Hasbro Interactive Forms a Sports Division

Hasbro Interactive is getting into sports games. The publisher announced Hasbro Sports, a new business unit built to chase the interactive sports market, a segment the company pegs at $1.8 billion. Hasbro Interactive built its name on family and casual titles, and the plan is to apply that same mass-market approach here rather than fight the sim heavyweights on their turf, with sports games spanning the action, children’s, family, strategy and simulation categories.

The opening lineup says everything about the strategy: a Trivial Pursuit NASCAR edition on CD-ROM, a Hasbro Sports digital camera bundled with a CD-ROM, and NFL Football and NASCAR versions of the company’s Em@il Games. All of it is due in stores this summer and fall, with more titles in development for 2000 and beyond. Nobody is going to confuse Trivial Pursuit NASCAR with a football sim, but Hasbro is not aiming at sim players anyway.