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Jeff Minter's Unity Cancelled

Posted by Zonk on from the a-sad-day-for-ravers-everywhere dept.

An anonymous reader writes "This morning, Jeff Minter officially announced the end of development on his game "Unity", which was to be published by Lionhead Studios. The post included a press release which claimed that Minter "would not be able to finish Unity in an acceptable time frame". Minter is well known as the mad genius behind Llamasoft and creator of such games as Attack of the Mutant Camels, Llamatron, and Tempest 2000. Unity was to be an "abstract shooter" based on Minter's research into lightsynths and interactive graphic musical accompaniment. Did the fact that the GameCube is nearing the end of its lifecycle contribute to the cancellation of the game, or are trippy music/shooters (ala REZ) just too weird to attain mainstream success?"

6 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Oh sad day.. by XMunkki · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I saw some videos about Unity at the last Assembly party where Jeff held a speech about the history (and future) of his company. Looked pretty wild and I was really intrigued. The guy seemed pretty.. experienced with colors'n'stuff :). But as Jeffs post says, the main reason is that Gamecube is dying and rather than rush an unfinished crap out they decided to can it. I think this is for the better. Better to make good unique IP games than mediocre. We have licences and sequels fed to us through our noses so every quality nonmass product is a boon.

    But all the good to you Jeff; hope to see if you still have the energy to start a new project!

    1. Re:Oh sad day.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But as Jeffs post says, the main reason is that Gamecube is dying....

      Jeff's post says nothing of the sort. The story submitter didn't even say that. Are you trying to troll all the Nintendo fanboys around here? The Gamecube is approaching the end of its lifecycle because in about one year the Revolution will be on store shelves. That's a lot of time, really, except that Unity was in production for two years already and was still nowhere near complete. That sounds like a pretty good reason to cancel the project to me, instead of "Gamecube is dying." If the Gamecube is dying because its successor is due in one year, then the PS2 and Xbox are dying, too.

    2. Re:Oh sad day.. by El_Servas · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, maybe that's what he wanted to say. :)

      Besides... everything is dying. Everything.
      Think about that.

  2. Re:Both! by dextr0us · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd really like to see the numbers, because the Gamecube owners I know are fairly loyal, and all buy 10+ games.

    (plus a minute amount of piracy compared to Dreamcast, PS2, and XboX)

    --
    "Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
  3. Re:Both! by KDR_11k · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Last time I checked the GC had about 1/10th of the sales of the PS2. Unless only 1% of the gaming population cares about the PS2 and half the world are gamers your guesstimation is wrong.
    Besides, we're talking about an abstract shooter developed by Jeff Minter, not exactly something that'll outsell Madden.

    Ah, guess I shouldn't feed a troll but whatever.

    --
    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  4. Re:Both! by SetupWeasel · · Score: 2, Insightful

    GameCube is a close #3 in the US. You'll se that the GC comprises 20% of the US home console userbase.

    And here you will see the japanese sales charts. For this year the GC sales are about 25% of the PS2 sales.

    So judging by sales numbers, about 20% cares about the GC because they own one. It is the #2 home console world wide you know.