Katamari Team Disbands
Gamasutra reports that the team behind Katamari Damacy, We *heart* Katamari, and My My Katamari has dissolved. The official Katamari site states that there are no plans for sequels to the hit rollin' games. From the article: "The official announcement does mention that 'Professor Katamari' (presumably Keita Takahashi) is currently working on a new game design, though apparently not with the core Katamari Damacy team. 'You don't roll things up, or get bigger, but you might find it interesting anyway,' says the site." Which is good news, considering his earlier comments about making playground equipment.
As much as I love a good game like Katamari, I don't want to be fed the same crap over and over. Katamari came, and it was good, now it's over. Time for some new stuff.
Personally, I thought that was a series that just shouldn't be sequel'd too much, but there's one thing I'm disappointed about...where's the Nintendo DS version!? It was sort of psuedo-announced, even Nintendo Power reported on it, but then it just faded off. The game was so perfect for the DS, with it's touch control, and so not perfect for the PSP, with it's one analog nub. It's really a shame, because the DS was the only system that really had the perfect control scheme for it...and that would have been the perfect sequel for the series to go out on. The two sequels really don't live up to the original game in my opinion, but I think with the innovation of the DS, it really would have felt like a new game rather than just a quickly put together expansion on the original.