Pac Man Founder Calls It Quits with New Version

By Ed Oswald | Published June 6, 2007, 6:30 PM

For a video game legend, Wednesday's release of "Pac Man Championship Edition" for Xbox 360 will mark the end of a nearly three-decade career for one of gaming's most illustrious developers.

Toru Iwatani, now 52, will retire from Namco -- the company that helped propel his game to worldwide acclaim -- and turn his focus to mentoring the next generation of developers by teaching at Tokyo Polytechnic University.

The new Pac Man title was personally designed by Iwatani and is his last with the company. Its debut came at the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championships, where finalists got the first chance to play the game.

While new games based on the popular franchise may be released in the future, Iwatani will not be directly involved with them. He did open the possibility of working in an advisory role or letting his students create the next sequel.

Pac Man Championship Edition operates much like the original version, yet offers some enhancements over previous versions. Iwatani said that he wanted to capture the feel of the original game when creating the new one.

Those interested in the game would be able to download it from the Xbox Live Marketplace for the equivalent of about $10.

Comments

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LOL, this was the exciting 360 news, that everyone was hyped about...

http://www.xbox360fanboy...ncement-coming-tomorrow/

Some very disappointed 360 owners... Let's hope Sony does not have a killer announcement on Monday 11th...

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well they won't, cause their Fony

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I played this last night and its actually pretty cool.

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I like the original, I still play it to this day with MAME. You have to know the patterns to be worth a sh!t.

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You are so right. I quite like some of the original variations, such as Mrs Pacman.

And the cartoons remind me of the 1980s...

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Forget that. The grandaddy of them all is Pong, as featured in the opening sequence of one of the greatest movies of all time, Russ Meyers "Beyond the Valley of the Ultravixens."

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I think you mean "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens".

Sheesh.

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YAY (sarcasm)

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Kids these days ....

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