PGR to continue - Microsoft
Bizarre buyout aftermath.
With Bizarre Creations now part of Activision, attention has turned to the developer's existing titles and whether they have a future.
The biggest news of their fate comes from Microsoft, which owns the rights to the Project Gotham Racing series. "Project Gotham Racing is a signature racing franchise for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live and we plan to continue the series but we have nothing further to announce," the publisher said in a statement yesterday. PGR4, recently completed, is due to go on sale here on 12th October.
In a statement to fans marking the acquisition yesterday, Bizarre said PGR4 "will continue to be supported after its launch in October". As to who will pick up the reins of one of the 360's best exclusives, that's a question for another time.
As for the other games, Newsweek's N'Gai Croal says he has confirmed that while SEGA owns the rights to The Club and EA owns the rights to Boom Boom Rocket, Bizarre itself has kept a hold of Geometry Wars, which means now it's technically Activision's. Sierra's deal for Geometry Wars Galaxies on Wii and DS is not affected by the deal, however.
As for Bizarre itself, Activision's announcement of the deal revealed that the Liverpool-based studio is set to go to work on a pair of new titles - one racing, one character-based - and that it expects the first of these to be released "after fiscal 2009".
So, in the meantime, let's all just concentrate on getting All Platinums.