Earlier this week Hudson officially announced a new wave of WiiWare games including Snowboard Riot. What felt missing, in my opinion, were more classic revivals. Through the Virtual Console a new generation of gamers are getting exposed to Hudson’s TurboGrafx-16 titles and a lot of their old intellectual property.
I spoke with Kentaro Murayama, Head of the Hudson Entertainment Department in Japan, and asked him if they are planning to revisit more of their older franchises. Murayama-san replied, “The answer is yes, but we cannot disclose the names yet.” Names? Wait a second! Promptly, I said “So… there are multiple franchises?” and Murayama-san said yes. Interestingly, these won’t just show up on the Wii. Hudson’s plan is to bring some of their classic franchises to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 too.
Out of all the franchises Bonk seems high on the list for a revival. The hard headed caveman got a brand new cell phone game, but we would rather see him headbutting dinosaurs on a TV screen.