Pac-Man From Hasbro?

Hasbro Interactive has become one of the great success stories of the industry. It has multiple games on the top-ten list and owns the rights to publishing games based on its parent company's board and parlor games. On Wednesday, Hasbro Interactive announced it had signed an agreement with Namco to develop, publish, and distribute games based on eleven Namco properties. To give gamers a true sense of how big this could be for the company, those properties are Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Pole Position, Mappy, Dragon Buster, Galaxian, Metro Cross, Bosconian, Galaga, and Rally-X.

"We expect the Namco properties to greatly enhance our position in the action-games category," explained Hasbro Interactive president Tom Dusenberry. "Our success with Frogger on both the PC and the PlayStation game console has paved the way for future development in this genre of games. The Namco properties are an excellent fit with Hasbro Interactive's classic games heritage."

Hasbro has the PC rights to Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, and console rights to Pole Position, Mappy, Dragon Buster, Galaxian, Metro Cross, Bosconian, Galaga, and Rally-X licenses.

"Hasbro Interactive's success in bringing classic arcade games to the mass-market made them the right partner for us in this venture," said Namco managing director Yasuhiko Asada. Namco will introduce the first 3D Pac-Man game this fall, Pac-Man World 20th Anniversary for the PlayStation game console. "There is a huge market for retro entertainment. We're putting a major emphasis on Pac-Man around our launch of Pac-Man World 20th Anniversary this fall, and Hasbro Interactive will help us carry the momentum well into 2000 and beyond with new versions for the PC."

While Namco is releasing Pac-Man World 20th Anniversary on the PlayStation, the offering won't impede Hasbro Interactive's plans to launch the yellow ghost-gobbler on the PC.

During E3 in May, Hasbro Interactive will debut games like Pong, Tetris and Missile Command - all three games are due out this fall. Until then, the company will also be releasing an Atari compilation CD-ROM that will let gamers play the original versions of the games.