Scalebound cancelled [Platinum Games and Kamiya have commented]
- Thread starter SteveO409
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Well sure that's usually things that are off the record, as those are employees' rights. But the senior members taking a month off (that's a pretty long vacation) on a project that's been getting delayed and looks to be a top and urgent priority is not that common. The project just got out of hand at that point.
I've been a huge fan of Phantom Dust ever since I played the hidden Japanese demo on that one OXM disc, so Microsoft's mishandling of the reboot still hurts my soul.
Hideki Kamiya is my favorite game designer. He's never been at the helm of a bad game, and I'd argue that several, including TW101, rank among the best I've played in their respective genres. Even other Platinum titles like MGR, Vanquish, and Bayonetta 2 aren't that far behind. To me, losing them for action games would be the equivalent of losing the last person on the planet who knew how to make pizza or chocolate. With modern Ninja Gaiden dead and Capcom doing who-knows-what, they really feel like the last ones keeping that torch alive.
Hearing all of this Scalebound stuff is absolutely devastating. I haven't been happy with Xbox since the 360, and Scalebound was my last reason to stick around. At least Killer Instinct and Forza Horizon 3 are on PC now.
Hideki Kamiya is my favorite game designer. He's never been at the helm of a bad game, and I'd argue that several, including TW101, rank among the best I've played in their respective genres. Even other Platinum titles like MGR, Vanquish, and Bayonetta 2 aren't that far behind. To me, losing them for action games would be the equivalent of losing the last person on the planet who knew how to make pizza or chocolate. With modern Ninja Gaiden dead and Capcom doing who-knows-what, they really feel like the last ones keeping that torch alive.
Hearing all of this Scalebound stuff is absolutely devastating. I haven't been happy with Xbox since the 360, and Scalebound was my last reason to stick around. At least Killer Instinct and Forza Horizon 3 are on PC now.
Are we really comparing Trico's AI with the AI that we have seen for this game?
ronaldthump
Member
I'm privy to this excert straight from Eurogamer:
so it was a month delayed; so why can't it continue? FFS.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Nintendo kinda seems to consider Bayonetta to be a prestige title and a draw for the enthusiasts. They don't shy away from giving Bayonetta attention or object to putting her in Smash.
My gut instinct says that yes, they would likely ask for Bayonetta 3 especially if Switch is core-oriented and they could use it to gauge interest in certain kinds of software. I sorta assumed a Bayonetta game is an all-hands on deck title for Platinum so a wholly new Bayo title would pay the bills and require a full team.
tiredheadcrab
Member
They already have 2 games lined up for 2018. Where are they getting the time from? I'd be shocked if they release B3 in 2018. Maybe 2019. Who knows but a few developers schedule are cleared up now.
They should have settled the fuck down when making this game.
Yeah, I was wondering what major game he/she was referring to, that's the only thing that came to mind, and it's not even comparable, as you say, it was never even announced.
Hawk269
Member
I get what you are saying, but for the majority of those posting in this thread, it is just a great time to shit on MS about this. Sorry to be blunt about it, but with so many dissing this game since the beginning and every showing the game had since then, people continued to diss on the game and said it would sell like shit and be a failure.
The game is now more popular on Gaf now that is dead versus when the game was being worked on. It is odd, it is weird, but it seems that all of a sudden there are more fans of the game than ever before and the only difference is that it has been cancelled. This game is getting more attention now that it is dead than the last 3 years combined of when it was being worked on. That should say something.
Man that SUCKS. I know it wasn't showing well but I still had faith it would turn around because Platinum, and I figured MS needed it to make a big splash and they knew it.
As for the current line-up Cuphead looks amazing, and there will be a steady stream of BC games. But yeah, this is kinda gutting.
As for the current line-up Cuphead looks amazing, and there will be a steady stream of BC games. But yeah, this is kinda gutting.
It was also three years ago. S/he said "just canceled."
Geraldo_Ray
Member
127 pages? I honestly thought people didn't care about this game.
Either way, I wasn't impressed with the footage they've shown, but I was still willing to give it a chance. Guess that's not happening now. Now I'm wondering what Platinum's going to do now once Nier is done.
Either way, I wasn't impressed with the footage they've shown, but I was still willing to give it a chance. Guess that's not happening now. Now I'm wondering what Platinum's going to do now once Nier is done.
professor_t
Member
Holy shit. That is a major bummer, despite the fact that I thought the game looked pretty rough when they showed it off.
Yeah It sucks, but the difference here is that Sony's AAA game was unannounced, assuming your talking about that Sony Santa Monica game with Stig directing.
MS had Scalebound on three different Conference Stages starting with the E3 Reveal in 2014, The Gamescom Stage Demo in 2015, Then E3 Stage demo in 2016.
I'm having a hard time understanding how people don't understand that Kamiya's pedigree gives people faith that the quality of the final product would be some level of good/entertaining even if there were occasional boring parts like big heavily scripted boss fights + the fact that E3 presentations are really crappy way of judging any game's quality. Some games present really well at events like E3 (especially when presented with highly scripted sequences and when some publishers/devs show footage that is a bit prettied up/not representative of what they'll eventually be able to do with the final game), some games have a bit more boring showings for whatever reason. Often the presenters aren't the best players and a lot of games that require some level of skill to play look bad when someone sucky is playing them because they are constantly failing, which doesn't necessarily make for entertaining footage to watch.
Sometimes the PR department (who are usually in charge of things like these) do not make the best decisions as to what to show in such presentations. The big boss demo was a bit boring as presented on the stage, but who knows how fun it could be with some more aggressive, skillful play with the full combat system in place & usable?
DriftingSpirit
Member
Probably Bayonetta 3.
Scalebound was also the most anticipated Xbox game in Shinobi's most anticipated thread.
NinjaCoachZ
Member
Sorry, I misread that.
All right, so if Bayo1 did about a million, that's pretty good actually. I didn't know it actually made that. I figured it did well enough but didn't know how it was that close to a million.
I guess at the end of the day the issue is how exactly "niche" is being defined. If it's being compared to the biggest fish in the ocean then it would be, but honestly it feels kind of weird to me to think of a million-seller as "niche" necessarily.
Maybe "niche" isn't the right word for the series as a whole. "Cult" might be more apt. The series has the potential to grow further since it's been raising awareness for the past few years. If the 1.3m figure for Bayo1 is combined with the 300k figure for 2 (since many of those would have come with Bayonetta 1 as well) then that's 1.6m total, which isn't that far off from DMC1 or 3+SE.
Now, I will say 2 was fighting an uphill battle both by being on the Wii U and being pretty different than the typical Wii U game. So the reason why I thought of it as a niche game is because it has the further disadvantage of being tied to niche hardware, and was something of an anomaly for that system's library. Does that make sense.
Ban Puncher
Member
paragonpro
Banned
Ill repeat again, microsoft, not platinum, should be fucking embarassed about how this all went down. I hope the story comes out and they are never able to treat another developer like this again.
It's a chance for Microsoft bashers to get a free swing in.
CouchMaster
Member
Don't think it was ever officially cancelled, just MIA until it showed up as WiiU exclusive.
Danis Saur
Member
A lot of us didn't seem curious about the game, but about the team and director behind the game.
Could this have been another Bayonetta, or Devil May Cry?
We'll never know now. ¯\_(ツ
_/¯Nier will be fine but it won't set the world on fire. Looks to have a mid size budget and I expect decent sales considering how niche drakengard/Nier is.
Suzushiiro
Banned
That in itself isn't stupid. What's stupid is the meddling that MS almost certainly pulled that resulted in the game being that way in the first place- had Platinum been allowed to make the game they wanted to make, it would most likely have been a solid title. We know this because Platinum pretty much always makes games that are well-received critically (if not commercially) when funded by publishers who actually let them do their thing, and MS has a reputation for not being very good at that.
It's similar to all of the studios that EA shut down after buying and fucking up.
SolidSnakex
Member
They're working on Granblue Fantasy RE:Link, which I think is a project that's much bigger than some think.
Blackleg-sanji1
Banned
Not out until 2018 either tho. That game will probably be a good seller at least tho
JesseEwiak
Member
"well-received critically (if not commercially)"
There's the key phrase - Microsoft isn't running a charity. If Platinum wants hands off from publishers, they need to sell to more than the NeoGAF audience.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
It's 127 pages of shock, dispair, sadness and realization that the dream is dead, no matter how much we didn't care about the dream. The game had potential, even if the footage shown to public was mediocre. It had style, prescense and potential.
Ban Puncher
Member
I wake up and Scalebound is cancelled?
I am going back to bed.
I am going back to bed.
Blackleg-sanji1
Banned
Or people like platinum and don't like hearing troubling news for an already struggling studio.
Crayon
Member
This may bring Scalebound back. It's worth a try.
JesseEwiak
Member
Excited on GAF doesn't equal excited enough for Microsoft to continue paying for a game that has looked mediocre to everybody but hardcore Kamiya fans.
When Bayo1 came out, word of mouth made the game sound like this:
"Did you hear about that action game with the naked chick? IGN gave it a 9.6!"
By the time the game had gone through the critical discourse and the sequel was coming out, people realized the game was more like this:
It's a subtle distinction, but the former has potential mass-market appeal while the latter doesn't.
At least that's my take on it.
Hey hey, let's not get crazy now. I mean sure Scalebound was the most anticipated xbox exclusive in that thread and was way ahead of games like shenmue III, gt sport, tekken 7, for honor, injustice 2 etc but we all know that everyone hated the game before today and is just in here because they wanted an excuse to badmouth MS.
Goodacre0081
Member
even though MS is paying for development at what point do you need to step back and let game developers develop games? do all publishers meddle this deep into dictating how a game should look and play?
-MD-
Member
I agree.
boredandlazy
Member
Also plenty of scope for people on the complete opposite end of the spectrum to do their thing as well.
Mihael Mello Keehl
Banned
True lol but its deserved, MS need calling out on this. Im done with this topic tho
Geraldo_Ray
Member
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Yabberwocky
Member
When Bayo1 came out, word of mouth made the game sound like this:
"Did you hear about that action game with the naked chick? IGN gave it a 9.6!"
By the time the game had gone through the critical discourse and the sequel was coming out, people realized the game was more like this:
It's a subtle distinction, but the former has potential mass-market appeal while the latter doesn't.
At least that's my take on it.
That is an amazing comparison, holy shit. I did a very undignified snort.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
That's not true and you know it. It's a bit of both.
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