Acclaim Entertainment announced today that it has acquired development teams and assets from former studio Software Creations. The company has elected to form a new software development subsidiary using these new groups and assets, with added Acclaim members, out of Manchester, England. The house will be called, suitably enough, Acclaim Studios Manchester.
Software Creations was responsible for several Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games, including two upcoming GBA titles: Stuart Little 2 for Activision and All-Star Baseball 2003 for Acclaim. Both games are finished and are awaiting release. Software Creations, according to an overseas Acclaim representative, is "no longer in existence."
"This acquisition and the subsequent building of our Manchester studio, broadens our global development capabilities to create innovative products that harness the power of the next-generation platforms," said Rod Cousens, president and chief operating officer, Acclaim International. "Having worked with many of these talented professionals over the last few years, we have benefited from their proven multi-platform expertise and ability to deliver quality titles on schedule. We're confident that they will continue to enhance our portfolio of products."
The new subsidiary has appointed former Software Creations CEO Paul Hibbard as general manager. He will report directly to John Ma, executive vice president of product development at Acclaim Entertainment.
"We are pleased to have Paul and his teams join our global development family, and are very excited by their intellectual properties that are currently in development," added John Ma. "Given the opportunity, we also believe that they can play an integral role in building upon some of our key franchises for this hardware cycle and beyond."
The new studio is more than 70 employees strong and working with proprietary tools developed by former development house Software Creations.