Beam Software - Press News - Coming Soon Magazine

The Return of Melbourne House

Melbourne, Australia, February 19, 1997 -- One of the most well-known and colourful brand names in video gaming history is set to make an explosive worldwide comeback. Beam Software, Australia's largest interactive entertainment and multimedia developer, is all set for the long awaited comeback of a much missed publisher, responsible for some of the greatest selling hits of the early-mid 80s: Melbourne House.

Melbourne House has been the publishing arm for some of Beam Software's greatest hits. The critically acclaimed "The Hobbit", released in 1982 on the Sinclair Spectrum (and converted to other 8 bit formats later), became the "killer app" for its respective platform, and to date remains one of the most popular game releases of all time. This was followed by the equally impressive "Lord of the Rings". Melbourne House's release of "Way of the Exploding Fist" for the Commodore 64 has been labeled as the first martial arts combat game, paving the way for the Street Fighters and Mortal Kombats of recent times.

While Melbourne House was sold to Mastertronic in 1987, which later became part of the Virgin Group, Beam Software went on to develop some of the greatest home console and computer hits. Its clients include Microsoft, Nintendo of America, Sega of America, Sony, Playmates International, Phillips and Electronic Arts, amongst many others.

Beam Software will now be re-launching the Melbourne House label, and this event is set to be of Hobbit-like proportions.

"Melbourne House has a great reputation of delivering quality computer games", commented Beam's Chairman and Publisher, Alfred Milgrom. "Now the people that grew up with 'The Hobbit', and a whole generation of new gamers will experience all new thrills and enthusiasm from our products. We look forward to meeting and exceeding their expectations of what Melbourne House products mean."

EA Sports Cricket 97, the first of 2 titles published by Melbourne House, has been topping the Australian and New Zealand Charts, and is set for release in the UK and other parts of Europe, Africa and South America in early March. Beam has launched an in depth WWW site dedicated to Cricket 97, which can be found at: https://www.beam.com.au/cricket97

KKnD: Krush, Kill 'n' Destroy, Beam's original real time strategy war game, will re-introduce Melbourne House to the worldwide gaming public, with its upcoming simultaneous worldwide release. Recently released demos have generated immense interest and support for this exciting upcoming product, with KKnD being voted up to the #3 position on the World Top 40 Downloads Charts . The title has received rave reviews from the Internet and print press alike.

# # # Beam Software is Australia's largest games and multimedia developer, responsible for the development of over 150 titles over the past 16 years. Beam is the only Australian games and multimedia developer to be listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. Melbourne House is Beam's publishing arm for interactive entertainment products across the PC and next generation 32/64 bit platforms.

[Homepage] [Back issues] [Send E-Mail]