Studio Platinum games posted on my page in Twitter photo with the creator Bayonetta and Devil May Cry Hideki Camie. On the monitor behind him you can see the time. 1:01 and date October 1st – two lines with numbers “101”. Fans took it for a hint of a re-release of the action The Wonderful 101which came out in 2013 on Wii U and failed.
Next to Kamiya on the table is a game console Nintendo switch.
Scenes from the PG office! Who’s that photobombing Hideki Kamiya? pic.twitter.com/D70oalUTKo
– PlatinumGames Inc. (@platinumgames) January 31, 2023
The Wonderful 101 was developed with financial support from Nintendo and published by Nintendo.
After the release of Switch, PlatinumGames executives repeatedly expressed interest in reissuing the game on a new popular platform, where she might have a second chance, and spokethat discuss this issue with Nintendo.
However, according to the journalist Emily Rogers, which often publishes reliable insider information, Nintendo did not show much interest in the release of The Wonderful 101 port. Therefore, PlatinumGames was looking for a way to republish the game without the participation of the platform holder. Rogers wrote more about this on the ResetEra forum last Wednesday.
After posting a photo with Camia, another industrial insider, Daniel Ahmadstated that PlatinumGames “there is an opportunity to release The Wonderful 101 on other platforms”.
This led to the assumption that the studio, having received investments from the Chinese corporation Tencent, was able to buy from Nintendo the rights to a franchise or part of the rights, which would allow it to reissue the game on its own, for example, on Switch and PC. However, in general, the situation seems unusual and it is difficult to explain without additional data, since Nintendo has never practiced this with development partners. Moreover, The Wonderful 101 franchise seems very niche. It seems strange that the studio, which had long dreamed of having money to create its own IPs, will now seek the purchase of rights to a game that is difficult to sell to the masses.
On the other hand, The Wonderful 101 was one of the “dream games” of PlatinumGames vice president Hideki Kamiya. In 2014, he toldthat for four months he literally lived in the office, working tirelessly on it. To date, this is the last project fully created under his leadership.
The role-playing action game Scalebound, which he prepared for Microsoft on Xbox One and PC, was canceled in 2017.
Fans of the studio make one more assumption: Nintendo, who is in excellent relations with PlatinumGames (over the past two years she funded development of Bayonetta 3, republished Bayonetta 2 on Switch and released Astral Chain), allowed PlatinumGames to reissue The Wonderful 101 on its own under certain unique conditions that do not imply the need to redeem rights. This, again, has not been previously practiced, so the situation is difficult to explain. According to Ahmad, Tencent funding will go primarily to the development of its future PlatinumGames multi-platform long-term projects.
On January 2, almost a month before the appearance of today’s Camia photo, Rogers wrote that starting in 2017, PlatinumGames tried to enlist the support of a company to reissue The Wonderful 101. Studio allegedly published teaser picturesto show potential partners the reaction in the form of messages from gamers expressing interest in the port.
However, during all this time, there were no people willing to support the PlatinumGames aspiration.
“And that’s understandable. After all, The Wonderful 101 was a complete commercial failure,” Rogers pointed out.
“Be that as it may, PlatinumGames is still looking for a way to republish the game – with or without Nintendo.”
Five days after these messages PlatinumGames announced partnership with Tencent.
In response to Rogers’ information, ResetEra users cited several old interviews with PlatinumGames employees where, in the context of a possible re-release of The Wonderful 101, only Nintendo, originally sponsored, produced, and published, was always mentioned. So, at one of the events, Atsushi Inaba said that the platform holder asked the developers to collect the opinions of the players, to ask if they would be interested in such a port. At Reboot Develop 2018, I met these words with applause whole hall.
“I’m glad we did it,” the producer said in an interview.
Rogers described what is happening with the potential port of The Wonderful 101 as “this is a difficult situation.” According to her, soon everything should become clearer.
In The Wonderful 101, players control a secret squad of colorful characters who abandon their usual lifestyle to save the world in difficult times. The game is replete with epic scenes and spectacular boss battles. You can find our great review here..
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One of the users of ResetEra wrote that he would be very upset if PlatinumGames gets all the rights to the game and does not republish it on Switch, betting on other formats.
In response to this, Emily Rogers made it clear that the re-release will definitely be released on Switch.
“You shouldn’t worry about that. PlatinumGames knows that without Nintendo, The Wonderful 101 would not have been possible.”
Further, the journalist added that this story with The Wonderful 101 has a certain twist that will lead to a very interesting discussion after the announcement.
The players suggested that it might be about the exclusivity of the potential PC version for the Epic Games Store (Tencent works with Nintendo to release Switch in China, collaborates with PlatinumGames and at the same time is a shareholder of Epic Games), which could anger some of the audience (opponents Steam rival still has a lot) and the inhabitants of the forum in particular.
However, Rogers emphasized that the “twist” she writes about would not piss off users. But it will be perceived as something unexpected.
She did not answer all clarifying questions about whether a reissue would appear only on Switch or somewhere else.
Read also: Insider: Microsoft wanted to buy Japanese studio PlatinumGames, which created Bayonetta, NieR: Automata and Astral Chain.
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