Sony officially stated its move to file for a trademark for Knack amidst rumours of a bigger announcement supposedly happening later this week.
The picture is not always clear when companies acquire exclusive rights to IPs and franchises without seeing all the missing puzzle pieces. The video game, Knack and its trademark had been in Sony’s camp for a while and is expected to stay that way. Gematsu’s Twitter post yesterday revealed that Sony Interactive Entertainment filed a trademark for the platforming beat ‘em up game on March 17, 2022. This all came after a game industry journalist speculated about a PlayStation announcement expected later this week.
Could this mean that Sony intends to make Knack 3 fully exclusive to PlayStation? While Knack is not known as the other titles the Japan Studio helped develop, like Demon’s Souls, Patapon and Bloodborne, it is possible for Sony to want to keep the game series under their belt. The first game was released in 2013 and the sequel in 2017. While the game had a small following, perhaps there was an intention to do something more with the franchise, even though Japan Studio had disbanded in 2021.
The platforming Astro Bot franchise for PlayStation has been better received under the ex-Japan Studio developers, Team Asobi. It would be strange to have two platforming games under one banner unless a strange merging of universes occurs. Mark Cerny helped create the Crash Bandicoot games and also directed the Knack series, but could not grow its popularity in the end. Ultimately, Sony looks to be open to having plans for the Knack franchise.
It was also interesting to learn that a possible PlayStation announcement could happen this week on Thursday, March 31, even thought the last State of Play just revealed more on the anticipated Hogwarts Legacy game, based on the Harry Potter series. A weekend tweet from Kinda Funny Games co-founder, Greg Miller teased that several “rumoured” announcements could be coming as “it might be a VERY interesting week.”
Miller did not reveal anything further, but a report had claimed that PlayStation could be ready to show off their newly competitive subscription service to Xbox Game Pass. A lot of speculation had already been buzzing in the past about PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus merging, so this might finally be the time that Sony makes its move to finally do it.
The current costs of the two separate services are under much criticism and are not finding as good customer reception as Xbox. Project “Spartacus” was the title of the new subscription said to have been in the works since December last year.
Overall, there are no definitive plans for what Sony hopes to do with the Knack trademark in the future. It may be a good idea to keep checking PlayStation’s social media channels as they may provide updates as the week progresses.
