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2007 NWR Awards

Biggest Surprise

by James Jones - March 5, 2008, 6:12 pm EST

Nintendo World Report (finally) honors 2007's best games.

Even hardened industry veterans get thrown from time to time. Once in a blue moon an announcement comes out of nowhere and blows us all away. 2007 was no different, providing us with a series of shocking announcements.

Biggest Surprise

The NWR Award

Import Games on the Virtual Console

Profit-maximizing logic might have suggested otherwise, but the expectations of many retro fans were confounded when games began making their western debuts on the Virtual Console. Perhaps most surprising was that it came so early in the VC's life; many a cynic might have assumed that Nintendo would only unveil Japanese gems after all-but-exhausting their domestic output. The decision to use Treasure's Sin & Punishment as the flagship title for import releases made the surprise even more delightful, not only by granting overdue exposure to a seldom-experienced treat, but also in demonstrating uncharacteristic responsiveness to the desires of Nintendo's most ardent fans.

Runner-up: Activision and Vivendi Merge

Entering 2007, Activision was locked in a fight with EA for the title of top "independent publisher" of console and computer video games. Similarly, at the start of 2007 Vivendi Games was riding a tidal wave of money, mostly from their highly profitable Blizzard Games division. World of Warcraft subscriptions produced a billion dollars in revenue. When Activision and Vivendi announced their intention to merge and form Activision Blizzard, it came as a huge shock to the industry. The $18.8 billion deal came out of nowhere and created the world's biggest "pure-play" video game company. The new company found itself poised near the top in almost all sections of the gaming industry.

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