Much like championship sports teams, video game publishers can't stay on top forever. Eventually, the seemingly impenetrable tower collapses under the weight of poor decisions, leaving behind fond memories of dominance. Just look at Midway. After achieving impressive sales with such franchises as Mortal Kombat, NFL Blitz and NBA Jam, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and coughed up most of its properties to Warner Bros.
Although the following companies should avoid the same fate (at least this year), they've lost their edge and failed to recapture the same magic from several years ago. That's not indicative of sales per se. Ubisoft's Just Dance sold millions, despite holding a despicable 48 percent average review score at Gamerankings. On that note, these publishers still crank out some hits, but poor games tarnished their once great
Konami
No sane person would remark that Konami can do no wrong. Over the past couple of decades, gamers have suffered through a string of misfires, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES (released under the Ultra label), Contra: Legacy of War on PSOne and Nano Breaker on PS2. But at least back in the day, we counted on the publisher to deliver excellent sequels to its Castlevania, Metal Gear and Silent Hill franchises.
These days, we expect Konami to ruin everything, no matter how cool it sounds. It's allowed MGS creator Hideo Kojima to continue a horrible story that few gamers understand, it lost control of the music genre to Activision and Electronic Arts and the Silent Hill series is no longer a sure thing, thanks to Silent Hill: Homecoming. If that's not bad enough, EA Sports clearly destroyed Pro Evolution Soccer's momentum with FIFA.
Instead of getting excited about new Konami releases, we ponder how the company will screw up its games. Chalk that up to a string of abysmal titles, such as Hellboy: Science of Evil, Rock Revolution, Saw, Bomberman: Act Zero, Wing Island, Castlevania Judgement and more Lost in Blue titles than we care to remember. You can make the argument that the publisher has a celebrated stable of intellectual properties and we'd agree, but it clearly has no grasp on how to create game of the year type stuff. If you think the answer is Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, then perhaps you'd like to purchase stock in Midway.
Namco Bandai
Some of us feel that Namco lost its edge the second it added the word "Bandai" to its name. That's when it focused more on pumping out lame anime-inspired games instead of multiple sequels to award-winning franchises. That opinion aside, the company is a far cry from what it used to be, back when it delivered quality games to its Time Crisis, SoulCalibur, Ridge Racer and Ace Combat series. Sure, it throws us a proverbial bone once and a while (SoulCalibur IV was good, despite the cornball Star Wars characters), but it seems like we suffer through more disappointment. Time Crisis has all but disappeared on consoles, the Ridge Racer series might as well be dead, SoulCalibur Legends on Wii was a disaster and after years of failure, the company still thinks Dead to Rights will catch on. As for the upcoming Splatterhouse sequel, good luck with that. It's on its second developer.
Granted, the publisher scored some hits, with Tekken 6 (it'll always have Tekken), Pac-Man Championship Edition and Klonoa, but it's tough getting excited about Namco Bandai. Hey, perhaps We Cheer 3 is on the way.
Tecmo
Let's face it, Tecmo doesn't have a huge collection of outstanding franchises. It survived off Ninja Gaiden and Dead Or Alive, the latter of which the company just threw into the toilet with the horrible PSP Release, Dead or Alive Paradise; let's also not forget the dreadful Rygar: The Battle of Argus and the equally atrocious Fret Nice. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (less violent than its Xbox 360 predecessor) was decent, but it's tough to see what triple-A video game Tecmo has for the future, aside from Tecmo Bowl Throwback and the slim chance of bringing Fatal Frame IV to the U.S.
Lost in Blue 2 on DS Features - GameDaily
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