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2 years since the cancellation of scalebound.

it hit all its deadlines and didn't go over budget. Its not hard to figure out. The game is fun but its not for everyone.

Scalebound might of been fun as well, especially with the talent behind it. I heard they were trying to force a multiplayer mode in Scalebound which could of contributed to it’s demise as well.
 

quickwhips

Member
Scalebound might of been fun as well, especially with the talent behind it. I heard they were trying to force a multiplayer mode in Scalebound which could of contributed to it’s demise as well.
I disagree. Multiplayer on xbox usually leads all my friends picking up a coop game vs them never picking it up. I agree it was a niche game that might have been fun. I was looking forward to it but it was over budget from what people have stated.
 

Isa

Member
What I will never figure out is why was Scaleblund canceled, but they released Sea of Thieves.

I'd wager it was also influenced by MS's vision for GaaS at the time, which they seemed to prefer. Probably figured that Scalebound wouldn't return the investment into continued development costs while Sea of Thieves was right up their alley. It would be interesting to see what MS thought with that one. Did they know about the issues and lack of content and just let it sink or swim based on consumer reaction?

As for Scalebound, I too was disappointed about seeing it go, it'd be a neat gesture to see it revived but its water under the bridge for me. I wasn't keen on the Dante clone though.
 
Most people were not interested in Scalebound and so many lies were spread due to both parties being silent, till this day people think MS forced co-op and MP even though that was shown in the first reveal, and several fake Kamiya "leaks" trashing MS as if it was all MS' fault.

I mean MS gave that game more delays and likely more money than QB and Fable Legends, and it was THEIR IP. It's clear things were just not working out for both parties, AND platinum was using some of the funds on other projects instead of putting 100% man power in Kamiya's so-called "dream game" and NO ONE finds that suspicious?
 

cdthree

Member
Looks okay. Maybe they can bring it back through one of their new studios acting as main developer and Platinum as creative director. The Xbox desperately needs new games coming out for the next 3 or 4 years.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
This game never looked good. Not at all upset it was cancelled.
 
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juliotendo

Member
Not surprised it was cancelled. It was extremely overhyped and looked like a weird generic version of devil may cry meets dragons. Would have probably sold poorly too.
 
I'd wager it was also influenced by MS's vision for GaaS at the time, which they seemed to prefer. Probably figured that Scalebound wouldn't return the investment into continued development costs while Sea of Thieves was right up their alley. It would be interesting to see what MS thought with that one. Did they know about the issues and lack of content and just let it sink or swim based on consumer reaction?

As for Scalebound, I too was disappointed about seeing it go, it'd be a neat gesture to see it revived but its water under the bridge for me. I wasn't keen on the Dante clone though.

You are probably right. Between Microsoft’s GAAS focus, Sony’s censorship policy’s and AAA developers greed next generation is going to be a mess.
 
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Elenchus

Banned
Scalebound might of been fun as well, especially with the talent behind it. I heard they were trying to force a multiplayer mode in Scalebound which could of contributed to it’s demise as well.

Heard from whom specifically. Because I keep seeing this claim but without any receipts.
 
Heard from whom specifically. Because I keep seeing this claim but without any receipts.

I read it on a link once or twice and heard on a few forums. This doesn’t necessarily prove anything, but it seems like Microsoft favors multiple modes which probably includes multiplayer and other online components. I don’t remember where I saw the articles and information on the forums.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/attack...tion-reveals-a-disturbing-trend-for-xbox/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.du...er-explains-canceled-hopes-hideki-kamiya/amp/
 
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Elenchus

Banned
I read it on a link once or twice and heard on a few forums. This doesn’t necessarily prove anything, but it seems like Microsoft favors multiple modes which probably includes multiplayer and other online components. I don’t remember where I saw the articles and information on the forums.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/attack...tion-reveals-a-disturbing-trend-for-xbox/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.du...er-explains-canceled-hopes-hideki-kamiya/amp/

Thanks for the links but neither article supports your proposition. The second link makes no mention of why Scalebound was cancelled and the first, as you will see below, states only that the rumors point to unwanted features (but does not state those features included multiplayer):

“For Scalebound, which we admittedly don’t have the full story of just yet, rumors are swirling that the cancellation is largely the result of Microsoft demanding more and more features from PlatinumGames, and not offering enough time or money for them to accomplish the goals.”

Thus, even the rumor doesn’t support it. The way this works is that uninformed posters make unsupported claims on GAF and Reddit and then uninspired “gaming journalists” (who are all really just untrained bloggers) pick up the rumors and report them as if there is some credibility to them because so many on the forums are repeating them.

Then the posters on the forum post the links of the articles pointing to the very same forums. It’s a circle of silliness and is sadly one of the reasons gaming is still not taken seriously despite its revenue performance.

All of these articles and how many times do you see the line “We’ve reached out to X for comment”. Not very often if ever. It’s nonsense.
 

Mr Hyde

Member
I like Hideki Kamiyas works, he is an outstanding director with many accomplished feats to his resume, but with Scalebound it seems he was way over his head. It never looked good even once. It actually looked worse with each showing, contributing to the negative hype. Clearly, Microsoft and Platinum clashed over the development and whether it was rumors about MP or Platinum not hitting milestones that led to cancellation we might never know. It´s sad to see games getting cancelled and years of hard work thrown away, but in this case, MS just probably did us a solid by never releasing it. As it was, it would surely turn out a train wreck and further sour Xbox Ones reputation of mediocre exclusives.
 

spookyfish

Member
I don't think cancelling a game is anti-consumer. People have been throwing that term around VERY loosely lately.

Agreed. *Really* wanted to see Scalebound happen (because I trust Kamiya), but ... that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
 

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
That's not what anti-consumer means... Not everything that happens and you dislike is anti-consumer.
Whoever this is has made the same thread over at Resetera. I think the goal is to remind people about the cancellation - start gamers spewing negative comments about Xbox again. Pretty fucking desperate if you ask me - not to mention sad.
 

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
I have to say I always thought this game looked like garbage. I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt because it was Platinum but even the original trailer was cringe worthy to me.
Its weird because NO ONE gave a shit about this game until it was cancelled. Then suddenly gamers were screaming foul all over the internet because (literally out of nowhere) everyone was super interested in playing it. It was bullshit from the start, like this thread is bullshit now.
 

Hudo

Member
From an outsiders point of view, I find it a bit weird that Scalebound got cancelled while Crackdown 3 is still a thing, even though the latter seemed to have development troubles as well. But again, I don't know the internals. Maybe Crackdown 3 development is proceeding as planned whereas Platinum might have fucked up with their development. Could also be the other way around that Microsoft got too unrealistic with the deadlines and milestones it demanded from Platinum. We'll probably never know.
 

Sparda

Banned
Whoever this is has made the same thread over at Resetera. I think the goal is to remind people about the cancellation - start gamers spewing negative comments about Xbox again. Pretty fucking desperate if you ask me - not to mention sad.
I don't have account on resetera.
 

Ten_Fold

Member
The idea wasn’t bad it just looked bad, I know Microsoft really wants to get some Japanese developers on there system ehhh maybe next gen.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Its weird because NO ONE gave a shit about this game until it was cancelled. Then suddenly gamers were screaming foul all over the internet because (literally out of nowhere) everyone was super interested in playing it. It was bullshit from the start, like this thread is bullshit now.

MS clearly gave a shit about it; showing at at least 2 E3's, Platinum certainly did too as its cancellation left them in a dire situation. They were only saved by the unexpected success of Nier Automata,. which lets not forget MS made some brouhaha about being released a year-plus later on their platform.

Face it: it was Xbox's highest profile Japanese exclusive for years, and its cancellation was sufficiently notable for Pope Spencer to comment on it at the time.
 

Calibos

Member
It's all about the market and timing giving the business an acceptable return. If it was going to turn out mediocre like State of Decay or Sea of Thieves, but you poured millions upon millions of dollars into it and it wasn't close to ready, then MS was pretty smart here.

It's unfortunate that it was an awesome collaboration with one of the industry's highest profile devs, and I wish that it could get finished, but I just don't see it happening.

I still think that MS seeing that development would have put it close to ready against Monster Hunter World probably had something to do with it. The game looks like Devil May Cry and MHW had a baby.
 

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
MS clearly gave a shit about it; showing at at least 2 E3's, Platinum certainly did too as its cancellation left them in a dire situation. They were only saved by the unexpected success of Nier Automata,. which lets not forget MS made some brouhaha about being released a year-plus later on their platform.

Face it: it was Xbox's highest profile Japanese exclusive for years, and its cancellation was sufficiently notable for Pope Spencer to comment on it at the time.
Platinum were using funds for SC to fund other games. Of course MS gave a shit about the game - they were the initial investors. But when it became a money and time sink they pulled the plug - rightfully so.
 
Thought it looked terrible so it didn't bother me, that being said I hate it for the people who were looking forward to it. Shame it couldn't be saved.
 
While I enjoy every Platinum game in my library and had a real interest in the game, I understand why the game got yanked. It happens all the time, the problem this time was that it happened on a system that was getting into too many sequels and not enough fresh IP. Platinum promised more than they were willing to deliver and while Microsoft was funneling money them for the game they were using that money for other projects instead of focusing on the on it was supposed to go towards. I would have done the same thing.
 

Elenchus

Banned
I don't have account on resetera.

Even if you don’t it’s a fair point. Why are you raising this issue now? It’s been beaten to death and it happened years ago. No new info has been released so why is this relevant in 2019 again?
 
While I enjoy every Platinum game in my library and had a real interest in the game, I understand why the game got yanked. It happens all the time, the problem this time was that it happened on a system that was getting into too many sequels and not enough fresh IP. Platinum promised more than they were willing to deliver and while Microsoft was funneling money them for the game they were using that money for other projects instead of focusing on the on it was supposed to go towards. I would have done the same thing.

Is that just conjecture or is there some evidence to that? It actually makes a lot of sense, but it's the first time I've heard of it.

It always struck me strange that Scalebound was a Kamiya concept as early as Bayonetta, and yet, Platinum sold the IP to MS outright.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Platinum were using funds for SC to fund other games. Of course MS gave a shit about the game - they were the initial investors. But when it became a money and time sink they pulled the plug - rightfully so.

Thats a bold claim which I doubt you can prove argumentatively and evidentially, and certainly not to any legal certainty. Because if that was the case I'm pretty confident MS would have actioned it.

The fact is they killed the project. They didn't pull it from PG and hand it off to another team, nor did they pressure PG to deliver something. In fact what Phil did was to apologize about the disappointing outcome and express compliments about "his friend" Kamiya and PG generally.

Hardly the behavior of someone who's just been hoodwinked by a partner.

Accept the fact it was on MS.
 

sublimit

Banned
I hated the generic main character's design, but everything else was very cool.
Eh it wasn't only the stupid main character. Judging from that E3 2016 presentation the gameplay looked very scripted and not something trully created by Kamiya.
 

CeeJay

Member
From an outsiders point of view, I find it a bit weird that Scalebound got cancelled while Crackdown 3 is still a thing, even though the latter seemed to have development troubles as well. But again, I don't know the internals. Maybe Crackdown 3 development is proceeding as planned whereas Platinum might have fucked up with their development. Could also be the other way around that Microsoft got too unrealistic with the deadlines and milestones it demanded from Platinum. We'll probably never know.

I think there would have been a bigger outcry if MS cancelled Crackdown because it's not just a game but also a proof of concept of their cloud tech claims. To cancel the game would be to admit defeat with their whole "power of the cloud" movement that they were peddling at the start of the gen. it's not really set the world on fire as it is but if they can pull off what they promised with the cloud destruction in CD3 then they will be able to keep face and build on it next gen. If it was all just vapourware then there wouldn't be much coming back from that. Even if CD3 comes out and the game is mediocre but the destruction still works as advertised then it can at least be a PR success.
 

Hudo

Member
I think there would have been a bigger outcry if MS cancelled Crackdown because it's not just a game but also a proof of concept of their cloud tech claims. To cancel the game would be to admit defeat with their whole "power of the cloud" movement that they were peddling at the start of the gen. it's not really set the world on fire as it is but if they can pull off what they promised with the cloud destruction in CD3 then they will be able to keep face and build on it next gen. If it was all just vapourware then there wouldn't be much coming back from that. Even if CD3 comes out and the game is mediocre but the destruction still works as advertised then it can at least be a PR success.
Ah. You might have a point there. I haven't considered the whole "power of the cloud" marketing movement. Yeah, there's a bit more reputation hinging on the success of that product. I also assume that it serves as a research project of sorts for possible future games using "the power of the cloud" as well, which further strengthens its "life insurance".
 
Is that just conjecture or is there some evidence to that? It actually makes a lot of sense, but it's the first time I've heard of it.

It always struck me strange that Scalebound was a Kamiya concept as early as Bayonetta, and yet, Platinum sold the IP to MS outright.

I believe the dev team had to take time away from the game which was already behind because of the workload, but while they were taking time off, they were still working on other games. They had the money, and the deadline, but they were paying staff to work on other projects. They didn't technically take a pallet of cash and wheel it over to the guys working on Nier, but they were working on other titles despite during a month off from working on Scalebound, a game that had already been fully funded and was already behind schedule.

Thats a bold claim which I doubt you can prove argumentatively and evidentially, and certainly not to any legal certainty. Because if that was the case I'm pretty confident MS would have actioned it.

The fact is they killed the project. They didn't pull it from PG and hand it off to another team, nor did they pressure PG to deliver something. In fact what Phil did was to apologize about the disappointing outcome and express compliments about "his friend" Kamiya and PG generally.

Hardly the behavior of someone who's just been hoodwinked by a partner.

Accept the fact it was on MS.

It's a fair point that nobody has a clear picture of what went down. Consider this, has Phil ever been aggressive in any of his appearances? I mean Sony will destroy them in sales and he'll tweet a congrats to them for kicking him in the balls. He's about as laid-back of a CEO as I've ever seen. Platinum makes a lot of games and Xbox needs those games, so you cut your losses on the game that's hemorrhaging money with no clear delivery date, and move on with the publisher as you still want the games they are making. Imagine if they had cut ties with Platinum and Kamiya dcided fuck you guys, anything we ever make again is PS4 exclusive.

I don't work in the gaming industry, but in my line of work we don't burn bridges like that either. We had a contract with a local mine to sandblast and paint a belt gallery. We paid thousands of dollars renting equipment, hauling supplies, allocation staff, etc. The day we were set up and ready to start the work, the company that owns the mine pulled the plug on the project with no notice and we were out over $10K. We quietly packed up and went back to the shop and moved on, with no mention of the money and time spent. We wanted to work with them because they have more to offer than the $10K we lost. Microsoft isn't going to publicly shame a company known for making good games and risk losing access to that developer in the future, you cut your losses and move on.
 

wipeout364

Member
Accept the fact it was on MS.

I totally disagree Microsoft felt the game was not delivering what was promised to them. That is on Platinum Games.

If you pay a contractor to build you a house and it is screwed up is that on you?
If you bought fallout 76 and feel it sucks is that on you?

I don’t understand your logic on this at all.
 

Hotspurr

Banned
Scalebound concept was cool. It was DMC with dragons.

Except that the gameplay looked aweful and they couldn't really do DMC style combat when you have to keep track of your dragon and fight many enemies at the same time. Just too ambitious a project and probably lacked the right resources. If you had the dragons dogma team have a go at this concept it may have been made properly.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I totally disagree Microsoft felt the game was not delivering what was promised to them. That is on Platinum Games.

If you pay a contractor to build you a house and it is screwed up is that on you?
If you bought fallout 76 and feel it sucks is that on you?

I don’t understand your logic on this at all.

More likely PG approached MS with a plan, it got greenlit but subsequent changes in their corporate strategy brought demands to alter that plan. Kamiya, being Kamiya, probably pushed back at which point cracks would have started to form in the relationship.

See MS will stick with a troubled project no matter what if it serves their corporate strategy, look at the clusterfuck that Crackdown 3 has been. However if it doesn't fit, you get the Fable Legends treatment where a near finished project gets shit-canned and the studio shut-down.

Thats how it works.

Also as to PG shorting MS on development effort. Kamiya is going to torpedo his studio, and his own pet project no less, to backstop development on smaller projects? Really? They going to divert resources to a fucking Yoko Taro project when literally nothing he'd ever made set a precedent for the sales Automata generated?

That sounds like bullshit to me.
 

Gander

Banned
I didn't know what to expect from Scalebound but it reminded me of Panzer Dragoon saga so I was willing to give it a look.
 

cireza

Banned
Cancelled because PG could not deliver the multiplayer stuff that Microsoft asked for. It could have been a great single-player game.

Throw away all that multiplayer content, and let Kamiya design the game he wants to.

Saying that all the studios that have just been bought will have freedom to make whatever they want, but cancelling Scalebound because PG could not deliver something they were forced to do. So are they free to do what they want or not ?
 
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SonGoku

Member
The only ones to blame for Scalebound's fate is PlatinumGames
MS just did what any sane publisher would do.
 
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urmie

Member
I miss DriveClub, why did Sony shut down Evolution studios? The weather in the game was amazing. Let's discuss this in 2019 because I am fake concerned about it and still have fake-PTSD from its shutdown. I guess $ony is anti-consumer. Capcom must be "anti-consumer". Why did they cancel Megaman Legends 3?

Damn you "can't wait for RE2 remake" Capcom! Damn you! You are much anti-consumer! Wow! *insert doge image*

This is a GameFaqs level topic and the intention is quite clear.
 
Game looked shit from day one...not sure why people have such a sore spot for it..even great game directors release shit games ms just had the sense to put a bullet in it.
 

Elenchus

Banned
Cancelled because PG could not deliver the multiplayer stuff that Microsoft asked for. It could have been a great single-player game.

As I’ve said earlier in this thread, we’re going to need the receipts for that claim. The days of GAF peddling this kind of bullshit as fact without challenge has come to an end. Post your links.
 
Its weird because NO ONE gave a shit about this game until it was cancelled. Then suddenly gamers were screaming foul all over the internet because (literally out of nowhere) everyone was super interested in playing it. It was bullshit from the start, like this thread is bullshit now.

I didn’t want to say this, but I’m usually brutally honest and I really think even if the game did eventually come out, it would of bombed miserably. That could be another contributing reason it was canceled. Microsoft or even Microsoft AND Platinum saw the state of the game or maybe the game components weren’t up to their standards and decided to cut their loses early.
 
I didn’t want to say this, but I’m usually brutally honest and I really think even if the game did eventually come out, it would of bombed miserably. That could be another contributing reason it was canceled. Microsoft or even Microsoft AND Platinum saw the state of the game or maybe the game components weren’t up to their standards and decided to cut their loses early.

I wouldn't say early, MS lost a lot of money on that project, t was cancelled in 2017, around 4 years after it was leaked/revealed. If QB took longer it likely would have been next. Fable Legends was another game that MS gave too much time and money on. ScaleBound and Fable Legends couls have been new services, third-party deals, or new IPS that actually came out on time.

Also as i said earlier in the thread, why is no one talking about kamiya saying Scalebound was his "dream game" yet did not have the studio 100% focusing on the game and taking some of MS' funding and put it towards other projects? Like Nier?

I mean yeah people will say was good game, but that no excuse to handwaive that money was supposed to go to Scalebound.
 
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