Scratch: The Ultimate DJ

If you're impatiently awaiting the latest generation of plastic-peripheral waving music titles, you may have to wait a little bit longer while the publishers of both upcoming DJ sim games sort out a few... issues. In short, Activision, the publishers of DJ Hero, recently acquired 7 Studios, and this has raised hackles with rival publishers Genius Products, whose game Scratch: The Ultimate DJ is being developed by none other than - you guessed it - 7 Studios themselves. Is that a problem? Apparently so - Genius Products are currently engaged in an attempt to sue the pants off both of them.

The reports read like a high school drama. Genius Products are accusing Activision of acquiring 7 Studios with the intent of using their new ownership of the developer to delay if not halt progress on Scratch: The Ultimate DJ in order to give their own contender, DJ Hero, a better chance of success. So, in essence, not only are Genius Products in open feud with their rival, they're also not speaking to their best friend, and have called in a teacher to intervene.

In their complaint, Genius Products claim that this supposedly malicious action on Activision's behalf (which is alleged to include refusing to return current and previous builds of the game, musical assets, and prototype controllers as well as coercing 7 Studios into making new and unreasonable financial demands) was motivated by the knowledge that Scratch: The Ultimate DJ is not only much further along than DJ Hero but about a gazillion times better, too, so nyerh!

It's certainly true that Scratch: The Ultimate DJ has been a bit more visible than its under-hyped rival, although this very fact makes it quite difficult to judge how the two compare. It'll be interesting to see how the court rules - and how all this free publicity affects both title's sales. Both games are expected on a variety of major platforms, with Scratch currently expected to miss its forecast June release thanks to all this drama, and DJ Hero apparently arriving sometime this year.