UPDATE:

I just got this off of Avault:

Monday, August 18, 2003 - 9:23 am CT
3DO Assets Sold
Reported by: Pat Mulhern

Microsoft has acquired the rights to 3DO's critically acclaimed High Heat Baseball franchise. The company hasn't commented on what will happen to Inside Pitch - currently in development for Xbox - as a result. Microsoft only purchased the High Heat Baseball engine - so they'll have to buy another license agreement if they wish to use MLB's players and likenesses. The purchase of the engine may indicate that Microsoft plans to implement the code into Inside Pitch. Microsoft wasn't the only game publisher to snap up 3DO's properties - Namco and Ubi Soft also made some impressive purchases. Namco bought Street Racing Syndicate for just over $1.5 million and Ubi Soft purchased both Might and Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic for $1.3 million. All other 3DO properties are still available.




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Got this from Gamespot.com......

An official update has been made to the 3DO site detailing the sale of its assets to various companies. Eidos is currently bidding for the Street Racing Syndicate, Heroes of Might and Magic, High Heat Baseball, and Army Men properties. Turbine Entertainment is only bidding for Heroes of Might and Magic and Army Men, while JoWood is bidding on Street Racing Syndicate and Jacked. Namco appears to be going after Street Racing Syndicate as well. Crave and Microsoft are fighting over the High Heat property, and Ubi Soft has put in a bid for Heroes of Might and Magic.

LINK

I don't care who wins I just want the High heat series to continue as well as the Heroes of Might & Magic series.

High Heat is their premiere series, someone must get that development team and keep it going.

Wow, sad to see the end of 3DO for me. I still have my 3DO multiplayer and a ton of games. Too bad most everything they made after the death of the console pretty much sucked. High Heat was the best Baseball game ever made though.

I'll agree with ya on the High heat series being one of their 'premiere' series but Heroes of M & M was the other...some of the most addicting, turn based strategy you'll ever play. They both need to continue.

High Heat is the best console baseball game I've played...period. The PC version, however, needs to go back to the drawing boards.

I doubt we will see a new high heat next year with much improvement if we see one at all. The developers have been off now for 3 months right?

I disagree on Heroes of M&M, but let me explain why. I thought the series was one of the best RPGs on the PC at one time before 3DO bought it. However, once 3DO bought the series I thought they sent it straight down hill. The games seemed more rushed and the care that was once put into them seemed gone.

3DO originated the Heat Heat series and it was always theirs, but they bought Heroes from someone else and IMO ruined it.

I hope someone does buy it and brings it back to its pre 3DO glory.

The only game in that series that was 'rushed' was Heroe's IV thanks largely to 3DO pushing New World Computing(NWC) to have the game in stores by the end of the first quarter in 2002.

NWC has been a division of 3DO since even before Heoroes of Might & Magic II was released. To say that the HOMM series went down hill after they joined with 3DO is ludicrous. Heroes of Might & Magic II was very successful and a great game so was HOMM III. I believe HOMM IV could have been better but 3DO was struggling financially so they rushed the release of their 2 biggest titles(Heroes of M &M and High Heat) hoping it would help dig them out of their hole.

I totally lost all respect for 3DO after they did this. Basically it was like 'screw the consumer. We don't care if it's 'buggy' or incomplete just get it out into the stores and people will buy it because it has the 'High Heat' or 'Heroes of M&M' name on it.

I think you're also confusing the Might & Magic series with the Heroes of Might & Magic series. Now, the Might & Magic series was great all the way up through VII but VIII and IX blew. The Might & Magic series was more of your traditional RPG where as the Heroes of M&M series was more Strategy based with some RPG elements.

Glad to see someone will be getting Street Racing Syndicate...

I bid 23 cents for the Army Men series.

Too rich for my blood... aw, what the hell... 25 cents.

Microsoft got High Heat Baseball
Namco got SRS - Street Racing Syndicate
Ubi Soft got Heroes of Might & Magic

Since I love Heroes III, I am happy to see somebody has an interest in continuing the series. Unless they can get the AI for the next version to function more like HoMM III than HoMM IV I will be sticking to AoW: Shadow Magic.

man SRS was suppose to come out this month now I have to til Jan 2004 for the Xbox version.

I'll pay you double if you take the license, soak it in oil, use a flamethrower on it, then take the remaining bits and ship them off into the sun to be vaporized.

BUMP for Update

I just hope they continue to make a PC version. I've always liked it better than the console version. The console versions have just now caught up to the PC in terms of game features. The mod community for the PC version is great too.

Agreed. I was a big fan of the PC version up until this year. Don't get me wrong the graphical changes were a significant improvement over 2002's PC version but they implemented the same interface used in the console versions. You couldn't navigate the menus with a mouse and stat tracking took a major step backwards, imho.

If Microsoft intends to just plug High Heat's code into their Inside Pitch series then chances are there won't be a PC release.

Yep, I confused the two. Hopefully Ubi Soft will do a good job with the franchise.