Yesterday, IGN and its parent company were issued a cease and desist order from Harmony Gold, the co-copyright owner of the television series Robotech. The letter claims that the use of certain trademarked figures from the Robotech/Macross universe are prohibited as a result of a prior settlement that dates back to 1996. While MechWarrior isn't part of the Robotech/Macross universe, the similarities between vehicles has been enough to cause legal issues and raise questions. Apparently, some of those trademarked figures appear in the trailer used by Pirahna Games in its announcement of the MechWarrior reboot earlier this year, and a request has been made for that trailer to be pulled from IGN.
This development could put the future of MechWarrior in jeopardy. A trademark dispute could derail the game's development. On the flip side, it could also simply result in specific characters, logos, or other trademarked material from being included in the final product.
Many thought that the complete radio silence about the MechWarrior Reboot was due to the dispute with Harmony gold about a Mech shown in the trailer that was clearly coming from the first edition of the MechWarrior/Battletech games, and that was actually copied from one belonged to the Macross series. But the truth was different.
It's not even "low", it's common sense. I'm pretty sure they made it clear when they licensed Mechwarrior to that developer that they wouldn't allow a PS3 game... Too bad they couldn't find anyone to publish it though.
What about Sony Entertainment and Netflix/StarzPlay? Corporations disagree all the time. Especially when concerning similar forms of media. Thus, a dispute between two major console makers is nothing but OBVIOUS!
They say hainvg multiple consoles is good for the consumers.. Not in cases like this obviously.
Its not like a 360 version would have sold poorly. Not that I thick I would have bought it on PS3.
Oddly, despite being a mech fan, never been that much into BT.
chances are it would have lost money, just like most of these high cost games do now.
As a long time fan, it becoming a PC exclusive is not what I would call "ruined". However there is always the option later for a port so maybe it isn't all bad news.
As a long time fan, I would have enjoyed both having the MMO on PC, and the story-driven single player reboot they were working for.
Right, wasnt MechWarrior originally a PC game anyways? I remember playing the old old ones on my pc in the mid 90's. They were pretty cool.
Not sure why you think it's good business. Microsoft screwed themselves out of a game. A multiplatform game would have made Microsoft more money than no game at all.
Making no money at all just so your opponent can't make any money, still means you made no money at all...
If they wanted to block the PS3 version, the better business idea would have been publishing it themselves and promote it.
@MRBeatdown...
If MS didnt publish the game then they wouldnt be making money anyway.
r1sh12, no, MS (and Sony) receive royalties from publishers for every game sold on their platform, so they would have still made money even if the game went multiplatform and they weren't publishing.
so, let me get this right. MS bought RARE and others to block sony so in future SONY would not do this to them???
thats pretty low.
MS try blocking greed and expand your wealth.
You start by saying "let me get this right" and still manage to spout complete jibberish, smh. MS owns the Mech IP, the can do whatever they want with it! And its obvious to everyone, even the author (even though he denies it in the comments section of his site) that MS will not allow one of their IP's on a different platform. Would Sony let MS have Uncharted? NO. Flamebait all over the place in here.
MS bought FASA Interactive way back and thus owns the rights to Battletech in video games. They licensed it to 'Smith and Tinker' (Jordan Wiseman's company, Jordan Wiseman founded FASA) who hired Piranha to make a video game with them.
MS OWNS the video game IP. It's theirs. Deal with it. They don't want a competitor to use it. They consider it to be an exclusive in the console space. It's no different than Halo, Fable, Project Gotham, Forza, Killzone, Resistance, Uncharted, Gran Tourismo, or Little Big Planet.
The pen and paper, board game, card game, and miniature rights are still owned by Topps who license it out to Catalyst Labs who make the Classic Battletech board game.
That such an idiotic statement as yours has actually received agrees is beyond me, morkendo.
Wow... would you say the same if Nintendo said, we don't allow Mario on PS3? What about if Sony said we don't allow Uncharted on Xbox 360?
Oh, wait! They DO!
If it is MS franchise, why would they allow it on a competing platform. That's common sense 101!!!
Talk about being either really dumb or being a fanboy. For your sake, I hope it is the latter!
What does spite have to do with it? MS owns the rights to MechWarrior. No different then you not seeing a Halo game on PS3 or a God of War game on Xbox 360. Are you angry that Zelda isn't coming to PS3 either??
sony is blocking 360 gamers from having franchises such as uncharted or god of war. Greedy bastards
Mechwarrior/Mechassault was a Microsoft Games Studios game and was exclusive to the Xbox so I dont get where this was supposed to ruin Sony's chance of getting it.
MechWarrior has been a pen and paper RPG/tabletop wargame franchise a whole lot of time before it happened to become a video game :D
you are partially right. Mechassault was a MS game but the Mechwarrior nomenclature exceeds that. It all takes place in the "battle-tech" universe.
If anything, MS should have just focused on rebooting their own Mechassault series instead of blocking the use of anything mech related. Then again it is like EA blocking other companies from making a licensed NFL game.
Underhanded and low but a business move that proved advantageous for EA and the NFL.
Not to discredit your statement,do you have proof they were exclusive with Microsoft because reading the article they never mentioned any allegiance with them.
Mechwarrior/Battletech have been around DECADES longer than Microsoft has even had a games division. Microsoft does not own the IP.
Sadly, they do. They purchased the IP in 1998 or so, when they purchased all of Fasa, and they still own the rights to it.
They purchased it during the development of MechWarrior 3 by a then little-known dev studio named Zipper Interactive. Ironically, Zipper is now owned by Sony Computer Entertainment. If Sony hadn't purchased them, Zipper would probably be making MechWarrior games to this day, as a MS internal studio. Conversely, if MS hadn't purchased the MW IP, MW games would likely also still be made.
MW3 was the last truly great MechWarrior game, although MechCommander wasn't half bad. MW4 (done interally by MS) was an arcade abomination made by people who had NO clue what MechWarrior was all about.
i would like a good Mech game been along time since i got down on some armored core mechwarrior or crazy ivan
mechwarrior on console sounds like a failure to me anyway. @ NYC_Gamer thats true, investors dont see the market in high budget pc exclusives these days... but battlefield 3 (even though its not exclusive) shows that if you build it they will come.
well,now we won't get a proper version even on pc we are stuck with that f2p edition
Mechwarrior on Sega genesis was awesome lo. The coop where 1 person controls the legs nd another the top 1/2 . I miss that game
More of the cryptic image is revealed by Piranha Games.
The project lives!
I was about to guess it's a Centurion mech, but enlarging the picture showed it's too wide and has much more missile pods.
Anyone have a clue?
'bout freaking time, they teased this thing about 4 years ago and haven't let out a peep since.
Sign me up!
Am a bit of a BattleTech noob; I only played the MechAssault Games and one Mech Commander game. I used to buzz off Mech Assault 2 cus it features Papa Roach and Korn music lol.
Can't wait for this. If I remember, in mech assault 2 you have to help House Kurita.
But the trailer for this shows House Kurita as the oposing force. should be interesting.
SegmentNext - "President and Executive Producer Piranha Games address the concerns of the fans regarding the long delayed Mach game."
I have high hopes for this game when it releases. I enjoyed my days of playing this game...when I was 7!
I own every game that is Mechwarrior related. I cannot wait for this to come out. I hope we can play the Ghost Bears..................
Only thing that's gonna happen is that they're gonna remove the short little blip that contains the Warhammer variant out of the clip and the game.. The warhammer is just a heavy non jumping Thor with a center torso c*ckpit (apparently n4g doesn't like that word), instead of the neck c*ckpit. They ripped it off from robotech decades ago and already paid for it.
It's one mech out of a crapton... will probably just scrap that individual one.