Sad news for Crash Bandicoot fans, as Sony’s Adam Boyes has quashed rumors that the company has bought the IP from Activision. Following evidence the official Crash website has been taken down, the onetime unofficial Playstation mascot now faces an uncertain future.
@shinobi602 Activision owns the IP, so you should ask them about it…
— Adam Boyes (@amboyes) November 22, 2013
As fans noticed less than a day ago, Activision has taken down the official Crash Bandicoot website, with all references towards it removed from the Activision site as well. A lot of speculation fueled up that Sony may have bought the property, although it seemed that fans never had any solid evidence to hang on to to prove it.
Activision is not a company to hesitate abandoning franchises. Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero are perhaps the most prominent of bestselling games series that Activision simply stopped making games for. As we know, the company’s current best performers are Call of Duty and the Skylanders series. The company has also been recently making licensed games for NASCAR, James Bond, Transformers, TMNT, and Spider-Man.
Crash Bandicoot may truly have had its best years as a Playstation exclusive, with three games developed by Naughty Dog. The series subsequently had two shifts in direction as it went multiplatform, first under Traveller’s Tales, and then under Radical Entertainment. All three developers got to make racing games in the series, and Crash also had brief dalliances in mobile and portable consoles.
More games were planned but cancelled, including, most surprisingly, a DS game from Renegade Kid. The last actual game in the main console series was Crash: Mind Over Matter, released 2008. Sony fans, in a sense, should not feel lacking for Crash games, as the original Playstation exclusives remain widely available via PSN.
However, if we were to be honest about the situation, platformers, including 3D platformers, aren’t as prominent in the industry as they used to be, Mario being the exception that proves the rule. You may not like to hear it, but the mounting evidence can only imply that Activision intends to put Crash in the backburner. Think of it this way; did you want Activision to keep trying a la Tomb Raider? This may look bad now, but it could be better for Crash in the long term, and you can never say never when it comes to the gaming industry.
UPDATE: Activision has released a statement confirming that they still very much own the Crash Bandicoot IP, and they are continuing to explore ways to bring the series back to life. I can't help feeling this is Activision passively confirming they are not making any new Crash games soon, precisely because they don't know what to do with it. Don't fret, Crash fans, as hope always springs eternal that those opportunities will arise eventually. After all, it did for Spyro, and under the Skylanders banner that IP has never been bigger.
Image is from Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back.
