You’ve really got to hand it to Midway. Any other company who’d just posted a loss of US$31 million for the quarter, up against revenue of only $25.9 million would probably call it quits. But not Midway! They’re pushing on, and they’ve got a brave new business plan too:
Release crap games for net gen consoles.
It’s brilliant. Yes, Q1 of 2007 will see the company release Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the Wii, a full four or five months after it’s schedule to hit the PS2 and Xbox. The game, announced in October last year, will include 60 characters and is designed to provide an opportunity for Midway to “wipe the slate clean” in terms of the series, allowing them to start fresh with the next game. Except that, really, no one actually gives a fuck about the series anymore, and honestly hasn’t since the release of the third game, when everyone realised it was all a bit crap and they’d be better off playing Virtua Fighter instead. Adding new characters and modes didn’t work for the last title, unless the aim was to dilute the experience, so I’m not really sure why they’re expecting it work here.
The announcement of the game for Wii makrs a sharp change for Midway, with series co-creator (and only remaining member of the original team, but the less said about that the better) Ed Boon revealing that he was a bit confused by the controller:
There’s not five or six buttons to give you all of these functions, so maybe they will compensate but tilting one way for blocking or another way for attack. But that is so dramatically different. So it will either be one of the biggest hits in the world or a big failure. I certainly hope it does well.
But Midway really outdid themselves with their next announcement: Rampage: Total Destruction is also heading to the Wii! Sure, the game was released for GameCube and PS2 in April, but come Q1 2007 you’ll be able to play it on the Wii too!
I don’t get it. I really don’t. Rampage: Total Destruction is not a good game. It wasn’t even mildly popular on the PS2 or GameCube. IGN rated it 5 out of 10. Were you listening, Midway? IGN. When they rate a game below 7, it is really fucking bad news.
If Midway are really serious about continuing in their current form, they need to take a look at what they’re doing. Releasing crap games made on the cheap (Rampage) and unwanted sequels to tired franchises (Mortal Kombat and Rampage) is not the way to go. Nor is trying to compete with the big studios though - it’s been a long time since Midway has been near the top, though being the 19th biggest studio in the world is nothing to sneeze at either. Midway need to focus their attentions on innovation within a budget price range, and the Wii presents a great opportunity for them - if only they would stop wasting it by releasing absolute shit.
[via Eurogamer]
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