Anno 1701 coming to the DS
 

From here:

I loved the PC game - and I know many of you guys have been following the series for quite a while, so I figured I'd share!

I didn´t realize this was news when I saw it a few months ago. ;)

Anno 1701 is officially the best selling PC game in Germany 2006. It´s still on the number 1 chart position after two months, sometimes interrupted for a week by another game. With WoW around the corner it will soon drop a place but still continue to sell well.

Keen Games is the new studio founded by the leads of the former JoWooD studio Neon Games. Their last game, the jump & run Legend of Kay received very good reviews but was a commercial flop for reasons we all know. ;)

I didn't see it until now - this is the first mention since Leipzig, when I guess it was announced …

To tell the truth, I never had much liking for the Anno series, but in similar news, I only recently discovered that Disciples 2, Warlords and Jagged Alliance (unsure exactly which one) are all coming for the NDS as well.

Jagged Alliance is #2 as well. Those are all supposedly coming sometime this year …loads of strategy coming - I mentioned Anno only because I know many here are big fans of that series.

The thing that bugsme is that sooo many games for handhelds are games I'sd like to play on the PC.

But no, the publishers won't never ever ever release them fopr the PC, simply because they don't look like flashy, eye-candy-looking 3D graphics.

I still love to play Commander Keen, simply because it's huge fun, and I don't feel bothered by the non-3D-graphics at all. I believe "marketing experts" of bigger publishers would call me mad for that.

Instead I call *them* mad, because they don't want to publish anything that has not 3D.

Um … isn't every game mentioned in this thread a PC game?

Thing is, re-releasing these things for PC in their 2D state wouldn't sell … but on a GBA or even DS screen they get tremendous flexibility and don't have to totally redo the graphics.

Look at Age of Empires: Age of Kings for the DS - they turned it from RTS to TBS and integrated touch screen and other elements, and it was brilliant! Not perfect, but a really good game that was completely independent of the PC and yet felt like playing a PC game.

Star Wars : Flight of the Falcon isn't a PC game, for example.

THANK INNOS for that! :D

But that was the first time that game came up in the thread - or are you just talking about the general trend of releasing games for GBA / DS / PSP that could be good on the PC?

Yes, rather that. I mean that I would simply like games that are exclusives on handhelds on the PC, too. And I wouldn't mind the graphics at all, as long as there is fun in it. ;)

There is a nice new preview of the game here, citing a late summer UK release. I hope the fact that Disney is working on it secures a US release :)

Even more interesting stuff …

A cool video that shows … it will be just like you would expect!

Also a cubic heckovalot of screens …

This is definitely high on my wish list for the summer.

In the news today:

Ubisoft wants to buy Sunflowers!
Sunflowers agrees this is a good idea. Anno 1701 is Germany´s most successful strategy franchise with more then 5M units sold. Also part of the deal is Sunflowers´ 30% stake in Anno 1701 developer Related Designs.
After the acquisition Ubi will have a dominant position on the German strategy market because they also own the other strong brand, The Settlers, though the Blue Byte deal a couple of years ago.








Ubi´s investment is a sign that the big publishers perceive a clear upward trend in the quality delivered by German developers.

And this might mean a huge quality drop in German games for the future.
Look at what they did with The Settlers.
The Settlers II & III were great strategy games. Look at what hapenned with the fifth installment.

That´s also what I think might happen. Ubi will push them towards a faster development cycle and maybe additional platforms. Which will reduce the time available to refine things.

Even more than "wants"

So who knows … sometimes these things are good, other times not so good …

Yes, the German newsbit I found first was not precise enough.

Latest update:
The Sunflowers founders will take the money and open a new company to work on MMOs. Part of the development team will follow. Ubi wants to talk to the remaining staff (without clarification on whether the topic is "stay" or "leave" ;) ).

Source

Cool new interview at PocketGamer.uk:

Jagged alliance 2 going to NDS? It will be great to be able to play JA2 on the go, though I imagine it will be cut down significantly in terms of content.

I wouldn't assume too much in terms of content - the DS is quite capable of holding 40+ hour games … but we have no idea what this will all look like. The Settlers game is due in June, and from there we can assess the potential for the Warlords & JA2 games.