At Comic-Con International Microsoft and Marvel announced a licensing agreement under the terms of which, Microsoft has obtained the exclusive rights to develop and publish massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) featuring Marvel's iconic universe of Super Heroes for use in games developed for the Xbox 360 system and published by Microsoft Game Studios.
Marvel's stable of Super Heroes is known throughout the world and their epic stories have been forever etched into popular culture. Though originating in comic form, the Marvel myths have been a force in feature films, television shows and video games such as best-selling titles based on the Spider-Man, X-Men and Hulk franchises.
MMOGs, which enable thousands of players to interact online simultaneously, represent one of the biggest areas of growth for the multibillion-dollar interactive entertainment industry. The Marvel-based titles will be developed for the Xbox 360 console platform.
Further details regarding Microsoft and Marvel's MMOG titles will be released in the coming months. To recap, Microsoft and Marvel will team up to create an MMOG title with plenty of heroes, presumably those tireless crimefighters will need to live somewhere and will possibly choose the same location, probably a city. This so called City of Heroes then, will be accessed by gamers in order to play the game.
It must have been embarrassing to Marvel that a gaming company bypassed its expensive stable of heroes and still managed to produce a successful game based on generic but user created characters.
Stay tuned for further details which may elucidate the purpose of this city of heroes and if we are lucky may include an announcement regarding the place of residents of the Villains of the Marvel universe. Presumably they will also choose to reside in a convenient urban location forming a collective, a City of Villains if you will...
