Today, an eagle-eyed poster on the NeoGAF forum spotted a trademark filing for the Battletoads name. After Microsoft took over Rare in 2002, there has been a disappointing lack of revival from their old, treasured properties. One of the few attempts was the Banjo-Kazooie sequel Nuts & Bolts, but the less said about that game, the better. Nowadays, the development studio is best known for the Kinect Sports series of titles. It's a sad fall from grace story, but lately it seems like Microsoft has stepped back and reevaluated it's strategy concerning the properties they control.
Though Rare wasn't really involved with the development, Killer Instinct was Microsoft's first attempt to take one of their fondly-remembered properties and update it for it's Xbox One. And now, we could be seeing a similar treatment of the Battletoads property with this recent trademark filing.
For the uneducated, Battletoads is a series of games released across the NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Sega Genesis. Mostly known for their ridiculous difficulty, the Battletoads games are mostly beat-em-ups that tend to offer unique gameplay styles in each of their levels. All of the console games in the series, as well as the Double Dragon crossover, have also featured two-player co-op (though that usually only made the experience harder).
It's too early to say what this trademark filing will end up resulting in, if anything. It could just be used for an updated Xbox Live Arcade port, or an enhanced remake. My best guess would be some sort of a re-release, maybe with updated graphics and a new engine.
Check back later this week, as this new development may result in me taking a look back at Battletoad's awesome music for this weeks Soundtrack Sunday.
We'll update you as soon as we know more. Maybe don't call Gamestop for more information.
Source: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=929998
http://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn86445867&docId=APP20141108074708#docIndex=0&page=1
