THQ Wireless has officially announced its licensing deal with MTV Networks International to bring South Park to mobile phones. The company is working on five games and will also be releasing wallpapers, ring tones, screen savers and multimedia messages drawn from the hit scatological cartoon series.
As part of the deal, THQ is also going to be making short clips of Season Eight available for phone download before the series is aired on TV. Doubtless this will become a popular model as the relationship between mobile content publishers and media companies grows in both intimacy and interdependence. We've already seen the mobile-exclusive episodes of 24, used to publicise the current TV series, and of course, most network operators now offer the latest movie trailers for download from their online portals. With countless millions of enthusiastic mobile users worldwide, it's the perfect platform to increase awareness of forthcoming media products.
Anyway back to those games...
The first title in the South Park series will be South Park Sports Day, due out early next month. The title features a selection of predictably tasteless events including fart hurdles and German dancing. Later we'll see Save Kenny, where you have to protect the hooded trailer park victim from various incoming threats. Sort of Missile Command meets, erm, South Park.
Do people still watch South Park? I'm genuinely interested.
No such worries about THQ Wireless' other big licensing deal - Star Wars. The company has a couple of games in development, one based around Episode III and another casual mass-market title. I don't think I'm allowed to reveal what this is, but it's quite funny and useful, and it involves Yoda. Said too much I have.
