nSpace's Winter Lacks a Publisher, Petition

A game concept for Wii from nSpace has been revealed, an atmospheric survival-horror that lacks a publisher.

The developer of the spooky first person GameCube shooter Geist and more recently Call of Duty DS, has shown IGN their survival-horror project known as Winter.

It had been in development as a quick concept (approx 6 weeks) around two years ago to show to potential publishers. Winter deals with a poor lady, Mia, as she finds herself in a wrecked ambulance with no recollection of how she arrived. At first we need to keep her alive - shelter her from the freezing temperatures, but soon we discover she has a connection to the beasts that begin to appear...

Unfortunately due to the Wii's flood of crap the Florida-based studio has found it hard to find a third-party publisher willing to take a gamble on a traditional game for Wii.

A fan petition has already started to express interest and hopefully get a publisher on board. For more information and artwork, head on over to the IGN Interview.

IGN: Tell us what happened. Why didn't this game find a publisher? What was the general reaction?

Dan: We pitched Winter tirelessly for months. The response was universally positive. Every single PD department was very excited about it and confident about moving forward. The look, the story, the overall tone and genre, the gameplay mechanics -- it all came together to create something very compelling for the Wii, something that got gamers excited.

With each presentation would come a wave of enthusiastic follow-ups from the publisher. There was so much clamor for the title it was, frankly, kind of overwhelming. We left GDC that year feeling very confident about placing the title quickly and on our terms.

Unfortunately, that wasn't to be. In almost every case we got hung up with the sales and marketing groups. They simply could not get behind a survival horror title on the Wii. In spite of great sales for Resident Evil 4 and the Umbrella Chronicles, these groups were unable to support the projections required to create a viable P&L for the title. The idea of an "adult" game on what they perceived to be a "kids" console was simply too big a leap for them, regardless of the enthusiastic support of the PD department and the Wii's total domination in the marketplace.

...

IGN: Finally, the obvious question: do you still want to release Winter for Wii? Would you do it if publishers showed an interest?

Dan: Of course. We're very pleased with what we were able to do in such a short time and would welcome the right opportunity to pick up where we left off. Meanwhile, we've kept very busy with a lot of great titles, many of which the Winter playable helped us land.

What do you think of the project? Can it work on Wii, and would you be interested in seeing it taken forward from this early demo/concept?