Sony has filed a trademark for Knack. Does this mean Knack 3 or what?
Yesterday, Japanese trademark-filing tracking website Chizai Watch released data on a new trademark filing for Knack, which was later translated by Gematsu. The post shows that Sony Interactive Entertainment filed a trademark for Knack on March 17th.
Sony Interactive Entertainment filed a trademark for “Knack” on March 17 in Japan. Bandai Namco Entertainment filed a trademark for “Stacky Basket.” Both were made public today.
Knack: https://t.co/7VbxIEo2OA
Stacky Basket: https://t.co/ZMd3vOkvPy pic.twitter.com/Thg8i9naF3— Gematsu (@gematsu) March 28, 2022
What could this possibly mean for the future of the Knack series?
Knack was one of the PlayStation 4’s launch titles and upon release received fairly poor critical reception and was deemed as a bit of a joke. Despite this, it has garnered a reasonable cult following since, and its sequel Knack 2 wasn’t actually that bad. With many considering the original to be a tech demo of sorts to showcase the PlayStation 4’s capabilities (much like Astro’s Playroom for the PlayStation 5), the sequel was touted as ‘actually pretty good‘.
If we’re thinking rather rationally (and maybe cynically), Sony has a habit of regularly re-filing trademarks for their intellectual property once the trademark expires. Sometimes they’ll trademark stuff just to keep it on the backburner. There’s a very real possibility that they just want to make sure Knack remains theirs.
This could potentially be supported by the fact that the studio that made the games, Japan Studio, formally disbanded in 2021. Although, the studio was re-organised in the same year, with VGC reporting that everybody not laid off during this time would be joining Team ASOBI, according to a statement from Sony Interactive Entertainment. Team ASOBI is responsible for the Astro Bot games.
On the other hand, with the little smidge of optimism we have left, the last time we reported on Sony doing something like this was when they secured the patent for PlayStation 5 faceplates, and then we got PlayStation 5 faceplates. In saying that…
Knack 3, baybeeeeeeee!
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