Jakks to tackle Tecmo Bowl

Less than a month after it announced that it was going to manufacture plug-and-play versions of EA Sports titles, Jakks Pacific has struck a deal with another prestigious publisher. The publisher announced late today that it is developing Tecmo Bowl TV Games, a compilation of classic Tecmo titles in a single, integrated controller that can be directly plugged into a television. The compilation will include Tecmo Basketball, Mighty Bombjack, Fire-n-Ice, Solomon’s Key, and, naturally, Tecmo Bowl. It is scheduled for release in 2005.

“Tecmo Bowl is a hugely successful mainstream football classic,” said Jakks vice president Nelo Lucich. “We expect that Tecmo Bowl, along with the other Tecmo titles, will also be successful on our TV Games platform.” Among the other retro titles Jakks is developing controllers for are the Mortal Kombat series offerings and the classic Spider-Man games. The controllers are scheduled for retail release this fall.