Microsoft, UbiSoft, Namco Buy 3DO Assets

Steve Shewchuk writes "3DO, the publisher known for its Might and Magic, Army Men, and High Heat Baseball franchises, has successfully auctioned off a number of its assets after its transition into bankruptcy protection. High Heat Baseball has been purchased by Microsoft, while the Might and Magic series went to Ubisoft. Street Racing Syndicate sold to Namco Hometek, but there's no word on Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, one of the biggest 'in production' games before 3DO went bankrupt."

Ubisoft

[Battlegeek]

I don't know if Ubisoft buying Might and Magic is a good thing, I haven't been wowed by any of their titles that I have played. I'm insanely addicted to Heroes, and have been kind enough to spread that addiction to many others. I was disheaterned to hear 3DO had gone bankrupt. Hopefully Ubisoft will do justice to the franchise.

Re:Ubisoft

[Daetrin]

It could be worse, Microsoft might have got it instead, in which case it would probably be only available on XBox. Of course it wouldn't be a very good console game, which is perhaps why Microsoft didn't try to get it.

Re:Ubisoft

[secolactico]

It could be worse, Microsoft might have got it instead, in which case it would probably be only available on XBox

I'm not sure about that. Microsoft has released some very good games in the past and hasn't tried to transition to Xbox those that wouldn't be very good in a console (flight sim, age of empire, et al.)

Games are about the only MS software I don't flinch about when it comes to purchasing decisions.

Re:Ubisoft

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Microsoft releases games for the PC and XBox.

Re:Ubisoft

[Daetrin]

To respond to you and the AC who responded to you...

I didn't forget about PC, however note the path that Halo has taken. It was originaly (and quite justifiably) being developed for the PC and Mac. Then Bungie got bought out by Microsoft, and it got coverted to an XBox game. They promised for awhile that it would come out in PC and Mac form as well, then it dropped off the radar for awhile. Now it's being ported to PC and XBox by a third party (Gearbox Studios)

I strongly suspect that as Microsoft contin

Re:Ubisoft

[The Briguy]

its not like 3do didn't try though. They actually released Heroes 3 for the Playstation 2 under the title "Heroes of Might and Magic: The quest for the dragonbone staff". Kinda makes it clear why they went under, if you ask me.

Re:Ubisoft

[LordYUK]

I wont buy ANYTHING with the Ubisoft label on it... not after the Pools of Radiance 2 debacle...

what a wonderful game... ruined... completely...

oh well, they were the number 1 game for a week, if you dont like it, write your own! (if you didnt check the forums you wouldnt understand, but that was their response!)

Note, this game was so horrible, they had to patch it before it could be uninstalled off of some users machines...

Re:Ubisoft

[Matchu]

Wasn't PoR2 the game where the installer, if you changed the install directory from the default, would delete the contents of the whole partition?

Re:Ubisoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it was.

Re:Ubisoft

[Babbster]

I don't know much, if anything, about Ubisoft's PC releases being that I go mostly console with a smattering of only the "big" PC titles (Civilization, Warcraft, Diablo, Sims, etc.). However, Ubisoft's console releases over the past couple years have been well nigh bulletproof. Splinter Cell alone makes their console releases at least worth taking a look at every time (hopefully XIII will be as well done)...Maybe they'll take M&M and make it a console RPG franchise. With games like Morrowind and KOTO

Re:Ubisoft

[Battlegeek]

There was a Might and Magic for the Sega Genesis, that was what got me hooked.

Re:Ubisoft

[texaport]

However, Ubisoft's console releases over the past couple years have been well nigh bulletproof.

I guess "bulletproof" means PoR2 won't destroy an entire HD partition when installed to a non-default directory on your console?

--
Kids, don't try this one at home

Re:Ubisoft

[Babbster]

That's pretty darned funny. I guess my disclaimers about not knowing much about their PC releases and using the word "console" weren't enough to save me from your hilarious comment.

Re:Ubisoft

[GeekGirlie]

I wonder what the chances are that Ubisoft will re-release the expansion packs to Heroes 4 that I missed. Guess it's time to go to Ebay?

Re:Ubisoft

[Maserati]

Ubi gets at least one thing right, their WW2 flight sim Forgotten Battles [il2sturmovik.com]gets good support from Ubi, mostly by letting the developers have useful amounts of leeway and in introducing free goodies.

High Heat doomed

[jathos]

Great -- there goes High Heat baseball. The franchise has suffered in years past: 3DO had a single-minded focus on getting the product out the door, and then would abandon it. The user community [highheat2004.net] would release all kinds of cool add-ons, such as stadiums, uniforms, etc., but we never got so much as a patch from 3DO.

Microsoft Baseball from the late 90s was OK for the time, but it's arcade style was worlds away from the true-to-life experience that HH provided. This is a sad day for baseball sims. I'm glad EA took a step in the right direction with this year's offering, but for me, now it's the only game in town.

Re:High Heat doomed

[BulletMagnet]

I'm not so sure on how doomed HH is. Microsoft games as of late (OK, we'll just say Freelancer) haven't been horrible....and all Microsoft did buy was the HH engine. Microsoft didn't want EA to have the only game in town in the baseball sim market so they had to step in... ...that said, Microsoft has already walked away from the baseball game market once before, even when they were using the Monkey Engine for the backend stuff, which I thought was very cool.

Here's to hoping that Microsoft puts the necess

Might be good...

[SirLantos]

I LOVE the Heroes of Might and Magic series. UbiSoft also made a number of games that I thought were quite good. (They were involved with a lot of the Tom Clancy games.)

I cant wait to see what they do with it.

But, thats just my opinion,
SirLantos

Re:Might be good...

[Quill_28]

I enjoyed HHOMM but really didn't care for the portals, too hard to figure which one went where.

Re:Might be good...

[Battlegeek]

Maybe it's time to start bombarding the Ubisoft site with helpful hints about what to include in the next Heroes version. I'm sure they would love all the help. I'm for putting the ghosts back in as troops, there was nothing better than an army of thousands of ghosts to give one a god complex.

3DO hardware patents...

[nickos]

Didn't 3DO have some really interesting hardware patents? - I know that after Commodore went bust, a lot of Amiga hardware designers went to work for 3DO, and as a result 3DO had some cool Amiga style custom-chip trickery.

Does anyone know what's happenned to any hardware patents 3DO might have had?

Office 2006?

[TrickFred]

I hope Microsoft doesn't buy the Army Men rights - the little green pains in the ass will wind up as characters for the Office Assistant.

"A-ten-HUT, Private, looks like you could use some help."

A very sad day for the Might and Magic fans

[NetDanzr]

I was rooting for JoWooD to acquire the Might and Magic franchise, with UBI Soft being my least desirable choice (yes, even less desirable than Microsoft). In addition to absolutely terrible initial releases (Pool of Radiance re-formating hard drive upon uninstall, for example), UBI Soft is known for its complete disregard for the fans. As a publisher, they are known for selling budget-style releases (box with CD in paper sleeve and manual on CD) for the price of new games. In addition, they are the onl

And the Army men

[M3wThr33]

..march into that giant bubbling lava vat in the sky.

Four Horsemen

[blincoln]

If someone doesn't buy this game [ign.com] and finish it off, I might have to organize a real apocalypse.