Expect more Viva Piñata
Says top exec. On DS, perhaps.
Top men at Microsoft have said the firm aims to support Rare's brilliant Viva Piñata in future, and has even raised the possibility of the British developer's Xbox 360 games appearing on Nintendo DS.
"I think it's fair to say that we're going to continue to invest in that property," Shane Kim, one of Microsoft Game Studios' corporate vice presidents, told 1UP last week. "Whether that is in the form of a sequel, a product line extension or through merchandising, whatever the case may be, that's something that we're going to stick with." He also said "a Kameo or a Viva Piñata on a DS makes a lot of sense".
Viva Piñata was a bit of a critical darling at the back end of last year, but its performance was overshadowed by the much greater success of Gears of War, and a quick glance at the Xbox 360 UK charts reveals it languishing below some of its older contemporaries including Saints Row and Dead Rising.
But with the accompanying television show still to launch in Europe, the prospect of downloadable content and Microsoft's pledged support, its fortunes could yet shift. In the meantime, we'll probably just continue to mention it every other day in the hope fence-sitters will tumble into the flowers below. And then gets a cocoadile to cry on them, for maximum fertilisation.