BigPark

Last updated
BigPark
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Video games
Founded2007;17 years ago (2007)
Defunct2016;8 years ago (2016)
Headquarters Vancouver, Canada
Parent Microsoft Studios

BigPark was a Canadian video game developer owned by Microsoft Studios.

Contents

History

Microsoft acquired BigPark in 2009, a few months prior to the announcement of the Kinect sensor (known then as "Project Natal"). [1] [2] Their first project was to be Joy Ride, a casual racing title which incorporated Xbox Live Avatars and used the Kinect motion sensing device. The game was originally intended to be a free Xbox Live Arcade game, but was eventually renamed Kinect Joy Ride and became a launch title for Kinect. Later, the company became more involved in providing interactive content that would be shown alongside live television as part of the Xbox One platform. [3] As Microsoft moved away from the Kinect around 2016, BigPark along with several other studios that had been part of Microsoft's Kinect efforts were folded into the company. [4]

Games

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rare (company)</span> British video game developer

Rare Limited is a British video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Twycross, Leicestershire. Rare's games span the platform, first-person shooter, action-adventure, fighting, and racing genres. Its most popular games include the Battletoads, Donkey Kong, and Banjo-Kazooie series, as well as games like GoldenEye 007 (1997), Perfect Dark (2000), Conker's Bad Fur Day (2001), Viva Piñata (2006), and Sea of Thieves (2018).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xbox Game Studios</span> American video game publisher

Xbox Game Studios is an American video game publisher based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, spun out from an internal Games Group, for the development and publishing of video games for Microsoft Windows. It has since expanded to include games and other interactive entertainment for the namesake Xbox platforms, other desktop operating systems, Windows Mobile and other mobile platforms, web-based portals, and other game consoles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vicious Cycle Software</span> American video game developer

Vicious Cycle Software was an American video game development company based in Morrisville, North Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Mattrick</span> Canadian businessman

Donald Allan Mattrick is a Canadian businessman who previously was the CEO of social gaming company Zynga and the president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft in 2007, Mattrick worked at Electronic Arts for 15 years as the president of Worldwide Studios. In 1982, he founded Distinctive Software, which was later acquired by Electronic Arts in 1991 and renamed to EA Vancouver.

The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information announced later that month at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). As a seventh-generation console, it primarily competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii.

Xbox Avatars are avatars and characters that represent users of the Xbox network on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and Series S video game consoles, Windows 10, and Windows 10 Mobile. Avatars originally debuted on the Xbox 360 as part of the "New Xbox Experience" system update released on November 19, 2008, updated on Xbox One with "New Xbox One Experience" Xbox One System Software on November 12, 2015, and reimagined with the release of the next generation character for Xbox One on October 11, 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twisted Pixel Games</span> American video game developer

Twisted Pixel Games, LLC is an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. Originally a contractor, Twisted Pixel releases games based on its own intellectual properties such as The Maw and 'Splosion Man. The company uses its own proprietary engine, known as Beard, to power its games. On October 12, 2011, it was announced that Twisted Pixel had become part of Microsoft Studios. However, Twisted Pixel separated from Microsoft, and became an independent company again on September 30, 2015. In November 2021, the company became a subsidiary of Oculus Studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robomodo</span> American video game developer

Robomodo was an American independent video game developer based in Chicago, Illinois. Robomodo was formed in early 2008 by former employees of Midway Games and EA Chicago. They are best known for being the developer of several post-Neversoft games in the Tony Hawk franchise from Tony Hawk: Ride (2009) to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 (2015), most of which were met with varying degrees of negative reception from critics and fans alike. Nearly a year after Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 was released, Robomodo went out of business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinect</span> Motion-sensing input device for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Kinect is a discontinued line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flight calculations, which can in turn be used to perform real-time gesture recognition and body skeletal detection, among other capabilities. They also contain microphones that can be used for speech recognition and voice control.

<i>Project Milo</i> Video game

Project Milo was a project in development by Lionhead Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. Formerly a secretive project under the early codename "Dimitri", Project Milo was unveiled at the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in a demonstration for Kinect, as a "controller-free" entertainment initiative for the Xbox 360 based on depth-sensing and pattern recognition technologies. The project was a tech demo to showcase the capabilities of Kinect and was not released, despite conflicting reports that the project was an actual game.

<i>Kinect Joy Ride</i> 2010 video game

Kinect Joy Ride is a racing game for Xbox 360 and a launch title for its Kinect hardware in 2010. The game was developed by BigPark and published by Microsoft Game Studios.

<i>Fruit Ninja</i> 2010 video game

Fruit Ninja is a video game developed by Halfbrick originally released on August 12, 2010. In the game, the player must slice fruit that is thrown into the air by swiping the device's touch screen with their finger(s) or the player's arms and hands, and must not slice bombs. It features multiple gameplay modes, leaderboards and multiplayer.

<i>The Gunstringer</i> 2011 video game

The Gunstringer is a third-person rail shooter video game developed by Twisted Pixel Games and published by Microsoft Studios for Xbox 360 with Kinect. It was originally planned as an Xbox Live Arcade release, but was later made into a full retail game.

<i>Kinect: Disneyland Adventures</i> 2011 video game

Kinect: Disneyland Adventures is a 2011 open world video game developed by Frontier Developments and published by Microsoft Studios on Kinect for Xbox 360, with a remaster for Xbox One and Microsoft Windows developed by Asobo Studio released in 2017 as simply Disneyland Adventures. It takes place in a recreation of Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, circa 2011, with themed games in place of many of the rides, while motion controls are used to play the game.

<i>Joy Ride Turbo</i> 2012 video game

Joy Ride Turbo is a kart racing game developed by BigPark and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360. The sequel to Kinect Joy Ride, the player controls their avatar as they drive vehicles in a combat racing tournament. Unlike its predecessor, Joy Ride Turbo does not use the Kinect peripheral. Originally outed via a rating on the Australian Classification Board on April 11, 2012, it was unveiled by Microsoft Studios on April 27 and released on May 23, 2012. It was later added as one of the first 100 titles on the Xbox One backwards compatibility list on November 9, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xbox</span> Video gaming brand owned by Microsoft

Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox network and Xbox Game Pass. The brand is produced by Microsoft Gaming, a division of Microsoft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Majesco Entertainment</span> American video game publisher and distributor

Majesco Entertainment Company is an American video game publisher and distributor based in Hazlet, New Jersey. The company was founded as Majesco Sales in Edison, New Jersey in 1986, and was a privately held company until acquiring operation-less company ConnectivCorp in a reverse merger takeover, becoming its subsidiary and thus a public company on December 5, 2003. ConnectivCorp later changed its name to Majesco Holdings Inc. on April 13, 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xbox One</span> Video game console developed by Microsoft

The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Australia, and South America in November 2013 and in Japan, China, and other European countries in September 2014. It is the first Xbox game console to be released in China, specifically in the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone. Microsoft marketed the device as an "all-in-one entertainment system", hence the name "Xbox One". An eighth-generation console, it mainly competed against Sony's PlayStation 4 and Nintendo's Wii U and later the Switch.

Bongfish GmbH is a video game developer and publisher in Graz, Austria. Originally founded as a start-up in the science incubator of Graz University of Technology, the company was established in its current form in 2007.

References

  1. "Microsoft Agrees to Acquire BigPark Inc". Microsoft. Archived from the original on May 10, 2009. Retrieved 2011-03-29.
  2. "Amid Layoffs, Microsoft Acquires Game Company BigPark". www.cbsnews.com. 7 May 2009. Retrieved 2020-02-02.
  3. Kyllo, Blaine (January 24, 2014). "BigPark Studios enters the interactive-TV arena". The Georgia Straight . Retrieved February 7, 2019.
  4. "A Microsoft Studios Website Cleanup Turned Into Unfounded Rumors Of Impending Layoffs". Game Informer . Archived from the original on March 10, 2016.