New Pac-Man Game Slated for 2010 from Namco Bandai

The video game industry has had its fair share of iconic characters and franchises over the years. We've seen Mario, Link, or Master Chief capture the hearts and minds of players across the years, but no character has sparked such a big fan movement as Pac-Man.

The small yellow ball figure with an insatiable appetite for ghosts and various other things has entertained people for almost 30 years since its first release onto arcades across the world. During this time it has seen a variety of spin-offs, including one with its wife, Ms. Pac-Man, and the most recent one made by the original game's creator, Toru Iwatani, for the Xbox Live Arcade, more specifically Pac-Man Championship Edition.

Seeing how the character will be 30 years old in 2010, the company that owns the rights to it, Namco Bandai, has decided to create a commemorative title that will bring it back to the big number of gamers out there. Despite the fact that Iwatani won't be heading the team, Namco has brought in Hirokazu Yasuhara, the co-creator of another iconic franchise, Sonic the Hedgehog.

“We are in the midst of making Pac-Man come back because his 30th anniversary is in 2010 actually,” Namco Bandai Games America EVP and COO Makoto Iwai says. “As a group, we feel like we should do something to make him come back. So, there's one project that we started working on, and Yasuhara is part of it.”

It's really nice to hear that an iconic character will be soon brought to the spotlight once again, but let's just hope that Namco Bandai will do a great job and not follow in the footsteps of Sega, which has driven the Sonic franchise into the ground because of too many sequels and low-quality titles.