Switch Online’s “mature” N64 app expands with two additional games

No matter how strange it is to see an age-restricted video on Nintendo (not even Emio’s trailers are) the copyrights for these games are… confusing to say the least. Shadow Man as a license is still controlled by Valiant Corpse, so this makes sense; But Turok is Penguin Random House? I thought it was over under Comcast’s control.

But the real question mark is why they’re both called “Night Dive Studios.” The end of each legal text makes it clear that this actually refers to Nightdive Studios, which makes up half of Atari’s current development resources. Now, Wade Rosen has made a big bid to buy “most” of Accolade, but when he finally (finally) released a full number of assets for Atari’s existing IP registry in August, only 11 of the approximately 90 IP Accolade controlled were listed on its demise. It is also owned by the current iteration. Although many Intellivision IPs are counted multiple times, Microscope is somehow one of the largest divisions despite being the only division that still comes out (despite everything).

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1e-tl9Oqwnr78879Lnne_uhlsGkPWFK_z428ZmUaJjog/edit?usp=sharing

Now note that Nightdive has its own section alongside Digital Eclipse (and ignore the Intellivision duplicates and the random appearance of Other Ocean’s IDARB), yet it only lists 5 IPs for them specifically. One of them is the System Shock series owned by Tencent, none of which mention partial ownership of licensed Accolade games.

THQNordic has inherited the code rights to all original THQ-licensed games; This is how Rehydrated could exist, but THQ was a much cleaner block. The prize has been divided and resold so many times that it has become a mutilated and abused Frankenstein. Even more so than Atari itself which is in 3 known quantities: Atari 7, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Songbird. There are still missing pieces of Accolade in Canada and parts of China.

All of this is to say that NoA’s legal department knows the secrets of the universe that keep me awake at night. shouting