• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Scalebound cancelled [Platinum Games and Kamiya have commented]

Status
Not open for further replies.
you know it's pretty shitty to speculate about stuff like this especially when the devs post here.
Honest opinions on a message board, how do they work?!

Cuphead is not being published by MS and it's also coming to Steam.

Confused as to why I keep seeing that game brought up.
There might be people who bought a One solely for that game, and now that the Scalebound situation has happened, instilled some sort of fear that any situation involving a MS console exclusive is possible.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Xbox has been trying for 15 years to get a respectable market share in Japan, and it has never been more than a super niche item. It would definitely be in the best interest of Microsoft to leave the market entirely, and the few Xbox fans living in Japan could be advised to import.

They haven't tried at all this gen.
 

Audioboxer

Member
Screw all of this, I'm only worried about Kamiya's health. It seems he must had a nervous/stress breakdown or something. Hope he is ok. He hasn't tweeted anything in more than a week either : /

I doubt this cancellation has happened in 24 hours. Legalities will have been getting sorted for a while now. Maybe around a week.

The best case scenario is them pulling a Sega and let Nintendo commission an Okami 2, but that's probably a pipe dream at this point. :|

I can dream. A new Okami game or Dragons Dogma 2, pls Capcom, why not??????
 

Neff

Member
Platinum's expertise lies within a very specific type of game.

They were clearly in over their heads with Scalebound.Probably not equipped technically nor do they have any experience with the kind of game MS wanted them to make.

Its liked asking a brilliant chemist to compose music.

The open world aspect wasn't totally out of their field of expertise (due to Ōkami), but I suspect the online multiplayer aspect is what sabotaged things. That shit is time-consuming, expensive, can be an engineering nightmare, and honestly doesn't sound like something Kamiya would be interested in doing in the first place.

A damn 70 page thread for Scalebound, in a couple hours. Where was any of this pent up interest during the last 3 years .

Interesting times we live in

It was there all along due to the pedigree, we were just never shown anything truly substantial or jaw-dropping.

MS joining up with PG for a mega-budget open world game is (literally) a big deal even if you aren't interested, and it being cancelled after four years of development a bigger deal still. The volume of replies and interest reflects that.

You got great things that go together like French Fries and Chicken Wings, Peaches and Cream, Will & Grace, Jak & Daxter, and then there are things like.... Japanese and Xbox. They just don't mix.

Nah, they've done some amazing stuff together.
 

CCIE

Banned
Make sense... it wasn't a shooter or racer. Therefore, it has no business on a MS machine. Poor MS fans - they are really going to cry when Square pulls all of its middling support for the machine. Japan wants the PS4, and Nintendo to a lesser extent. They could care less about the "American" box.

I actually feel some relief I didn't give in to buy an XB1 when this game was announced. MS will do what MS does...
 

Dehnus

Member
This is bullshit. In spite of its lack of popularity in Japan, the Xbox brand was a great home for Japanese games up until the later part of 360's life.

The first Xbox is the unofficial Dreamcast 2; from masterpieces like Ninja Gaiden Black to quintessentially unique Japanese experiences like Breakdown, it's has an excellent library, even before counting superior ports or Sega follow-ups. In this thread, the cult classic Phantom Dust was brought up a few times - because it's a Microsoft exclusive. For the the first half of its life the 360 somehow managed to be the better console for Japanese games by the being the preferred machine for third-parties around the world and continuing to be the home of Japanese action games (sometimes exclusively, and Ninja Gaiden II may as well still be exclusive, as well as Bayonetta until this gen). It even cornered the market on genres like STGs and picked up some slack on JRPGs (although The Last Remnant is so painfully superior on PC you can't count that one). I don't want to engage in a list war, so I won't go any further on that, but to address the current Xbox One situation: despite some early promise (namely, this and Phantom Dust) the situation has been heavily reversed for two reasons: console development becoming even less valued in Japan with a lot of companies falling off the map or shrinking considerably and Microsoft demonstrated failure to expand their first-party.
Indeed I LOVED the first Xbox and the first few years of the 360. But then MS just wend for quick bucks and it became a .... well insult of a console. I mean I even liked the first year of Kinect, it was great to play with the family. But they just wend for cheap Kinect games and otherwise complete dudebro. There was NOTHING in between.

MS will get out of the console industry, and the way they go about treating their third parties? THey DESERVE it!
 

DieH@rd

Banned
its official
http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-exclusive-scalebound-has-been-canceled
C1wYCVCXEAEgeRT.jpg:large

Sigh. So what you have now for a "year of scorpio"? 4 heavily MP/coop oriented games with possibly new Halo coming out [which will most likely again compromise it's campaign experience by shoving aggressive coop elements in it]? I'm not impressed.

Farewell Scalebound headphones dude, we hardly knew ya. Hopefully Platinum Games will survive this.
 
Doesn't surprise me. Every public showing of the game seems to drive home that they don't have a strong focused vision for what the game should be. And the main character was a very uninspiring one too, which is not good if you want it to be a character-driven narrative (if that's what they wanted, seriously... I couldn't even tell).

Yeah pretty much how I felt. Was always curious about this game though and 'looking forward to it' since the PC=Xbox thing. Oh well. There goes all my interesting One IP
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Make sense... it wasn't a shooter or racer. Therefore, it has no business on a MS machine. Poor MS fans - they are really going to cry when Square pulls all of its middling support for the machine. Japan wants the PS4, and Nintendo to a lesser extent. They could care less about the "American" box.

I actually feel some relief I didn't give in to buy an XB1 when this game was announced. MS will do what MS does...

This makes me want a game where you race other dragon riders.
 
I was interested in it but I never viewed it as a heavy hitter. Didn't expect the game to help sell a decent amount of consoles whenever it would have released.
Maybe heavy hitter wasn't the right term. One of the highlights or notable titles for 2017?

Might not have sold gangbusters but it did seem to get a pretty decent amount of attention. At least to the point where a cancellation like this feels like a big deal, and makes me wonder if more are to come.

Its probably just the attention garnered from all of the "Games releasing in 2017" articles and videos out there I'm thinking of.
 

Gwyn

Member
Daniel Ahmad ‏@ZhugeEX
My take on all this, and I've been seeing this for a while, is that Microsoft is transitioning all their games to the 'live service' model.

Daniel Ahmad ‏@ZhugeEX
Basically Microsoft want to have their games emulate what Minecraft has been able to do.
Long lifecycle, large user base, Increased spend.

Daniel Ahmad ‏@ZhugeEX
Microsoft's future direction is about being able to offer the Xbox games and live services on multiple devices that run Windows 10.

i wanted to post something similar but then i was nevermind but yea every single big MS exclusive has some kind of multiplayer/online component and if that's what they want then they are out of touch with gaming
The exception is QB and recore but it's not triple A

Sea of thieves = play with friends
Crackdown 3 = play with friends
state of decay = play with friends

and no i am not saying that these games cant be played solo but designing a game with mutliplayer in mind is more complex and adds more to dev cost/time
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
No matter the impression footage gave, losing a Hideki Kamiya game is a crying shame. Him and his teams consistently surprise and delight, and rarely even in more immediately impressive showing games are all the nuances and specialties of said games showcased. There's always a richness to the game systems that continue throughout the experience and well into second and third playthroughs, with strong replay value and secrets to unlock.

They're consistent in these qualities, somehow blending straight character action with a sense of discovery and growth as you learn and master mechanics and the nuances within. And basically every single Kamiya game is like this, dating all the way back to his work with Capcom.

I know he's not a sole factor in the quality of his games, but respect where respect is due, and much of my hype for Scalebound can be directly attributed to his portfolio and how each and every one of his games has resonated with me. I might have been a bit lukewarm on the footage so far, but I was sold on the title on talent alone. To lose that is a loss for everyone on principle.

Maybe it was a disaster, maybe it didn't work out, maybe Platinum is at fault, maybe Microsoft, maybe nobody; who knows. But as of writing we'll never actually know what Kamiya had cooking, and that saddens me.

Props to Kamiya and the rest of the crew at Platinum for giving it a solid crack, and hopefully the title and team can find footing elsewhere soon.
 

Sesha

Member
Dreams dying... Capcom have been on a slow decline for a while. I don't know if they'll ever hit Konami levels of shit but they're a bit of a mess right now. I hope RE7 is a return to form.

Capcom isn't declining. They're doing okay, and will continue do so as long as they don't try any more major risks like they did back in 2012-13.
 

Loxley

Member
The baseless corporate fan-fiction is growing alarmingly quick in this thread.

Yeah. I get that Platinum has a rabid following on GAF and MS is just another evil corporation who kills puppies, but it's getting a bit out of hand. I understand folks want to vent their frustration, but acting like Platinum are somehow completely innocent in all this seems irresponsible. If a game's development is on time, on budget, and looking promising, there would be no logical reason to cancel it. But the reports that Platinum were missing deadlines shouldn't be glossed over because you want to fling poo and Microsoft.

The game always looked rough whenever it was shown off. There was definitely a lot of potential based on the footage shown, but it's not completely incomprehensible to me as to why MS would cancel it. It's a bummer since it was definitely their most interesting looking AAA exclusive, but hopefully they can fill that void with something eventually.
 
Daniel Ahmad ‏@ZhugeEX
My take on all this, and I've been seeing this for a while, is that Microsoft is transitioning all their games to the 'live service' model.

Daniel Ahmad ‏@ZhugeEX
Basically Microsoft want to have their games emulate what Minecraft has been able to do.
Long lifecycle, large user base, Increased spend.

Daniel Ahmad ‏@ZhugeEX
Microsoft's future direction is about being able to offer the Xbox games and live services on multiple devices that run Windows 10.
Exactly what I and some devs I spoken to feel.
 

Flux

Member
Well I was a bit disappointed to hear the game was cancelled. As a Xbox one fan and Platinum fan.

At the same time, there was probably a good reason to cancel it. Between all of the other projects going on and Kamiyas stress, it was not worth pushing out at the expense of the other things. Hopefully that's not the end of the gaming partnership.
 

Kill3r7

Member
Since Kamiya is free now someone needs to give him some money to make another game. Nintendo, Sony, anyone make it happen.

They don't make commercially successful games. Their games are incredibly fun to play but have zero mass market appeal.
 

watership

Member
So did Platinum Games make a crappy game that was never going to get finished? Or was it so horrible, that MS said, "This will hurt us if it's released" and canned it?
 
Maybe sales of FFXV were so bad even MS' pulling Japanese support lol

Would like to hear the behind the scenes of this one. Doubt we'll hear much more. Kinda crazy that 4 years of development can lead to nothing in the end.
 

RexNovis

Banned
This is the exact opposite of what MS should be doing right now: fostering new IP and building up new genres in their exclusive catalog. I bet Kamiya is PISSED.
 

Teeth

Member
Hahahaha.
Good. Your game is saving the platform just by itself for me right now.

To further expand on this, we own Cuphead. In essence, the game "can't" be cancelled unless we choose to. And we're not cancelling it.

On topic, I really wanted to play Scalebound. I am sad.
 

Cranster

Banned
All of these people saying Scalebound was the only thing worth getting on the Xbox One this year.

JqYTmjn.gif


While it's a shame the game was canceled, Microsoft had realistic and understandable reasons for doing so. Besides, while it was an exclusive there is no realistic way it would have turned into a heavy hitter.
 

Luminaire

Member
So did Platinum Games make a crappy game that was never going to get finished? Or was it so horrible, that MS said, "This will hurt us if it's released" and canned it?
It would be foolish to place the blame solely on PG. perhaps ideas and expectations did not align.
 
Indeed I LOVED the first Xbox and the first few years of the 360. But then MS just wend for quick bucks and it became a .... well insult of a console. I mean I even liked the first year of Kinect, it was great to play with the family. But they just wend for cheap Kinect games and otherwise complete dudebro. There was NOTHING in between.

MS will get out of the console industry, and the way they go about treating their third parties? THey DESERVE it!

Combine with your previous i guess you think MS should keep burning their money even they already burned a lot.
It's not like MS never gave them budget to make this game.
 

Azar

Member
Microsoft. Platinum don't own any of the IPs for games they develop.

They got a new CEO last year though, and one of his resolutions for the next 3 years was to make their first game that they completely own themselves.
Platinum owns Vanquish, actually.
 

Celine

Member
Daniel Ahmad ‏@ZhugeEX
My take on all this, and I've been seeing this for a while, is that Microsoft is transitioning all their games to the 'live service' model.

Daniel Ahmad ‏@ZhugeEX
Basically Microsoft want to have their games emulate what Minecraft has been able to do.
Long lifecycle, large user base, Increased spend.

Daniel Ahmad ‏@ZhugeEX
Microsoft's future direction is about being able to offer the Xbox games and live services on multiple devices that run Windows 10.
Disgusting.
 
God damn. <_____< what's there to be excited for now? Crackdown 3? Sea of Thieves? This sucks.

Get excited that in all likelihood they really will focus on PC now because of their new strategy. For the first time in a long time I'm hopeful that MS will actually do right by PC gaming because it's essential for their new strategy.
 
Daniel Ahmad &#8207;@ZhugeEX
My take on all this, and I've been seeing this for a while, is that Microsoft is transitioning all their games to the 'live service' model.

Daniel Ahmad &#8207;@ZhugeEX
Basically Microsoft want to have their games emulate what Minecraft has been able to do.
Long lifecycle, large user base, Increased spend.

Daniel Ahmad &#8207;@ZhugeEX
Microsoft's future direction is about being able to offer the Xbox games and live services on multiple devices that run Windows 10.

Exactly what I and some devs I spoken to feel.

not like this
 

Aceofspades

Banned
an extremely thin line up of exclusives become thinner...

The game hasn't looked good tbh, the audience are not on Xbox. Platinum shouldn't have agreed about the deal in the first place.
 

chadskin

Member
Daniel Ahmad &#8207;@ZhugeEX
My take on all this, and I've been seeing this for a while, is that Microsoft is transitioning all their games to the 'live service' model.

Daniel Ahmad &#8207;@ZhugeEX
Basically Microsoft want to have their games emulate what Minecraft has been able to do.
Long lifecycle, large user base, Increased spend.

Daniel Ahmad &#8207;@ZhugeEX
Microsoft's future direction is about being able to offer the Xbox games and live services on multiple devices that run Windows 10.

As someone who largely plays single player, narrative driven games, this sounds rather horrible. RIP Alan Wake 2 :(
 

harSon

Banned
Daniel Ahmad &#8207;@ZhugeEX
My take on all this, and I've been seeing this for a while, is that Microsoft is transitioning all their games to the 'live service' model.

Daniel Ahmad &#8207;@ZhugeEX
Basically Microsoft want to have their games emulate what Minecraft has been able to do.
Long lifecycle, large user base, Increased spend.

Daniel Ahmad &#8207;@ZhugeEX
Microsoft's future direction is about being able to offer the Xbox games and live services on multiple devices that run Windows 10.

Cancelling Fabel Legends was such a step in the right direction towards achieving this.
 
Make sense... it wasn't a shooter or racer. Therefore, it has no business on a MS machine. Poor MS fans - they are really going to cry when Square pulls all of its middling support for the machine. Japan wants the PS4, and Nintendo to a lesser extent. They could care less about the "American" box.

I actually feel some relief I didn't give in to buy an XB1 when this game was announced. MS will do what MS does...

Not just Japan but in most places outside the US. As recently as August the Xbox One hadn't outsold the Wii U in Germany.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom