E3 06: THQ hires Stuntman, buys Paradigm

May 10, 2006 7:46AM PDT

California publisher is making the sequel to the popular 2002 PS2 game, and scooping up the internal Atari studio.

LOS ANGELES--In February, Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell announced that his financially troubled company was shifting development away from its internal studios to external outfits. Then, last month, it announced that it had sold the rights to the Xbox game TimeShift, developed by external shop Sabre Interactive, to Vivendi Games, which promptly announced Xbox 360 and PC versions.

Today, Atari revealed it has killed two birds with one stone. First the company has hocked an IP in development at one of its internal studios. In a terse statement to the media, the publisher announced it has raised $13 million through the sale of TimeShift and Stuntman. The latter transaction involved selling the sequel to the popular 2002 PlayStation 2 game to another publisher.

Which lucky firm gets to do its own publishing stunts? In a parallel announcement, THQ revealed it has bought Stuntman 2, which is in development for next-generation consoles at Atari-owned Paradigm Entertainment. THQ also announced that it has "exercised its option to acquire Paradigm Entertainment," meaning Bonnell has also succeeded in selling off one of his company's internal studios.

"Stuntman is a great complement to our growing stable of original content targeting the core gamer on next-generation systems," said Kelly Flock, THQ's executive vice president of worldwide publishing, in a statement.

By Tor Thorsen

14 comments

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jakeboudville

really impressive

cyrax_smetsers

Loved the Drop the Baseline Soundtrack from the first Stunt man amazing Stunt Course Edit mode though in the first one.

rbarahona

I hope that they can re-invent the franchise and try to make a better game the same way Capcom re-invented Resident Evil.

DrKill09

Go THQ! Maybe you guys can take the boring Stuntman, and make it fun. I'm glad Infogrames are goin in the crapper. Untalented bastards.

gibb1

let's hope this isn't like older stuntman, i

snake3rules

yes! This game was so great, and I was always curious why they didnt make a sequel. I mean, movie car chases -- there've got to be nearly a thousand. This is the only game in the last five years ive sat around with a bunch of friends and played literally all night.

papimillenium

well not really cause as soon as they are able to boost there share prices pontential past a dollar on the stock market before august i believe the last reported stated. They then will be able to still stay a publicly traded company and thats good news for shareholders, and co.

EBWCLIF

I love Stuntman! Doing the same annoying thing over and over again is my idea of the perfect game! Yaaaay! Atari will be out of business soon. What do they have left, the Driver series and Dora the Explorer?

blackIceJoe

Lets hope the Next Stuntman will be a fun one.

RKFSFANX

5th!

tergeoglou

no matter who uses it, the atari name is bad luck. they should let it rest in the videogame graveyard

Veetox

Stuntman is an amazing Game!

ilikeschool

second?? well its cool that there is a second stuntman, i thought the first one was decent.

TimSpot

First! Wait - I work here...

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