Piñata developers complaint against Gears of War campaign
Sultry Pants, Banjo, and Piñata Confessions
As linked to in our most recent article, Gamasutra had a recent interview with Rare talking about their past and present games, with vague hints towards the future. In no particular release order, here’s a summary of what the interview had to offer.
In terms of Viva Piñata, the game has had “more than a half million of sales now,” around the world, as well as a bold statement about how Justin Cook felt about how the game deserved more promotion. And rightfully so, since according to him, the money went towards promoting Gears of War last Christmas, despite the Epic game not needing the focus on the account that it’d sell better anyway: “I think from our point of view, it was interesting to see how the marketing budget was split last Christmas, because obviously everyone knew that Microsoft were publishing Gears of War and Viva Piñata. Yet, so much of the money went towards Gears of War, which is going to sell millions anyway. It was a bit of like, “What about the other franchise?” I think we got left in the wake somewhat. Hopefully with the PC version this Christmas, it might get something of a second wind.”
They also add that Piñata was the first game of its kind to open up and break away from the niche of first person shooters the 360 is famous for and hoped for other developers to continue to expand the trend: “Obviously, that flood of titles hasn’t hit just yet. I suppose someone’s going to go first, and we were them,” Cook says.
It’s Mr. Pants, a title that’s rarely talked about has gotten some more information straight from the horse’s mouth. For starters, the game had “several titles” before Tim Stamper decided to just call it It’s Mr. Pants and “rebrand the whole thing.” Last but not least, they reference the renaming of the “Trouser Snake” into the “Pants Snake” after THQ “asked Rare to call it something else!”, though Loveday has mentioned this before in a Scribes of long ago.
When asked about Viva Piñata DS, Cook mentions that the game will be entirely stylus-controlled. Whether this will be a good thing remains to be seen, but Cook seems entirely optimistic about it: “It fits really, really well. We’ve modified the menu systems so that it uses the stylus really neatly, and it actually fits really well, digging the garden and planting seeds with the stylus. It works, I think. We really like it!” So we shall wait and see.
Yet most importantly, it looks like we can possibly be seeing both Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie on the Virtual Console. Despite Rare owning the property, “potentially Nintendo could release the old games for the Virtual Console on the Wii.”
These tidbits, as well as a vague hint as to what Rare’s cooking up, and a bit on Perfect Dark Zero make for an interesting interview that MundoRare highly recommends you read through.
related news
- Banjo will meet Gears of War 2 in Late 2008 battle ()
- Leafos, Piñata’s hostess, best female character of the year ()
- Viva Piñata gets six nominations to AIAS awards ()
- Shane Kim rules out Banjo and Piñata as big hits this year ()
- An Epic Piñataphilia ()
Our readers say...
post your comment
Get an avatar for your comments here. It'll also work on hundreds of blogs & websites.
By MundoRare | Banjo will meet Gears of War 2 in late 2008 battle
[…] will also be the first to hit the stores, on November. Some months ago, Rare’s Justin Cook blamed Microsoft for not giving enough support to Piñata in favour of Gears: “so much of the money went […]