Gabriel Stanford-ReisingerThere are two games that older PlayStation gamers know from Naughty Dog before the likes of The Last of Us – Jak and Daxter and Crash Bandicoot. Well, it turns out the reason behind the developer never touching the bandicoot again since 1999’s Crash Team Racing was because of a toxic relationship between developer and IP owner.
Initially, Crash was owned by Universal and according to Naughty Dog co-founder, Jason Rubin, their relationship got to the point of them not being able to make new Crash games.
“Our relationship with Universal had gotten to the point where we couldn’t continue to make Crash Bandicoot games. Although we loved Crash Bandicoot and we loved working with Sony, it didn’t make any financial sense. Universal owned the IP, and there was a hostility there that was just brutal.”
This led to multiple developers in the studio quietly forming a new engine that would later be the foundation of Jak and Daxter.
Since the merger in 2007, Activision acquired the IP.
