Sammy doesn't care for game art. They just want product so it's not like this would be great for artistic freedom. And Sega is like a total money pit now so it's not like there's big money to be made. Nintendo is a much safer publisher for ensuring sales.

This still doesn't answer the big question. Why did SK leave Nintendo? I want to know. Did Nintendo do something bad? Is the Revolution going to be too weird so SK bailed? Was SK offered moneyhats by Sega? WHAT?

Actually this proves nothing in terms of exclusivity...What's another recent SK game that wasn't published by Ninty?

Remember the Penny Arcade comic about Sega's games directly equating snuff films? Yeah, I thought that was pretty damn accurate.

And up until this point, I thought Dyack was a reasonably sensible guy...

-SB

i just hope nintendo has the rights to eternal darkness

Word Mark ETERNAL DARKNESS
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: computer game discs; computer game programs; computer game software; electronic game programs; electronic game software; video game discs; video game programs; video game software. FIRST USE: 20020624. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20020624
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 75672853
Filing Date April 1, 1999
Current Filing Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1B
Published for Opposition August 8, 2000
Registration Number 2715977
Registration Date May 13, 2003
Owner (REGISTRANT) Nintendo of America Inc. CORPORATION WASHINGTON 4820-150th Avenue N.E. Redmond WASHINGTON 98052
Attorney of Record Jerald E. Nagae
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

This just leads to more questions! I really don't think Revolution is going to be so weird that Silicon Knights would bail out for that reason alone - it's going to be backwards compatible, after all. Then again maybe that decision was made after they left.

My very wild guess is that Nintendo wanted Silicon Knights to be its personal slave. I mean, there was a lot of talk about how great it was working on Metal Gear Solid and how much they love the game and Konami and everything, but Silicon Knights seems to value its independence and the Metal Gear Solid deal may have hinted to Silicon Knights that Nintendo had an agenda and it wasn't going to give Silicon Knights the freedom it wanted.

This is the trend I've seen: On the GameCube, Nintendo has been cutting loose developers and forcing it's franchises on them more often. Rare's only GameCube title had Starfox crammed into it; Treasure got Wario, Left Field (or was it Angel?) was working on 1080 until Nintendo decided their version of 1080 was too arcade-like, and cut the developer loose. Retro was reduced from four original titles to the Metroid studio, and instead of hiring new second parties to develop original content, Nintendo has been farming its franchises out to other developers like Capcom, Sega and Namco.

I think Nintendo is becoming a bit control-freaky. It's not all Nintendo's fault: Rare sure hasn't paid off for Microsoft and Retro seemed to be in serious trouble before Nintendo took control of the situation, but I think Nintendo is starting to lose interest in helping developers make exclusive new franchises. It prefers the safe bet of giving a popular franchise to a competent developer. My feeling is that is what scared SK away.

I dont blame Sega. They lost the all sports titles now. They need games like Matrix Online and SK to maintain some sort of hold on the Western market.

I wonder if Reggie reads this stuff? our opinions I mean...

"I think Nintendo is becoming a bit control-freaky. It's not all Nintendo's fault: Rare sure hasn't paid off for Microsoft and Retro seemed to be in serious trouble before Nintendo took control of the situation, but I think Nintendo is starting to lose interest in helping developers make exclusive new franchises. It prefers the safe bet of giving a popular franchise to a competent developer. My feeling is that is what scared SK away."

That's pretty likely. At the time when Twin Snakes was revealed I was pretty annoyed that they were using SK as a glorified port house. I really liked the final product but there's virtually no SK touches in it (though to be fair I'm only familiar with ED). It was a great remake/port of a Konami game and felt like such. Realistically any somewhat competent dev could have made it.

I don't think Nintendo's being control freaky (though they do have a history of being bad at that) I think they're just way too focused on their franchises. Aside from Pikmin, ED, and Animal Crossing (which in Japan was not a new franchise on the Cube) Nintendo hasn't really released any new franchises this gen. It's been all sequels and spinoffs. They always talk about how their franchises are like their legacy. They NEVER said stuff like that before. It was originally all about great games and new ideas. I don't think they're forcing devs to use franchises that much. They're probably just offering it every time and naturally, due to franchise sales having less risk, the devs agree to it. I don't think they got Sega to make them a game and then said "it's going to be F-Zero dammit!" More likely they asked Sega if they wanted to work with one of their franchises and Sega for obvious reasons said yes. It's not so much that they're forcing devs to work with franchises but that they're just not encouraging the creation of new content.

Denis Dyack seemed really interested in working with Metal Gear. I don't think Nintendo twisted his arm or anything.

I say we wait to see what they have to offer in terms of this new franchise.

Let's just thank God that Sega isn't forcing one of their franchises on SK. Completely new means a completely new possibility it's good. And let's thank God again that Sega isn't developing this game. It now officially has a chance of being a great game.

I just hope it's either Too Human or Raven Blade.

"Denis Dyack seemed really interested in working with Metal Gear. I don't think Nintendo twisted his arm or anything. "


I thought I read that Nintendo asked them if they wanted to work with Metal Gear, and Denis was more than accepting of the idea. We really don’t know why Silicon Knights stopped being a 2nd party, but I can tell you that being made to work on Metal Gear isn't the case.

I just hope it's either Too Human or Raven Blade.

Errr, Raven Blade is Retro Studios' game...

And it's absurd to think Metal Gear was forced on SK, drop that line of thinking pronto...

That out of the way, anyone care to theorize about why Ninty's logo is STILL on SK's site? I don't want to hear "because they haven't updated," because the site has been modified as recently as this past September...There has been plenty enough time to cut out a single freaking line of html text...

Well this is probably reading too much into it but perhaps its a signal that Nintendo may recieve the first release of its new game(hopefully).

But likely its just an oversight on the part of the webmaster.

Eternal Darkness: Shadows' Adventure?

"We are very excited to collaborate with SEGA on a next generation project because we share a vision – to take the medium of games to new heights and move people as never before." said Denis Dyack, President of Silicon Knights.

Doesn't that sound kinda familiar?

Sounds like ReggIwata-speak.

Yeah, in general, based on what we already knew, this is great news. I mean, it could have been Microsoft. It also could have been Konami (and we know how well the support the cube) At least we got one of the few Devs who has actually released Cube Exclusives (kind of).

This is great news!

*remembers Sega's publishing "Shadow the Hedgehog"*

SIIIGHHH.....

I don't know what to make of this; it depends on Sega's stance on the Rev (hehe, the Rev...could be misconstrued as Reverend). So far I've only cared for AV's stuff (F-Zero GX, Monkey Ball), and they haven't done anything since fzero anyway. WE'll have to take a wait-and-see approach on this one.
Good point about not getting rid of the Nintendo logo, it is a bit ridiculous...all in all, another reason to look forward to E3.

Well, people may have connected a few too many dots, and I may have been too ranty, in my first post. I don't think Nintendo is forcing franchises on developers in most cases, and in particular I don't think that was the case when it comes to Metal Gear Solid, either.

But I do think that Nintendo is getting into a situation where it isn't as interested in having second party developers that make brand-new franchises anymore. Rare alone developed about six new franchises for the Nintendo 64 and the other second parties were working on a quite a few new franchises back then as well. Eternal Darkness is the one and only new franchise to come out of a second-party relationship with Nintendo this generation. I'm just taking a wild guess that this may not have appealed to Silicon Knights.

This ranks very high on my "WTF" meter.

I really don't see how Twin Snakes could've been a problem. According to Denis Dyack, Shiggy asked Hideo Kojima over coffee why he hasn't made anything for the Cube. Kojima said "Too busy." Shiggy said "I think I know some great people who aren't doing anything right now." Shiggy grabbed Denis and asked "Do you know Hideo Kojima?" Denis said "Hell yeah!" Shiggy asked "Do you want to work with him on a GameCube game?" Denis said "HELL YEAH!1!!" Shiggy said "Well, that was easy. Denis, meet Hideo. You two can go nuts" and wandered off.

That GameCube game being a remake of MGS1 was apparently Denis's idea, and the reason it bombed is obviously because Konami seemingly-deliberately overshadowed the game entirely with MGS3, in every way that they could.


Denis's apparent explanion for leaving Nintendo, about having "incompatible philosophies" and stuff like that still makes no sense, and still doesn't synch at all with the gushing praise for Nintendo that he was always dumping on us.

The only thing that changed is that he's doing it for Sega now. The only conclusion that pops up in my mind is that Denis Dyack is a disingenuous brown-noser, who will say anything to anyone if it has a minor chance of improving his own position. But... then why the heck would he switch from brown-nosing Nintendo to brown-nosing Sega? That just makes no sense.


Also, I noticed this part...

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SEGA of America, Inc. and SEGA, Europe Ltd. today announced an agreement to acquire and publish next-generation game content from Silicon Knights...

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Important Dyack quote of the moment...

"If people are searching for how Nintendo is being really aggressive in the future, look to how we're reaching out for collaborations."~February 2004

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That out of the way, anyone care to theorize about why Ninty's logo is STILL on SK's site? I don't want to hear "because they haven't updated," because the site has been modified as recently as this past September...There has been plenty enough time to cut out a single freaking line of html text...

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also sk rarely updates their website..even before they partnered with nintendo..its as if they forget they have a website....i think rick offered to do their wwebsite even....

Well apparently SK's site's been updated as of TODAY and the Ninty logo is still present on the front page

Sega could be really good for Silicon Knights, just from a multiplatform standpoint. I predict this game will be multiplatform...and I see no reason Revolution wouldn't be included. SK knows they have fans from their Nintendo partnership, and supporting a third system is not that much trouble.

Honestly my biggest fear is that Sega will rush SK near the end of development. Sega tends not to care as much about tweaking and polishing when compared to Nintendo and other Japanese publishers.

Also, don't read a thing into having "Nintendo" still on the web site. Most game developers like SK have NO time to update their website. Posting a press release is nothing. Redesigning a web site is a lot of work.

But we aren't talking about redesigning a site, we are talking about removing a single line of html...

And this needs explanation...

What do you know, one fartfetched rumor becomes true (most of it anyway, I believe the rumor went that Sega and SK were developing an Xbox exclusive).

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"We intend to establish SEGA as a leading publisher on the next generation of game hardware and only the highest possible quality of Western-developed content will get us there,

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From the SK site's description of Sega...

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The company develops, publishes and distributes interactive entertainment software products for a variety of hardware platforms including PC, wireless devices, and those manufactured by Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony Computer Entertainment.

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Okay, for some reason my cache wouldn't show that SK updated their site with the Sega news...So now the site has been updated, and yet the Nintendo logo still remains...What gives?

Another interesting quote...

"Collaboration is going to become essential. I remember when Spielberg and Lucas got together to make Raiders of the Lost Ark; I looked at that thing and said "that is the weirdest thing I've ever seen", but when I saw it, it was incredible (...) I think those kinds of collaborations are going to be the future of our industry."
~February 24, 2004 (1up interview)

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Originally posted by: TheYoungerPlumber
Also, don't read a thing into having "Nintendo" still on the web site. Most game developers like SK have NO time to update their website. Posting a press release is nothing. Redesigning a web site is a lot of work.

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Hmm, yes, for some reason I was under the impression it was more integral. I still think it could be "I haven't gotten around to it" syndrome (remember how long Retro's website was in shambles?), but the "simply clueless" is also possible.

I'm not going to believe, assume or think ANYTHING about anything Silicon Knights related until I see video evidence of a game in motion.

I'm corporate webmonkey...if you're really busy, you do exactly what the assignment says and nothing more. Post a Press Release. I've left out-of-date stuff that would have taken 10 seconds to fix on our sites because I have more important stuff to do. I'll make the change only when management thinks it's important enough to ask for it. Maybe if I'm having a really slow week I'll point it out and they'll tell me to fix it...but usually they tell me just to ignore it. It could be chalked up to laziness or preoccupation with more important things.