Activision’s Shaba Closed Down?

Unconfirmed rumours are surfacing this morning claiming the Activision-owned Shaba Games have closed down. The 61-strong San Francisco-based team, responsible for one of the PSP’s best games (Tony Hawk Underground 2 Remix) and the finest console Spider-man game (Web Of Shadows) have been a consistently impressive studio since their founding in 1997 and if the rumours are true we’ll be sad to see them go.  As it stands, Shaba’s Wikipedia page hasn’t been updated with the rumour, but we’ll monitor this story today.

The quote in the original post on NeoGAF – the source of this news and allegedly from an employee of Shaba – highlights the reason behind the rumoured closing down.   “Activision is restructuring corporate wise,” says the quote.   “We became a studio without a franchise or speciality and Bobby Kotick doesn’t want a studio that has experience doing multiple genres.”  As ever with stories marked as rumours on TheSixthAxis treat this as such until confirmation comes through either way, and hopefully for the good.