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.

Great!

[Zarxrax]

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.

Why the wailing and nashing of teeth?

[nweaver]

Katamari is a COOL game. But aren't 2 sequels enough?

Given the creativity, wouldn't it be nice to see something else, rather than yet another "roll crap up" sequel?

Good.

[drwiii]

It was a good game, but now everyone can move onto creating the next big thing instead of trying to strangle the life out of a title from 2003.

Who didn't see it coming, though? From one of the endings to "We Love Katamari": link [ytmnd.com]

Re:This is terrible

[syntaxglitch]

I know you probably just wanted to use the line about rolling the dev team into a katamari, but I have to say that I'm actually glad they won't be rehashing the game. One of the major reasons Katamari Damacy was so neat was that it actually had innovative gameplay and it'd be a shame to waste the talent behind it on remakes and sequels.

Might be a good thing

[Y-Crate]

I've always preferred that good movies, TV shows, book series and games, etc go out on top, before becoming nothing more than a money factory devoid of any artistic merit.

How many times have we all read that game series X is getting yet another installment with much-hyped additions that render the game just a marginal improvement over the earlier incarnations? How many times have we all purchased the latest game in a series only to discover we've been sold essentially the same game we already own? Sometimes it's good to just let a good thing die if you're not sure you can really take it any further without compromising the quality.

There are plenty of games out there waiting to be made, riding the same franchises year after year, decade after decade usually ends with a group of hardcore fans that will likely lap up whatever you throw their way, while the masses that flocked to your games move on to something better.

grrrrrrr...

[nmaster64]

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.