After Crash sells big, Activision gets bullish on nostalgia

Enlarge / Sweet hat, Crash.

Crash Bandicoot generally doesn't get the same kind of love as classic gaming mascots like Mario and Sonic in gaming's nostalgia-obsessed zeitgeist. So the success of the recent Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy re-release is taking even publisher Activision by surprise, and it has the company thinking about reviving other classic properties.

N.Sane Trilogy was the top-selling game globally for the month of June, Activision said during a recent conference call, despite being only available on one console for two days of the month. The game was also the most downloaded title on PSN for July, according to Sony, results that "outperform[ed] even our most optimistic expectations" as Activision put it. That success is even leading to what's probably the first ever example of some popular Crash Bandicoot-themed memes.

"We knew that there was a passionate audience out there for Crash-full disclosure, myself among them-but we had no idea..." Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg said in an earnings call yesterday. "It's hard to tell if that's a vocal minority or that's a real mass audience until you put something out there. Crash has surpassed all of our expectations by a pretty wide margin."

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments