By now, you’ve probably heard that Disney has purchased Lucasfilm, whether you learned that through news outlets or Facebook friends who are complaining that Disney will ruin the Star Wars franchise (it isn’t going to, so stop worrying). While we’re sure that Disney is going put the Star Wars IP to good use, the company isn’t looking to make many more Star Wars console games. Instead, Disney CEO Robert Iger says the company will probably focus on Star Wars mobile and social titles moving forward.
“We’re likely to focus more on social and mobile than we are on console,” Iger said. “We’ll look opportunistically at console, most likely in licensing rather than publishing, but we think that given the nature of these characters and how well known they are, and the storytelling, that they lend themselves quite nicely, as they’ve already demonstrated to the other platforms.” So, it looks like we can expect more games like Angry Birds Star Wars in the future, but it’s hard to say what kind of experiences Disney is shooting for with mobile and social.
This doesn’t mean the end of Star Wars console games, though, as Iger also points out in his brief statement that Disney is open to licensing out the Star Wars IP to other developers. This means that licensees will handle the development of Star Wars console games, while Disney will oversee the development of mobile and social games based in the universe. That doesn’t seem like a bad deal – after all, remember that some of the best Star Wars console games have come from third party licensees.
As stated above, expect Disney to hit the mobile and social scene hard. Disney has seen what can be achieved on those two platforms – mobile especially – so prepare to see a lot of Star Wars mobile and social games moving forward. Do you think this is a good move on Disney’s part, or should it focus on console games alongside mobile and social?
[via Polygon]
