Tony Hawk Considers Releasing Skateboard Games for Mobile

[roseofbattle]

Tony Hawk Considers Releasing Skateboard Games for Mobile

The former professional skateboarder with a franchise of games sees an opening in mobile games.

Now 45 years old, Tony Hawk has retired from professional skateboarding competitions and focuses on a skateboarding videogame series spanning 16 titles so far. His first game launched in 1999 when game consoles ruled the market. "The Birdman" has decided the time is right to take on the world of mobile gaming.

"You just have to adapt and you have to realize where people are going to actually play their games," Hawk said at the Dublin Web Summit, a large technology conference. "It used to just be Nintendo and PlayStation, and now it's all kind of devices. So you've got to learn to adapt what you know from the technology into those areas... I've been wanting to do a mobile game for a long time."

Hawk said "freemium" is the best model for mobile gaming right now. Games are made available to play for free, but additional content requires a fee. Hawk would make a game that asked players for money to progress to further levels.

Hawk's first game, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater launched in 1999 for PlayStation. The franchise's games continued, launching on various systems such as the N64, PC, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Xbox 360, handhelds, and more. The latest game in the franchise is an HD rerelease of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Pro Skater 2.

There's a lot of competition out in gaming now, but Hawk said he has an advantage over competitors because of his well-known brand. "I think that we established ourselves pretty early on in our series and so people think of that as the standard for skateboarding video games."

Source: CNBC [http://www.cnbc.com/id/101154724?__source=yahoo%7Cfinance%7Cheadline%7Cheadline%7Cstory&par=yahoo&doc=101154724%7CTony%20Hawk:%20I%27m%20ready%20to%20t]

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[josemlopes]

Tony Hawk games were good but then there came a point where the new content wasnt really that interesting and the rest of it we had already played in the other games (so there really wasnt there much need to buy a 60$ new game for a similar experience).

SKATE did well by offering a new way of playing a skate game and that was basicly enough, I still think that Tony Hawk games can have a place in the market but only by doing something simple and straight to the point (focus on the core gameplay), the HD remake was a mess with very poor framerate (in this game it matters), all they need to do is make a Tony Hawk game that is supposed to be the purest Tony Hawk Pro Skater experience, 60FPS with many maps for everyone that was fan of this series to have a definitive version to fall into.


Also mobile games are terrible for games that have very sensitive controls, THPS is one of them.

 

[Roofstone]

It is a well known brand, that is true. Though I suppose Skate overtook it in popularity some time ago? I might be mistaken.

I might buy a mobile Tony Hawk game, I have fond memories.

 

[CriticalMiss]

Hawk would make a game that asked players for money to progress to further levels.

Somehow I don't see that doing the franchise any good. It's already past it's prime - and has been for years - and Skate seems to have overthrown THPS too. Just having a well known brand doesn't mean guaranteed success.

 

[karloss01]

What he actually meant to say was "Because my peripheral bombed twice, i'm no longer able to get funding for a console game. so here I am at mobile gaming."

The times haven't move on Tony, Time just hated your games.