SEGA - Captain America, Hulk and Thor Video Games for Handhelds

Marvel Entertainment, SEGA Europe and SEGA of America, have expanded their relationship to include the rights to develop and distribute games inspired by Marvel's Hall-of-Fame franchises: Captain America, The Incredible Hulk and Thor, for the PC and handheld consoles like Sony's PSP and Nintendo's DS. You may remember that Marvel and SEGA announced earlier to create titles based on Super Hero favorite Iron Man. Game and film are due for a May 2008 release.

David Maisel, Chairman, Marvel Studios said: "Video games are an ideal medium to showcase the appeal and excitement of our Super Hero franchises. SEGA is one of the industry's most innovative game developers and we are thrilled to partner with them to bring Captain America, The Incredible Hulk and Thor to the video gaming arena. These franchises represent three of Marvel's most popular characters and lend themselves to captivating game play. We have already seen SEGA's passion for the Marvel Universe through the early development of the Iron Man video game, and we look forward to working closely with them over the next few years to maximize the potential of these franchises in the interactive entertainment space."

SEGA will develop a title to be based on Marvel Studios' highly-anticipated "The Incredible Hulk" feature film. It is said to be released at the same time with the film. The other two games, based on Captain America and Thor have been announced also but they're still in early stages of development, so you'll have to wait for SEGA to announce their release date.

Simon Jeffery, President and COO, SEGA of America explains why the developer chose Marvel comic book icons for their familiarity and popularity: "As SEGA continues to create games that are built from the ground up to appeal to Western audiences it makes perfect sense to work with a powerhouse like Marvel. Captain America, The Incredible Hulk and Thor are icons that people are already familiar with and love, so our goal is to give gamers the ability to play out their fantasies by actually becoming these Super Heroes," said Simon Jeffery.

I'm sure the three will launch to be the kind of games everyone loves to play on their handheld, but where's Iron Man? Several games have Iron Man as a selectable character or bad guy and the last time I've heard of him was in "Marvel Ultimate Alliance," where he was one of the main figures. To be honest with you, if we're lacking comic book superheroes here, Iron Man should have been replacing one of the three mentioned above.