A Veritable Rogue

It's a tale of confusion and exaggerated news stories. GameCube movie footage released to the public in Japan is said to have included footage of the Star Wars flight adventure "Rogue Squadron". But Lucas Arts today told the press that this was merely a technology demo, and that the company has not committed itself to the next-generation Nintendo console as yet. But of course this doesn't really wash with us. The company has already shown support for Nintendo with a recent publishing agreement allowing THQ to release certain Star Wars title on the GameBoy Color and Advance, including Obi-Wan's Adventures. This is hardly a statement of purpose, but it's an interesting and previously unheard of practice for Lucas Arts to let go of its tightly grasped Star Wars franchise even lightly. The possibility of GameCube titles being produced by another publisher under a similar contract is of course rather depressing - nobody seems to do it quite like Lucas Arts, and the general public's fastidious tastes when it comes to Star Wars titles are often insatiable. Although their touch has slipped a few times of late, they still produce games of substance and quality like the Monkey Island adventure titles, although Rogue Squadron wasn't as good as we had hoped. Why would Lucas Arts go back to it? So what's the synopsis here? Lucas Arts are planning a deal with a publishing company like THQ, allowing said publisher to release Star Wars titles on the GameCube? Either that or they are telling the truth. But if that's the case, something doesn't quite add up...