Thursday, June 9, 2005

Melbourne, Australia —Australia’s oldest video game development studio is working on a PlayStation®2 port of Eden Games’ Test Drive: Unlimited, the latest in the Test Drive series.

Atari Melbourne House has been at the centre of recent speculation after head of studio Andrew Carter took charge earlier this year, and details about their current project have been limited.

A source inside the studio has confirmed that the title in development is a PS2 port of Eden’s next-generation Xbox 360 game.

Although Melbourne House established a strong reputation for driving games with the acclaimed Test Drive: Le Mans (Sega Dreamcast), recent ventures away from the genre such as Men In Black II: Alien Escape and Transformers: Armada (targeted at the high end of the market) have failed to make an impact.

However, speculation about the studio’s long term future took another turn this week when Atari CEO James Caparro resigned. Although the ambitious natural disaster themed The Big One was cancelled when former CEO Bruno Bonnell took a back seat in November last year, the project – known inside the studio as Bonnell’s “pet” – might be revived now Bonnell has been appointed interim CEO in the wake of Caparro’s resignation.

“Who knows, it might be [The Big One], it might be another port,” the source said.

Two senior game designers have resigned from the studio in the past month.