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HoopWorld benched until 2007

By Brian Ekberg, GameSpotPosted Sep 11, 2006 4:30 pm PT

Xbox Live Arcade basketbrawl game delayed as second studio chips in to help it meet Microsoft content guidelines.

Originally expected to be hitting the Xbox Live Arcade court sometime this year, Amsterdam-based Streamline Studios' HoopWorld has been benched until 2007 to allow for a bit of development teamwork.

Streamline Studios told GameSpot that it has entered into a partnership with Spanish studio Virtual Toys to finish up development on the Unreal Engine-powered HoopWorld. Work on the game between the two studios has already begun, according to Streamline cofounder Hector Fernandez.

Over the past five years, Streamline Studios has made a name for itself as a development support house, assisting in the production of games such as Unreal Tournament 2004, Ghost Recon 2, and the recently released Saints Row. Last year, the studio announced HoopWorld as its first original game, and the over-the-top basketball game was shown off both at the 2006 Game Developers Conference in San Jose as well as at the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Virtual Toys, characterized by Fernandez as a "hardcore engineering house," has been charged with making sure HoopWorld conforms to the guidelines set forth by Microsoft for Xbox Live Arcade games, including a 50MB size limit. The Madrid-based developer previously worked on Torrente for PC (which was released in the US in 2004), and was one of the first European developers to work on the PlayStation 2.

"We're basically looking to have their engineering expertise to make sure we get all our content within [the mandated] limitations," Fernandez said.

According to Fernandez, this won't mean a dramatic rethinking of the basketbrawl concept that is at the heart of HoopWorld. As for whether the additional development time will result in new content for the game, he's keeping his options open on that as well.

"It's speculative," he said, when asked if the game will include addition content. "We'll have everything we intended and then we'll see."

When asked about the experience developing for Xbox Live Arcade, Fernandez was enthusiastic, especially in light of the recent release of the XNA Game Studio Express development platform. "It really empowers a lot of next-gen developers," Fernandez said. "When we first started [HoopWorld], we didn't even have final hardware. Now [developers] have a general idea of the framework. It's beneficial for everyone."

33 Comments

  • _Sam_

    Posted Sep 14, 2006 4:08 pm PT

    @navypilot908 so there are no other games you want

  • jcloverboy

    Posted Sep 13, 2006 1:08 pm PT

    was looking forward to this one.

  • RunnerGunner480

    Posted Sep 12, 2006 1:49 pm PT

    Scorpicore, most N64 games were around 10mb. But I think that 360 arcade games are more because of the HD factor.

  • Scorpicore47

    Posted Sep 12, 2006 1:40 pm PT

    How are you people people saying 50MB is a small amount for development. Some of the greatest games like Goldeneye 64, Perfect Dark and Super Mario 64 were under or around the 50 MB range plus you forget that they can compress the hell outta these files because they have an immense amount of extra processing power to use which will definately not be used for a 2d or simple 3d game.

  • navypilot908

    Posted Sep 12, 2006 11:36 am PT

    This is the only reason I was going to buy a 360 oh well

  • Holesinswiss

    Posted Sep 12, 2006 9:07 am PT

    50MB cap for arcade games is a good thing IMO. Remember, these are supposed to be small, portable, cheap games. From a pragmatic standpoint, they need to fit on a memory card too (64MB).

  • merek16_basic

    Posted Sep 12, 2006 9:06 am PT

    The reason for the 50mb cap is so that any 360 owner that dosnt own a HDD but owns a memory card or 2, can atleast fit an arcade game so they can purhcase and or play. When head manager of the XBLA team spoke abou the cap, he mention that in the future restrictions will be change. so expect it to go up with the release of the 256 mb card

  • wenbin09

    Posted Sep 12, 2006 7:39 am PT

    that's long~~

  • TintedChimes

    Posted Sep 12, 2006 6:59 am PT

    Huh?

  • LordAndrew

    Posted Sep 12, 2006 6:21 am PT

    A 50 MB cap? That's not cool.

  • mirlegend

    Posted Sep 12, 2006 4:06 am PT

    bah i was looking forward to that game aswell. oh well i hope small arms is still on for this year.

  • mirlegend

    Posted Sep 12, 2006 4:06 am PT

    bah i was looking forward to that game aswell. oh well i hope small arms is still on for this year.

  • Benny_is_here

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 10:26 pm PT

    Sounds cool.

    Should they raise the cap? Sure, but you can do a lot with 50 MB, especially if they use that technology .kkrieger uses. You know, that FPS game that's 100 KB's.

    Maybe MS will do like NewGrounds and raise the cap for certain devs. Then again, NewGrounds' cap is to conserve banwith. MS is just being annoying with their cap

  • Pablo620

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 10:01 pm PT

    The latest issue of game informer has a good article on Xbox Live Arcade and how it isnt what MS said it would be

  • comthitnuong

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 8:45 pm PT

    i dont care much for xbla games anywasy

  • KronikKilla

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 8:45 pm PT

    Sphynxa, you're dead on there. 100MB if you want to cap, but I wouldn't be capping until 250-300MB. Gotta give developers room to work with if you're going to limit them. I wish that once Windows goes Live, there would be a way to burn a signed ISO of an arcade game off of the PC for use on the 360, since everything is going to be intergrated anyways. That way the meager 20GB doesn't get used up, and if it is signed with say, the SN from your 360, it would only be playable on THAT 360. Or a signature of a Live account, so only that user could play the game. I just think with all this intergration they're going to be doing, there are better ways of going about the arcade and ways to allow the developers to make bigger games.

  • oddworld7

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 8:27 pm PT

    its kinda ironic. A dev that supports other company now seeks support from other company.

    I don't mind waiting for hoopworld though

  • samekila

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 8:24 pm PT

    looking forward to this arcade title good thing it got a delay I have to get Gears of War ,smackdown 07, the camra for the 360 and a Wii with a game or 2 for that this year just bought saints row and dead rising I have alot to play till then

  • nintendorocks

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 8:07 pm PT

    Sounds good to me. As long as it takes to make the game good.

  • giantfryingpan

    Posted Sep 11, 2006 7:28 pm PT

    It will take a herculean effort for the developers to make a Basketbrawler superior to the greatest game of all time, Shaq-Fu.

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