14 DAY TRIAL // Eidos has put out some poor games in the last few years, especially in the crucial sales period that begins towards the end of summer and goes until December.
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men had a good idea but was marred by poor execution, while Tomb Raider: Underworld, which was a re-imagining of Lara Croft, also performed below expectations.
Recently, Ian Livingstone, who is the acting president of Eidos, told GamesIndustry.biz that “A lot of titles have already hit the shelves and there is a deluge planned for Christmas, but I think 2009 will be remembered as the year of 'roast duck or no dinner. There's a glut of product and in a discerning market there is no room for mediocrity. To make a suboptimal game with a suboptimal marketing spend is a recipe for disaster.”
Eidos is no longer an independent publisher, in part because of the rather poor videogames it chose to put front and center in its strategy. The company was acquired by Japanese publisher Square Enix, which considers it as a center piece of its Western-oriented strategy. It's not clear whether Square Enix is interested in allowing Eidos to create new games in series like Tomb Raider or Hitman.
The big game that the company is set to deliver in time for Christmas 2009 is Batman: Arkham Asylum, a title that was recently delayed. At the moment, the Batman game is set to arrive on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the PC on August 25. That's a little early for it to get big Christmas sales but Eidos could always delay the title a little more, taking it to September or even October. Eidos is also set to release games like Just Cause 2 and Mini Ninjas in the coming months.