What’s the first thing you think of when you hear “Mike Tyson” and “game” in the same sentence? If you’re at least in college right now, chances are good that you’ll be thinking of the original Mike Tyson’s Punch Out game on the Nintendo NES gaming console. Well, the controversial boxing champ is back at it with a new game for iPhone. It’s called Mike Tyson’s Main Event and we had a chance to talk to the one and only Mike Tyson at SXSW 2011 about his involvement in the game’s development and how he plans to market the app.
Turns out, the champ is somewhat savvy with technology. Well, at least savvy enough to hook up with game developers RockLive to create what amounts to a refreshed version of the original boxing game on NES. The ex-boxer worked with the developers to help craft the character dynamics in the game – making sure that the characters had “Matrix moves” and felt natural enough to rope players but just tough enough to give gamers a good challenge. He’s also featured in the app’s push notifications by way of video clips that are delivered to users to remind them of new features and game updates. He’ll also be tweeting about monthly game updates, including new characters that you can choose to play as.
We have some gameplay screenshots below for you to enjoy as you wait for the Mike Tyson’s Main Event to go live on the AppStore on March 15th.
More importantly, we got Tyson to talk to us one-on-one in full 1080p HD glory. Video below.