Speaking with Develop, Michicich was asked whether Robomodo — the developers behind Tony Hawk: Ride — had any other ideas for games using the board. To which Michicich replied “That’s really difficult to answer because we’re kind of, ah, [pause], we’re kind of, [pause], we’re doing a game with Activision and we’re not allowed to talk about it right now”.

That’s a yes, then.

The obvious answer is “snowboard game”, but we’re hoping for “hoverboard game” instead.

Tony Hawk Ride team hint at boarding other genres [Develop]

Here’s Giant Bomb’s Jeff Gerstmann, one of the most respected and tenured reviewers in the gaming press, explaining what he believed he had to do to have a day one review ready for Tony Hawk Ride.

He mentioned this during the most recent Giant Bombcast podcast, at the one hour and six minute mark:

Jeff Gerstmann, Giant Bomb: We’ve gotten e-mails saying, hey, we’re doing an event on Saturday, with Tony Hawk Ride. Tony Hawk will be there talking about the game. This would be your opportunity to come and play it for day one reviews.

Brad Shoemaker, Giant Bomb: Really?

Gerstmann: Twelve to three on a Saturday. Do you really want to read the Day One review I would write after fighting the public and maybe playing the game for 20 minutes? “The 20 minutes I played was awesome!” or “The worst thing ever! I couldn’t learn how to play because this game has a learning curve because it’s got an actual skateboard. [whispers] They’re sending that game off to die.”

Gerstmann didn’t attend the event. He bought the game instead.

For the record Activision didn’t offer early review access of the game to Kotaku nor supply a review copy in advance of release. As of this evening, the day of Ride’s release, Metacritic listed only one review for the game.

Kotaku checked in with a representative for the Activision regarding the details of that Saturday event. I’ll update this post if I hear back.

Giant Bombcast: 11/10/09

The 41-year-old skateboarder will also be tackling Gamescom’s vert ramp, located in the conventions sports zone in hall 7, to wow the crowd on Friday evening. I suspect we won’t be seeing any 900s.

We’ll be heading out for Gamescom this weekend.

The lucky three are the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. If you live in France, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Belgium, Switzerland or Mexico (or anywhere in between), sorry, you’re shit out of luck.

Tacky plastic peripherals are expensive and difficult to manufacture, and like Rock Band’s staggered release a few years back, seems there just aren’t enough of them to go around on launch day.

One thing we’re unsure of; whether Canadians are included in the “United States” statement. We’d like to think so, but then, you can’t be sure. We’ll look into it.

The company’s CEO, Mike Griffith said that, in addition to the delayed Singularity, now expected between January and the end of March, the company will publish new games in the James Bond, Tony Hawk and Spider-Man franchises. Griffith also promised tie-ins to Dreamworks movies Shrek 4 and How To Train Your Dragon. More mysterious was his reference to an unnamed “innovative property in the $US4 billion action genre.”

Later in the call, a financial analyst tried to get top Blizzard exec, Mike Morhaime, to clarify whether the delay of StarCraft II to 2010 would push back an anticipated 2010 release for the studio’s Diablo III. The analyst recalled an earlier comment by a Blizzard representative that the studio would release a single major game per year.

“The move of StarCraft into next year does not impact the schedule,” Morhaime said. “And so it would be correct to conclude that you could expect two releases of Blizzard for next year. But I would not make any conclusions on what those titles would be.”

Activision also announced plans to offer “new releases” in the Call of Duty series next year, though how those releases will mix downloadable map packs for existing games and brand-new games was not specified.

The game is now available for preorder on GameStop’s website, and while that October release date probably isn’t concrete, GameStop is rarely, if ever, wrong about a game’s price.

Though at $US120, we kinda wish they were.

The game is running on an iPhone. The developers, LTI Gray Matter, have confirmed this. And they should know, they made the thing. But the problem is, they made it of their own accord. Didn’t go and ask Activision first, just… ported it themselves. For the hell of it.

Ultimately, they’d like Activision to release the game, but whether it is or not is ultimately up to the people who actually own the rights to the game: Activision.

We’re sure that Activision don’t want to start a precedent with unsolicited game developments, but then again… we’re also sure they like to exploit the shit out of their franchises. Who knows, this one may actually turn up on the App Store!

Tony Hawk 2 iPhone Is Real, Unofficial [Giant Bomb]

The newest skateboarding game to bear the Tony Hawk name will be revealed to the public on GameTrailers TV this week. In Mr. Hawk’s own words, “It’s a whole new deal.”

After Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground proved to be a bit of a miss with critics, Activision and crew took a year off from the franchise. The newest, still-unannounced entry will come with a bit of a twist, to borrow a description from Geoff Keighley, as players are “not going to be playing Tony Hawk [with] a controller in your hands.”

As intimidating as that might sound, Tony Hawk himself has said that the next entry is “as close to real skating as you’ll ever come.” In fact, he guarantees it!

According to marketing leaks from last year’s Intellisponse fiasco, the newest Tony Hawk game will employ the use of a “custom board controller/peripheral,” one that we’ll presumably control with either our feet or… our minds!! Whether Activision has decided to stick with one of the game’s working titles—Tony Hawk’s Amplitude, Tony Hawk’s Adrenaline and Tony Hawk’s Huck Jam—we’ll all find out this Thursday night.

We’ve not heard much from the Tony Hawk front since traditional developer Neversoft shifted focus to work on the Guitar Hero franchise for Activision. So far all we know is that Activision has promised that the next game in the series will be a re-engineering of the franchise, and that Tony Hawk himself has claimed the game will be the closest thing you’ll ever see to real skateboarding.

During Activision’s earnings call today, president and CEO of publishing Mike Griffith told us to expect more details on the next game in the franchise at next month’s E3. Hopefully we’ll see the game in action, or at least confirm whether or not rumours of Robomodo’s involvement prove true.

Few months back, there was a rumour Neversoft – creators and sole developers of the core Tony Hawk series – had been taken off the franchise by Activision and replaced by startup Robomodo.

Turns out that was…well, mostly correct. Speaking with the Great Falls Tribune, Neversoft founder Joel Jewett says that the next Tony Hawk will indeed be the first main entry in the franchise to be developed outside of Neversoft.

It’s probably best for the franchise … it’s time for someone else to add fresh ideas to it.

That doesn’t confirm whether Neversoft let go of the reigns or were booted off, but the end result is the same; the next Tony Hawk should be a different affair.

No confirmation that Robomodo are indeed the team taking over, but since their company page still says they’re working on “a high-profile extreme sports title for Activision Blizzard”, it looks likely.

Founder of Guitar Hero III developer credits Great Falls for successes [greatfallstribune]