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[AndrewDean84xX]

Where do people work where pouring funds into a project that isn't (for whatever reasons management deems appropriate) meeting milestones/deadlines is thought of as a good idea?

Final Fantasy 15 and the Last Guardian dev teams?

 

[kruis]

Listen, if you (as a team) have creative control, there is no such thing as an intractable problem; worst-case scenario is simply re-designing, omitting, and/or replacing the thing that's holding you up.

For well-organized and experienced teams, its no big deal at all.

UNLESS they are dealing with a publisher who adamantly demands features x, y, and z be implemented despite them being warned that this course of action will be unproductive, unnecessary or actively damaging to the project both in creative and logistical sense.

External producers have a lot of swing, but often in my experience not the creative chops to justify their influence and simply default (out of fear for their own jobs) to a position where they dogmatically defend the publisher's "interests" regardless of the developers warnings about the damage not changing tack is going to incur.

This is all it takes for a project to go to hell. I saw this depressingly often in my time, particularly when a publisher had very specific strategic plans for a project.

This fits MS to a tee. MS management have been forcing developers to incorporate things like Kinect, games as a service, free to play, co-op multi player, etc) into new games. When those things don't work out, it's always the development team who are blamed for bad reviews and disappointing sales.

 

[sector4]

Goddamn... shattered at the news. I was super pumped for Scalebound.

 

[Stilton Disco]

Actually, I have heard from my friends at MS that the whole gaming division is under heavy scrutiny. I really wouldn't be surprised to see them drastically cut, and even more I highly expect the "Scorpio" to be delayed - that is a piece of information I have been keeping to myself to keep from being labeled a console warrior... We know there will be a new Forza this year, but everything else is up in the air...

I'd expect some kind of Minecraft clone to "diversify" the third-party lineup if Scorpio actually releases this year.

Meanwhile, MS is sitting on all of Rare's properties which we may never see again. If it won't be a major "success", the game will never see release. So probably never see another Banjo, or Conker, or any number of titles. Instead, they have Rare working on a multiplayer (has to be), pirate simulator. Pray Sea of Thieves is a success, or Rare will be next studio canned.

After Halo and Gears underperforming, new IP's flopping, price cut aft price cut still resulting in YOY sales declines, multiple game cancelations, studio closures and a very obvious tightening of the purse strings on third party marketing deals and advertising budget, none of what you're saying would surprise me.

In fact after today, and the recent thread highlighting jut how little in the way of first party development they have going, Scorpio just seems like a bizarrely incongruous expenditure that's going to be sold to a niche of a niche of a niche, without a hope of making its money back.

 

[Mechazawa]

Yep

"Fine"

Hey, he's not a MLG player; he's fine.

I'm hesitent to defend anything Gies related, ever, but this is the video he's talking about because following a twitter timeline does not take being a rocket scientist.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

Bethesda did the same to Human head.

Different scenario (until shown otherwise!)

Bethesda did it to drive HH close to bankruptcy over the course of 2 year so that the owners would sell themselves and Bethesda would get another studio on the cheap. This was back when they were expanding like crazy. HH played hardball and stood their ground while arkane didn't and ended up selling.

I doubt Microsoft had any plans to buy a medium sized Japanese studies if all thing the way they have been going.

 

[hawk2025]

How is releasing a bad game for $60 good for anyone?

That's what I'm wondering.

Who knows, some of y'all love Ryse, Knack, Recore, you name it. There is value in a diverse portfolio.

I'd rather Platinum not be stuck with a cancelled game after 4 years, but I personally do not own Microsoft stock.


And it's not like Microsoft is swimming on dozens of upcoming games right now. The pickings are slim by any measure I could think of. If this is indeed about limited resources, that says a hell of a lot more about what MGS has to play with than anything.

 

[Raxus]

So looking back, at Gamescom 2015 they announced a release window of holiday 2016.
Then just 4 months later in January 2016 they pushed it back to "2017"

Game was in trouble for a while.

Lots of games got pushed back to the new year. Hell Persona 5 was supposed to come out in 2015.

Until we get some insider info we really won't know what the hell happened.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

I doubt it. Nintendo seems to have pretty realistic expectations when it comes to projects like these. I expect they'll partner with Platinum again in the future.

Sure, but not on a project of the scale of Scalebound.

 

[farisr]

Who's deciding what is good or bad?

Taste aren't universal.

Yup. I'm glad Sony chose to keep funding and release The Order 1886 because I ended up enjoying it.

And Knack is one of my favorite games of the generation.

Not joking.

 

[robotrock]

They've only cancelled this so they can pull an E3 2015 Sony moment and reannounce this game that was long thought to be dead.

 

[outunderthestars]

That would make sense if Microsoft had a bevy of other projects on at the moment but they don't seem to have any. They need to seriously impress at E3 this year for their 2017 lineup to be considered big enough to justify a cancellation like this.

Maybe the game simply wasn't good?

 

[SpinningBirdKick]

Who is next up on Microsoft's death row?

Crackdown 3 or Sea of thieves?

 

[CCIE]

I honestly don't think that is Phil - he's his boss's mouthpiece, and towing the company line.

 

[timberger]

"Phil Spencer ‏@XboxP3
@TiC_Podcast Difficult decision, we believe result is better 4 Xbox gamers, still disappointing. Im confident in 17 lineup thats our focus"

#4the(Xbox)players!

 

[GamingPheasant]

MS owns the IP. This is dead and buried.

What a waste of people's time, effort & money.

 

[WickedLaharl]

Phil I promise you it is absolutely not better 4 Xbox gamers.

The money will be going to more halo and forza. Isn't that enough?!

 

[Drilbit777]

Phantom Dust
Sea of Thieves
State of Decay 2
Crackdown 3
Halo Wars 2

They have five exclusives coming up in 2017 at this moment, FIVE.
I'm not counting small downloadable titles here, but still, you get the point.
I had really hoped for more since the phil spencer era started.

Two of which are in development hell right now

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

Wow....y'all have to have faith in Microsoft. I do believe that with all that has come out..both parties are right and wrong...but I still do believe that there is something to replace this. Do I think it will come out this year though? Nah...but they will capture y'all with a shiny new box which will let this go away. Come on..

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Sure, but not on a project of the scale of Scalebound.

Well yeah, if Nintendo had decided to fund the game, it wouldn't have become nearly as large as this project became.

 

[Yukinari]

Who is next up on Microsoft's death row?

Crackdown 3 or Sea of thieves?

Xbox One itself.

 

[AndrewDean84xX]

Is that picture floating around (about MS supposedly withholding payment) legit? Seems like quite the "bomb" to drop just out fo the blue. And we all know how the internet loves its dramas, real or otherwise.

It happens all the time in business. It happens in this industry too. Crytech was found recently stopped paying their people, yet they were still never told to stop working.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

Yup. I'm glad Sony chose to keep funding and release The Order 1886 because I ended up enjoying it.

And Knack is one of my favorite games of the generation.

Not joking.

I love the Order too man, still hoping for a sequel...

True. And I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here, but if Microsoft is willing to throw away four years of funding for a project such as this, then they probably thought it wasn't worth continuing of salvaging.

That's entirely true, his spin was just disingenuous though.

 

[Corpsepyre]

Has anyone checked up on Kamiya?

 

[Trup1aya]

Not necessarily true.

However, contracts take two parties to agree so I cant see how one side can "do dodgy stuff" without the other having signed up to it at some point.

I mean, it's possible to enter predatory contracts with the sole intent to acquire valuable assets from the contractor... but this doesn't appear to be the case.

MS sunk huge amounts of money into this game, used it it much of their lineup marketing, and championed this game at two E3, there's nothing to gain from them cancelleing this project. They must have felt they'd never get return in their investment. It was Quantum Break (loved that game) all over again.

 

[Pathfinder]

Who's deciding what is good or bad?

Taste aren't universal.

True. And I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here, but if Microsoft is willing to throw away four years of funding for a project such as this, then they probably thought it wasn't worth continuing or salvaging.

That's saying something.

 

[truly101]

Nothing of value was lost today.

Not posting anything of value to commemorate?

 

[David___]

How is releasing a bad game for $60 good for anyone?

That's what I'm wondering.

People who don't want this game aren't forced to buy it. People who were excited for this game are now forced to live with the fact they'll never play it. Even if this game was going to bomb and ended up being trash, it brought diversity to the console that would've made the ecosystem more inviting and would've shown that MS can get behind a AAA genre that isn't a FPS/TPS/Racer.

 

[BumblebeeCody]

I've been crying for the past 20 minutes.

 

[BigPete]

Hate to say it, but Xbox seems like the kind of thing that Microsoft would can in a heartbeat without even flinching. I think the only reason it hasn't been cancelled already is because it's such a high-profile product and would reflect poorly on the company.

I don't even think it's that. I think they think they can leverage Xbox to lock users into their other services and platforms. Xbox would get the 'Windows Phone' treatment without hesitation if it lost too many users

 

[Head.spawn]

Between having a Kamiya game and not having a Kamiya game, you always go with the first.

Yeah. ffs, I'll take a rushed game, I don't care. Better than absolutely nothing.

If I didn't have Nier to look to, this would be a completely tragic year.

 

[gaming_noob]

What are these 17 games Spencer is talking about?

Sea of Thieves
Halo 6
Halo Wars 1 Remake
Halo Wars 2
Forza 7
Forza Horizon 4
Gears of War 5

Blehhh. Better be some megatons.

 

[SapphiCine]

This is partly hindsight bias but Scalebound just seemed like an ill conceived idea. Who was the audience?

 

[DrkSage]

I posted this earlier in this thread:



Anyway, isn't it the side of speculation to provide evidence?

“Unfortunately, we are unable to comment or say at this time,” Inaba told IGN at TGS when asked if the game has multiplayer aspects.

I also have saw the trailer posted there ( same one you posted earlier) and it was all speculations with no concrete answer. Just because a trailer shows more dragons appearing to help him didn't mean it was going to have co-op multiplayer. Nobody saw Assassins creed brotherhood trailer and said "wow assassins helping ezio! Assassins creed brotherhood will have co-op!"

 

[SomedayTheFire]

If there's any company who is broke and struggling to keep afloat, it's Microsoft.

Doesn't work like that.

What are these 17 games Spencer is talking about?

Sea of Thieves
Halo 6
Halo Wars 1 Remake
Halo Wars 2
Forza 7
Forza Horizon 4
Gears of War 5

Blehhh. Better be some megatons.

2017 games.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Maybe they cancelled it because it was going to be a trainwreck? They would rather cancel than release a bad game? Maybe it was going to keep costing time and money but the result wasn't viable for the investment?

That's the angle that makes the most sense as of now.

The only way I could see such a large Platinum game being a trainwreck is because Microsoft kept interfering to make it more appealing to Westerners or something and screwed it up

 

[Lokbob]

This sucks, even though it didn’t show great the last time we saw it, I was still looking forward to the game. So much of Kamiya's time wasted for nothing.

 

[Theorry]

What are these 17 games Spencer is talking about?

Sea of Thieves
Halo 6
Halo Wars 1 Remake
Halo Wars 2
Forza 7
Forza Horizon 4
Gears of War 5

Blehhh. Better be some megatons.

2017 games.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Going forward, can we trust that any game Microsoft shows at E3 and the like will actually make it to release? Sure, probably Halo, Gears and Forza will. But for any other larger scale game it seems cancellation is just a likely as making it to release. Look at Scalebound, Phantom Dust, Crackdown 3 and so on. At some point they need to realize that players will lose all confidence in their brand unless they step up.

 

[Icolin]

This is partly hindsight bias but Scalebound just seemed like an ill conceived idea. Who was the audience?

People who like Japanese games, I guess.

 

[L Thammy]

This is by far the biggest Scalebound thread, right? It's over three times as large as the announcement thread (and most threads were 1-4 pages from what I could see)

 

[Kierian]

What are these 17 games Spencer is talking about?

Sea of Thieves
Halo 6
Halo Wars 1 Remake
Halo Wars 2
Forza 7
Forza Horizon 4
Gears of War 5

Blehhh. Better be some megatons.

I think he meant 2017. Sadly not 17 games.

 

[KZXcellent]

They better come out swinging this E3 cause wow.

 

[Big_Al]

Very disappointed to see this happen Most important thing is the teams health and hopefully Kamiya/whoever else is affected will be ok in the long term, I'm sure it's gutting to see what is a dream game get cancelled, regardless of the circumstances around it. Games can be very fickle thing where they come together towards the very end. I never thought Scalebound looked that bad to be honest and I am pretty certain with Kamiya it would have at least been interesting. But I guess that's that.

I wonder if downsizing is something Platinum Games will eventually have to do to stay alive and keep making games. You can be a niche developer who makes profitable enough games but you can't do that with over 200 people in your company (or maybe I'm wrong ?). I of course wish noone to lose their jobs, not at all, but it just feels like they are constantly stretching themselves with multiple projects just to stay alive which ends up affecting their overall output quality. Maybe say 2 teams to have 2 games on the go if possible or always have one game on the go with a small team working on preproduction for something else. Maybe come up with some kind of mobile service game to try and help bring in more money so they can do what they want (probably not something they really want to do or have their heart set on though)

 

[Protome]

Hopefully this doesn't hurt Platinum too much, they make some pretty awesome games most of the time.

Scalebound has looked like absolutely rubbish every time they've showed it though. I was hoping it just demoed poorly but if MS is willing to cancel it, I imagine that's not the case.

 

[The Salt Life]

Any chance this pops up again a year from now like Rime?


Or is this one of those scenarios where even though the game is canceled the company refuses to relinquish it so no one else can make it?

 

[TreIII]

I doubt it. Nintendo seems to have pretty realistic expectations when it comes to projects like these. I expect they'll partner with Platinum again in the future.

There's a part of me that wouldn't be surprised if we got at least a tease of just that at Nintendo's Switch event.

At least Ninty and P* appear to still have a healthy relationship!

 

[Neff]

The money will be going to more halo and forza. Isn't that enough?!

wait have they cancelled gears too?!

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Well yeah, if Nintendo had decided to fund the game, it wouldn't have become nearly as large as this project became.

This was Kamiya's dream project, they wanted to make this for years, but they only managed to get MS to realize their vision.

So, the only way for PG to make that game was with that kind of budget, otherwise they wouldn't had.

 

[Boke1879]

That would make sense if Microsoft had a bevy of other projects on at the moment but they don't seem to have any. They need to seriously impress at E3 this year for their 2017 lineup to be considered big enough to justify a cancellation like this.

EDIT: And as Monkey says above, it's not like Microsoft is hurting at all.

I know people were hype for scalebound, but sales wise I highly doubt it would make an impact.

But that said. And just like Shinobi posted many pages ago. This does call into question the future and what games people can expect to get. We know where they are from a first party standpoint and I can't really see them making 3rd party deals like this again.