Atari CEO says Iwata retrospective game would be "really cool"
Iwata 50: Anniversary Celebration?
Atari has seen a lot of success in recent years with retrospective game collections like Atari 50: the Anniversary Celebration. They even acquired developer Digital Eclipse, who produced Atari 50 along with other, similar projects like The Making of Karateka.
In a new interview with Nintendo Life, Atari CEO Jeff Rosen talks about his dream collaborations for retrospective games going forward. He mentions Panzer Dragoon, Ogre Battle, and Final Fantasy as contenders, but it turns out that Nintendo holds the top spot on his list. Specifically, he brings up former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata as an ideal subject for a game collection:
Nintendo is the number one though, right? That would be incredible. It would be a tough one to crack, but if anything and everything was open, breaking down Mario or Zelda would be great. Satoru Iwata developed a bunch of games in his time, and with Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master Series, we don’t just look at game series and developers, but also sole creators like Jeff Minter. I think it would be really cool to do a retrospective on Iwata, looking at his life and career. Who knows, right?
Understandably, Rosen frames this idea as a challenging one to actually make happen. Nintendo seems pretty content to handle their own retro game distribution via Nintendo Switch Online, and probably wouldn’t be interested in licensing out their titles to a third party. Still, a tribute to Iwata’s works in the same format as Atari 50 would be a joy to play through. As Rosen says, who knows!
Click here to read the full interview. Below, check out an additional quote in which Rosen praised Nintendo for staying true to itself and not chasing corporate growth for the sake of it:
The industry got to a point where it was just growth for the sake of growth rather than thinking “How does this help us as an organisation and help us achieve the unique, special thing that we want to do”. The only company that really resisted that and avoided it was Nintendo, and that’s because it never loses sight of what makes it special and unique. We’re certainly not Nintendo, but I do think we try to focus on what makes us unique.
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