14 DAY TRIAL // Activision is letting the Tony Hawk franchise, which single handedly introduced skateboarding into videogaming, rest this year, with big plans to take it out for a spin in 2009. At the moment, the Electronic Arts published Skate is enjoying good sales and publicity so Activision will really need something special to make its skateboarding game attractive again.
That special something might arrive in the form of skateboard shaped peripherals which are to be bundled with the game if Doug Creutz, an analyst with the Cowen Group, is to be believed. He thinks that it is “highly likely” that Activision will add peripherals in order to boost the sales of the game as it ships.
The model would be similar to the one already used by Activision and Electronic Arts in selling competing music simulators like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. The fact that gamers had to pay more for the additional hardware was not an obstacle for the two franchises to be among the most profitable in gaming history. A similar model for a skateboard game would mean designing a peripheral which can be used with all platforms, like the Wii, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, and that would really enhance the gaming experience. After all, skating games have managed to do without any add on until now, so their utility might be questioned.
At the moment, Activision does not comment on the possibility or offer any detail regarding the next Tony Hawk game, which is expected by analysts to mark a reinvention of the much acclaimed series.
Creutz added that “We believe that the extra year of development time and the opportunity for consumers to shake off franchise fatigue could contribute to better unit sales than the franchise has enjoyed in recent years”.