Atari Confirmed as Publisher of The Ghostbusters and the Chronicles of Riddick game!

[FriskyTanuki]

http://kotaku.com/5063454/dan-ackroyd-ghostbusters-picked-up-by-atari-still-a-year-away

We know, he's not your usual source for hot gaming news, but Dan Ackroyd's got a trusting face. That and he's, you know, closely involved in this whole Ghostbusters thing. Speaking with Dallas radio station 105.3 KLLI this morning, the Ghostbusters star said that the currently in-limbo game has been picked up by Atari, and is about "a year away" from being released.

The bad part of this news is that it will probably not be out until late 2009.

Edit: This has been confirmed:

As was expected, it's been revealed that Atari have picked up the rights to the Ghostbusters game, left in limbo ever since the Activision/Vivendi merger killed off the game's original publisher, Sierra. Atari plans to release Ghostbusters "early next summer", to coincide with the first movie's 25th anniversary. Atari also announced they've picked up the in-development Riddick game (full title The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena), which will be out next spring.

In addition to nabbing the rights to this Riddick game, Atari have also signed a deal with Universal - who own the rights to the Riddick franchise - to make further games based on Vin Diesel's growly man, which if they're anything like the first Riddick game, isn't the worst idea we've heard this week. To cover development expenses on both titles, Atari paid Activision a flat, undisclosed fee.

 

[whoknows]

I just hope it's good.

 

[Dead of Knight]

Good. I trust Dan Aykroyd more than any rumors from Failtaku.

 

[Short Round]

I hope it's as good as Alone In The Dark.



















Just to clarify: that was sarcasm.

 

[Sgt.Seedy]

Dan Akroyd also personally told me that he's starring in an upcoming Sega-CD game.

 

[tangytangerine]

Well, remember Sony's old CEO(or whatever he was) took over the company earlier this year and wanted to turn things around. So maybe this is part of it?

 

[benjamouth]

A year away, I thought it was nearly done, that bites.

Still, better than it not getting released at all I guess.

 

[FloodsAreUponUS]

I am just glad its still coming out.

 

[Richlough]

Claims ? I think he'd know for sure , he created Ghostusters .

 

[vherub]

that ghostbusters would have any difficulties picking up a publisher is troubling. This game should be a hit.

 

[007]

Like I've said before, I suspect that the game wasn't coming together well. Both the fact that the game was having trouble finding a publisher (it's Ghostbusters. Seriously.) and the conflicting reports on its state of completion (It's done and ready for Fall 2008! ... It'll be out next year!) seem to back that up.

Perhaps the reason it couldn't find a publisher is because it wasn't going to be what we all thought: that the game was nearly done and just really needed released. If it is coming next fall, I'd imagine that the situation was something to the effect of it needing a lot of time and money to get to a releasable state, which most 'pick-up' publishers wouldn't want to do.

Point is... I've always been excited about the game, but the more news that comes out, the more I begin to worry about the issues plaguing what should be a sure-thing game and what they have to say *about* the game itself.

 

[FriskyTanuki]

This has been confirmed:

As was expected, it's been revealed that Atari have picked up the rights to the Ghostbusters game, left in limbo ever since the Activision/Vivendi merger killed off the game's original publisher, Sierra. Atari plans to release Ghostbusters "early next summer", to coincide with the first movie's 25th anniversary. Atari also announced they've picked up the in-development Riddick game (full title The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena), which will be out next spring.

In addition to nabbing the rights to this Riddick game, Atari have also signed a deal with Universal - who own the rights to the Riddick franchise - to make further games based on Vin Diesel's growly man, which if they're anything like the first Riddick game, isn't the worst idea we've heard this week. To cover development expenses on both titles, Atari paid Activision a flat, undisclosed fee.