QUOTE | “Help us stop this atrocity of a game from bearing the beloved Metroid franchise name and make Nintendo halt production on it.” - Quote from a fan petition with 12,000 signatures so far, regarding Nintendo’s upcoming Metroid Prime: Federation Force game for the 3DS.
Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week...
QUOTE | “There have been times in our past where Microsoft maybe has lost our way with PC gaming.” - Xbox head Phil Spencer, acknowledging past mistakes and pledging to support PC gamers more in the future in a variety of ways.
QUOTE | “Based on what I’ve seen to date, it’s not fun, and it’s not social. It’s just tech.” - Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime, talking about the current state of VR and why Nintendo isn’t offering something for VR now.
QUOTE | “We have an obligation to lead from the front and do new and cool and creative and innovative stuff.” - EA CEO Andrew Wilson, talking about why EA is trying to encourage more creativity among its employees.
QUOTE | “The relationship those games have with their audiences is less like what a typical entertainer has... and more like kind of the relationship that a tobacco company has with its customers.” - Gearbox president Randy Pitchford, talking along with other gaming luminaries about the state of games.
QUOTE | “We like to rest our IP in between releases because we believe that’s what keeps it fresh and permanent.” - Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, explaining why the company refuses to “annualize” its non-sports franchises, unlike other AAA publishers.
STAT | $5.8 billion – Total amount of revenue mobile games had for 2014 in Japan, growing 18% over the previous year according to Famitsu; console game revenue in Japan fell 13% to $3.2 billion in 2014.
QUOTE | “I was nervous to see the reaction from people. She’s a female lead character. That has always been the vision by the team, but we had a discussion. Is it risky to do a female character?” - Sony’s Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida, admitting that Sony was uncertain about going with a game that has a female protagonist.
STAT | #3 – Position of Fallout Shelter on the list of top-grossing games for iOS in the US and UK just a few days after its surprise launch; this displaces King Digital’s Candy Crush Saga from its place as one of the three top-grossing iOS games it’s held since December 2012.
QUOTE | “There are other products that sell a game for $60 and then try to sell you a Season Pass for another $40 on top... We said no, we don’t want to do that.” - IO Interactive studio head Hannes Seifert, talking about why the studio decided the new Hitman game will have no paid DLC.