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Last month, Lab Zero Games and Autumn Games, the developer and current publisher of Skullgirls respectively, announced that they were terminating their business relationship with Konami, who had previously handled publishing duties of Skullgirls on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.
The reason for this, Lab Zero CEO Peter Bartholow shared, was that Konami had been unresponsive on the matter of releasing patches for Skullgirls on consoles. As a result, the game is currently in a transition phase, during which publishing duties and responsibilities are being handed over to Autumn in their entirety.
In the meantime, however, it looks as though Konami are requesting for Skullgirls to be removed from Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. Lab Zero reveal on the Skullgirls forums that both Microsoft and Sony have complied with the request, and the game will be removed from Xbox Live on December 31st, while the PSN version will be taken down on December 17th.
As a result, Lab Zero Games are currently in the process of getting a new build of the game prepped for publishing by Autumn Games on PSN and Marvelous AQL on Xbox Live. On their forums, Lab Zero write: “One of the reasons a new build is necessary is that if SG keeps using the same Communications ID for the game, Konami would be able to shut the game down whenever it wants.”
Just when this new build of Skullgirls will be up on Xbox Live and PSN is unknown at this point, as it would need to pass quality assurance first. Additionally, Sony have said that PS3 owners will not need to re-buy the game, but aren’t certain how the transition to the new build will work, as this is the first time such a situation has presented itself. Meanwhile, the Steam version of the game will be completely unaffected, as it was published by Marvelous AQL.
We’ll keep you updated as the situation develops further.
