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Activision have revealed a second James Bond videogame
is under production, CEO is committed to revitalising
the 007 brand with best development studios...
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Activision Confirms Second James Bond
Game
7th November 2007
Having already confirmed their first
James Bond game was officially
in production back in August, Activision have now revealed that
a second title based on the 007 licence is under parallel development.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has said that the company is committed
to revitalising the James Bond brand - "one of the greatest
videogame franchises of all time" - while revealing the
publisher has two projects based on the license in development,
reports Games
Industry. "We have our best development studios
working on the product, we have a second team working on another
Bond product and we're putting great resources against it," he
added.
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"Bond is one of the great videogame franchises of
all time and that really was a result of GoldenEye
64," commented Kotick at a BMO Capital Markets
conference. I think the key to re-energising the Bond franchise
is going to be ultimately the highest possible game quality."
He was also critical of some of the Bond
licenced games produced by the previous licencee Electronic
Arts, which included critically-panned titles such
as GoldenEye: Rogue Agent. "It
suffered a lot because it wasn't a focal point of Electronic
Arts' efforts over the past five years and they have
such a broad portfolio of franchises that this one didn't
get the attention it deserved," said Kotick.
MI6 understands the first
Bond game produced by Activision will be a blend
of elements from Casino Royale
and the upcoming Bond
22, which it is expected to ship alongside in November
2008. The game is in development by powerhouse studios
Treyarch, Beenox and Vicarious Visions for next-generation
consoles, Windows PC and hand-held platforms. Treyarch
are understood to be heading up development on Xbox 360
and PlayStation 3 consoles, with Beenox producing the
PC version, and Vicarious Visions working on the hand-held
platforms. Treyarch recently released "Call of Duty
3" and "Spider-Man 3"
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Above: Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.
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Activision recently announced the acquisition
of development studio Bizarre Creations. Besides having another
racing title in the pipeline, MI6
previously reported that Bizarre
Creations will be working on one of the franchise's that they
own, as well. "We
believe in brands and franchises not individual titles, so we'll
be working with Bizarre to develop a great concept and
brand in racing, as well as working with their second team, which
is very talented in the action genre. This team will most probably
be working on a property that Activision already owns," said
Activision's EVP, Robin Kaminsky. It has not been confirmed that
Bizzarre Creations are developing the second Bond title for Activision.
In related news, Daniel
Craig recently admitted he was an avid gamer, but that he wasn’t
overly keen on being involved in a videogame based "Casino Royale".
He said, "When I started signing contracts for Bond
I said, ‘I’m not doing the computer game’ and
they said, ‘Tough, you are’. “I said to the
people making the Bond game, ‘You’ve
got to make this good because there is so much rubbish out there.’"
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Eighteen months have now passed since
it was first announced that Activision had signed
a new licence to produce James Bond videogames taking
over from Electronic Arts. The reason for the relative
silence was due in part to the overlap in licences - EA's
agreement concluded in September. Under the terms of the
licencing agreement which lasts until 2014, Activision
hold worldwide rights to create video games for all current
and next-generation consoles, PC and hand-held platforms.
The license grants Activision the right to develop and
publish games based on all of the James Bond movies, as
well as non-movie based games.
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Stay tuned for the latest news
on the upcoming 007 titles from Activision on MI6 - the only
James Bond
site with
extensive coverage of the videogames.
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