Round-Up: Reggie Speaks, Gizmondo Texas Closes, Transformers Licensed

Today's round-up includes news on a new Reggie Fils-Aime editorial on brand marketing for Nintendo, news on the shutdown of Gizmondo's development studio in Texas, and news on the Transformers movie to game license, as well as today's GameSetWatch weblog posts, product news, and Gamasutra job postings. - Nintendo of America VP of marketing Reggie Fils-Aime has contributed an editorial to advertising magazine BrandWeek, available online. In it, he classifies Nintendo's strategy of using non-traditional content in games such as Nintendogs and the upcoming Brain Age as "disruptive technologies," a term coined by Harvard professor Clayton Christensten. As he has in the past, Fils-Aime touts the value of expanding the market with the "disruptive" approach, citing a need to expand beyond the shrinking 18-to-24 male consumer base. "In short, the sensible path seems clear," says Fils-Aime in the editorial, "disrupt before you're disrupted." - According to a post on the Viridian Games weblog, Gizmondo's Texas development offices have been closed as part of the company's ongoing breakdown. The Gizmondo title Hit & Myth was in development at the studios, and was completed, but may not now ever get an official release, as a worker for the team mentions: "Hit & Myth went gold in late October, but Gizmondo didn’t have the necessary cash to publish it. They didn’t even have the cash to pay for the XForge library we had used to create the game, requiring us to spend another month rewriting the game to work without that library." Lead designer Wynne McLaughlin, who has also been updating his weblog with news of the change, has already shifted to a new position at NCsoft, working on Tabula Rasa. - Activision has obtained the Transformers license from Hasbro, in order to make games based on the toys and upcoming 2007 film. "Transformers has all of the elements necessary to translate incredibly well into video games," said Activision president and CEO Mike Griffith "We look forward to bringing the Transformers robots to life with the latest interactive technology and graphics." The transforming robots have already seen one game in the PlayStation 2's hardware generation from Atari, who formerly held the rights to other iterations of the license, but did not apparently successfully grab the movie license. - Recent posts on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include info on some forthcomign Xbox 360 Live Arcade titles, a look at the Lara Croft 'desktop buddy', and an interview regarding a new Monkey Island-related mod for UT2004, among others. - Also updated today: product news, including Red 5's licensing of the Offset game engine, Discovery Firm's new royalty-free music sample site, and an update to the DirectX 10 SDK, as well as the latest Gamasutra job postings from companies including Amaze Entertainment, Artificial Mind & Movement, Hi-Rez Studios, LucasArts, Powerhead Games, Pronto Games, Rockstar Vancouver, SkillJam, The Art Institute of California San Francisco, and Turner Broadcasting.