NEWS - Friday, September 24, 2010
Activision Takes Over NASCAR Videogame Publishing
After being published by Electronic Arts since 1997, the next NASCAR game is set to be developed by Eutechnyx and published by EAs biggest rival. Gamasutra is reporting it has confirmed that NASCAR 11 is to be published by Activision.
Several months ago, a post was made on the official EA forums claiming that an anonymous inside source at NASCAR had revealed that Activision would be responsible for the new game. In addition, the poster claimed that it would be released on all platforms, including the Wii, and that it would be released two weeks before the Daytona 500, which is next set to take place on February 20, 2011. Gamasutra was unable to confirm that aspect of the report.
Regardless of its exact release date, this will be the first dedicated NASCAR simulation game on consoles since NASCAR 09, released back in June of 2008. After that, EA released NASCAR Kart Racing in February 2009.
EA Sports president Peter Moore followed that up with a statement last September suggesting that EA would not be making any further NASCAR games. "We had a great relationship over the years that I thoroughly enjoyed when I first got here. Unfortunately... we had to make some tough trade-offs," Moore said at the time. "Weve had to redeploy some of those folks. A number of the NASCAR team has moved over now to EA Sports MMA, which will be shipping next year. [Were] still a huge fan of NASCAR, but no plans right now to develop any further games for NASCAR from EA Sports."
Eutechnyx has been around since 1987. The U.K.-based developer has previously worked on 007 Racing, Big Mutha Truckers, and Pimp My Ride. According to Gamasutra, the company received an investment of $9.25 million earlier this year. It also hired Ed Martin back in March after he had spent a number of years heading up the NASCAR franchise at EA Sports.
Source: http://www.1up.com