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[OtisInf]

Phil is the top.

The higher ups at MS won't be deciding which project XBOX should axe and this type of things. They will most likely give guidelines and objectives of which Spencer will fulfill as he see fit.

Heh, no.

XBox isn't a separate division within MS. This means a lot: it's part of a bigger division which has a bigger view/goal-set.Within this division (It's part of Windows & Devices) it's just a small part and sadly for xbox, it is part of the Devices segment where other devices are part of too, which are a little bit more vital for MS' survival.

It also doesn't operate with an infinite budget, but a budget that comes from its parent, and the cancellation of this large project shows to me there are issues with keeping within that budget: investing more money to complete the project would mean the total amount of money invested in the project would become too large for them to hit their estimated revenue from this project. With a situation where there's no problem with their own budget, they would likely have taken the hit and released it because the cancellation for a high profile exclusive is bad for sales of the console and consumer perception of the brand (e.g. 'what to expect in the future? is it safe to invest my money in this console or will there be no good exclusives coming out?')

If 'scorpio' (or whatever they'll call it) won't deliver what they've promised and won't win over the customers they've lost to sony, it's game over for xbox, I'm pretty sure of it: MS doesn't need it for their survival, so any $ spend on it has to come back as a profit.

 

[D4Danger]

They had to list "big games" to compensate for the cancelation of Scalebound, and what did they list?

Oh hmmm I didnt actually mean you should do it. Never mind.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Oh, there's evidence (apparently a lot?) MS changed the terms? I won't even hold you to a lot. How about you provide even one iota of "evidence" showing that.

The evidence is Microsoft's track record of doing precisely that.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1332312

No more than a week after they’d signed the contract, according to several ex-Darkside employees, Microsoft’s team came back to the studio with a new request: they wanted a single-player campaign. “They decided that fans were gonna want a single-player game,” said a person who worked on the project. “But they weren’t going to change the budget or the timeframe.”

Suddenly, what was once a $5 million multiplayer reboot of Phantom Dust had become a $5 million multiplayer reboot of Phantom Dust with a six-hour single-player story mode attached. That meant Darkside would need more designers, more artists, and more programmers, all of which equated to extra time and money that they didn’t have. Still, employees say they were committed to pulling it off. This was their first solo project. They wanted to prove they were good enough to do it. According to one Darkside source, their tentative plan was to build a fun vertical slice—a playable and demonstrable chunk of the game—and use it to persuade Microsoft into giving them more money.

Microsoft wanted a longer single-player campaign; they wanted various features added and changed; they wanted Darkside to help contribute card art to the accompanying mobile game Microsoft had planned. “This kind of focus change happened on a nearly monthly basis,” said a person who worked on the game.

“They asked for things pretty quickly,” said a second person close to the studio. “We kept telling them, ‘We cannot make this game for the budget you want.’”

Your turn now. Where is your evidence that Platinum Games signed a contract set in stone with clearly defined deadlines and didn't delived what they originally promised? Especially when their track record shows them consistently delivering on time and budget?

 

[Bits N Pieces]

Cuphead I'd be happy with as a PS4 user if it came through on PS plus for free one month but if that's a full retail release then wow....

It isn't exactly GOTY looking is it haha

Who said its a full retail release? Also the game won't be appearing on other consoles, ever. So no chance of it appearing on PS+ for you im afraid.

 

[MisterR]

Cuphead. I'm not sure it's going to be enough for me to hang onto my system though. Scalebound was a huge game for me this year.

You and me both. I was excited for Scalebound and Sea of Thieves. Thinking at this point of selling my Xbone and picking up a Switch when it comes out to go with my PS4.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

LIST OF GAMES

What a lineup. 2017 is going to be INSANE for Pro!

 

[breveglieri]

Oh hmmm I didnt actually mean you should do it. Never mind.

Ooops, my bad then

 

[brokenbeans]

They had to list "big games" to compensate for the cancelation of Scalebound, and what did they list?

-Halo Wars 2
-Crackdown 3
-State of Decay 2
-Sea of Thieves

For Playstation we have:

Horizon: Zero Dawn
Nier: Automata
GT Sport
Gravity Rush 2
Nioh
Persona 5
Uncharted 4: The Lost Legacy
Hellblade
Drawn to Death
Detroit: Become Human
Yakuza 0
Farpoint
Matterfall
Wipeout Collection
The Show 17
New Hot Shots Golf
Dreams
Pyre
World of Warriors
Nex Machina
Knack 2
PaRappa HD
Starblood Arena

List wars everyone!!

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

Nintendo doesn't buy studios guys. That's expensive and invites risk. Second party partnerships have been their focus for awhile.

Things would have to be really bad and some immeasurable level of favors would need to happen for Nintendo to do so.

 

[evanmisha]

Cuphead I'd be happy with as a PS4 user if it came through on PS plus for free one month but if that's a full retail release then wow....

It isn't exactly GOTY looking is it haha

I can't be arsed with most of the stuff on PS Plus but I would pay like 40 for Cuphead

 

[duckroll]

Nintendo doesn't buy studios guys. That's expensive and invites risk. Second party partnerships have been their focus for awhile.

Things would have to be really bad and some immeasurable level of favors would need to happen for Nintendo to do so.

They bought Monolithsoft though.

 

[00ich]

milestones are only relevant to a client wanting progress reports, they're not relevant to the final product that said client can then sell. if in 8 months platinum could have finished the game, sorted performance issues and it turned out good. then MS would have something to sell, and even if it only got luke-warm critical reception and sold 500,000 worldwide, that's still upwards of 30 million dollars made back.

now, i don't know how much MS have sunk into it, but i can't imagine it's much more than 30 million, even if it has been in development for 4 years...now MS have a pile of assets sat on a harddrive and whatever money they've spend flushed down the toilet. that seems like a bad place to be. and again, this is MS...they're not short on cash. pushing for this to be finished, milestones be damned, would have given them a boost in player appreciation at the very least. the last thing they want to be known for is the company that shit cans games people want to play.

MS cash is not not at free disposal for all divisions.
It may well be that Xbox division has a tight budget this year to meet shareholder expectations. Then they have Scorpio at the end of the year and need loads of cash to promote it. Maybe they are low on budget.
Maybe they have internal numbers that suggest that dying multiplayer communities - and scalebound would be one of those - are the prime reason to cancel gold.
Maybe platinum is pulling a Alien Pitchford and MS came to the conclusion that investment and result just don't add up. So they pulled the plug.

Here's the least likely reason: Phil Spencer (how ultimately is responsible) has no clue what he is doing. It may just be that the reason are a bit corporate bullshit.

 

[Mystic_Wanderer]

The evidence is Microsoft's track record of doing precisely that.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1332312




Your turn now. Where is your evidence that Platinum Games signed a contract set in stone with clearly defined deadlines and didn't delived what they originally promised? Especially when their track record shows them consistently delivering on time and budget?

So, your "evidence" is this having happened in the past? No actual evidence? Got it.

And I never said anything happened one way or the other. We don't know. If it was a contract issue, either PG signed a bad one, or PG can sue MS for breach of contract.

 

[Theorry]

They had to list "big games" to compensate for the cancelation of Scalebound, and what did they list?

-Halo Wars 2
-Crackdown 3
-State of Decay 2
-Sea of Thieves

For Playstation we have:

Horizon: Zero Dawn
Nier: Automata
GT Sport
Gravity Rush 2
Nioh
Persona 5
Uncharted 4: The Lost Legacy
Hellblade
Drawn to Death
Detroit: Become Human
Yakuza 0
Farpoint
Matterfall
Wipeout Collection
The Show 17
New Hot Shots Golf
Dreams
Pyre
World of Warriors
Nex Machina
Knack 2
PaRappa HD
Starblood Arena

Yeah thats a way to do it. Add the smaller titles to PS but "forget" the Xbox ones.

 

[Net]

Nintendo doesn't buy studios guys. That's expensive and invites risk. Second party partnerships have been their focus for awhile.

Things would have to be really bad and some immeasurable level of favors would need to happen for Nintendo to do so.

They did buy Retro and I'm not entirely sure why. It didn't seem to make sense at the time.

 

[glaurung]

Cuphead. I'm not sure it's going to be enough for me to hang onto my system though. Scalebound was a huge game for me this year.

Cuphead is nice and whimsical and everything, but it looks more like a good weekend, not 200+ hours of fun.

 

[Prompto]

I don't get why people want Sony or Nintendo to buy Platnium. Why would you want all their games to be exclusive to one platform?

 

[moai]

glad to see the more reasonable posters aknowledging both parties might be at fault.

They had to list "big games" to compensate for the cancelation of Scalebound, and what did they list?

-Halo Wars 2
-Crackdown 3
-State of Decay 2
-Sea of Thieves

For Playstation we have:

Horizon: Zero Dawn
Nier: Automata
GT Sport
Gravity Rush 2
Nioh
Persona 5
Uncharted 4: The Lost Legacy
Hellblade
Drawn to Death
Detroit: Become Human
Yakuza 0
Farpoint
Matterfall
Wipeout Collection
The Show 17
New Hot Shots Golf
Dreams
Pyre
World of Warriors
Nex Machina
Knack 2
PaRappa HD
Starblood Arena

list warz have begun.

 

[valkyre]

IMO it never looked great to begin with. That demo they showed recently (was it E3?) was just awful... like really really bad.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

How about you comment on the content of my posts and keep needless comments like tough guy to yourself?

I don't doubt they face challenged. So do many, many, many other successful companies. Unfair is government controlling production and only legally allowing a corporation or entity terrible terms. No such compulsion here. If PGA signed a bad contract and got burned, it's on them.

Either self fund and make money, take a loan and make money, or sign elsewhere for more favorable terms.

You sound like Andrew Ryan. The world is not some perfect free-market wonderland. Sometimes you have to take the job that's there and not the job you want. You are a business that, if you are not making a game, goes out of business. The livelihood of 200+ people relies on you having a project to work on.

Sometimes actors have to take bad roles.
Sometimes artists have to take bad commissions.
Sometimes game studios have to take unfavorable contracts.

Telling a studio to just go self-fund or find a better contract is woefully naive. Are you really telling me, in all your life, you have never worked a job that wasn't ideal? Do you think anyone wants to work as cashiers in retail hell or in a fast-food kitchen? No, but it pays the bills, and it keeps you alive, so you do it while you hold out for something better.

It is not easier to walk away from employment when you have 200+ people to employ. It's harder. If you would have a hard time quitting your crappy job at a supermarket, imagine how much harder it would be to pass up a contract that would employ your entire studio. Simply being a studio does not give you some privileged ability to negotiate contracts or pick and choose your work. And even if you did try to negotiate something more in your favor, who do you think has more clout? The entity that needs the job to continue existing or the mega-conglomerate with all the money?

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Nintendo doesn't buy studios guys*. That's expensive and invites risk. Second party partnerships have been their focus for awhile.

Things would have to be really bad and some immeasurable level of favors would need to happen for Nintendo to do so.

*Except Monolith Soft. That was an exception.

 

[Aki-at]

So Sega will buy them.

Sega are too busy buying developers who make successful games though!!!

On a serious note why would anyone want to buy Platinum? As a company they're particularly worthless, I don't think their tech is anything special and they have zero ownership over IPs... so when people say they want them to be bought I have to scratch my head. Talent alone doesn't get a company purchased but what that company specifically owns.

Though that doesn't stop them from being a second party to a company.

 

[duckroll]

STOP QUOTING LIST WARS.

Geez people. Really? Lol.

 

[Net]

I don't get why people want Sony or Nintendo to buy Platnium. Why would you want all their games to be exclusive to one platform?

They would be relatively safe.

Nintendo doesn't really kill studios.

 

[breveglieri]

List wars everyone!!

Well, Microsoft started it

They could just have announced Scalebound was cancelled and be done with it, but they had to list "amazing games" coming up in 2017, right?

It's on the first post...

 

[Garlador]

So these new demands, changing milestones, and payments held hostage, are they part of the original contract, or is there a clause which states MS has essentially carte blanche to amend the contact as they see fit?

Like I said - either PG self finances and makes money, gets a loan and makes money, or signs a better deal elsewhere to make money. If they can't do this, what they're doing isn't valuable enough. And corporate America (or anywhere) is rough to make it in. There aren't handouts or sentimental deals.

I know far too many people in the industry screwed over by big publishers to even justify answering all this dribble.

When the choice is between food on the table or being jobless, and you have no other alternatives, you take the offer given. Independent developers almost never have the leverage.

Have some perspective.

It's as banal as saying "don't like it, get a different job".

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Yeah thats a way to do it. Add the smaller titles to PS but "forget" the Xbox ones.

What smaller titles? I don't see any smaller title.

I do agree that the list war can have its own thread (and can happily get locked if needed to be) without detailing this thread. I'll unquote it.

 

[Majukun]

platinum would sell to a third party only if the alternative is bankruptcy..they created the company to be free and they are for hire to get enough money to start their own projects some day

at least this is the announced plan,don't know if anything changed meantime

 

[King_Moc]

Why did he even release The Witness on XBO then?

I imagine he's referring to the indie parity clause. Microsofts initial offer to him would have been release it here first, or not at all.

 

[BY2K]

Are they known for trolling? I don't understand. I've never heard of them before.

Wait on hold.

*reads previous posts*

Okay, I can't read. Nevermind.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Okay let's talk about contracts. Here's another example, send me $500 right now over Paypal and I won't ban you in 2 hours. You can't be forced into bad contracts unless you want to!

Ouch! I've never in my life wanted someone to actually mean every word.

 

[Lichter]

It looks charming but like Ori and the Blind Forest it's hardly a system seller, more like a neat curio to compliment the main releases.

Cuphead and Ori are literally the only things I want though.

Probably not a system seller but I can't see why it's not "GOTY looking".

GOTYs must be AAA games with a big production? I must have missed the memo.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Cuphead is nice and whimsical and everything, but it looks more like a good weekend, not 200+ hours of fun.

I mean, I can still enjoy Gunstar Heroes 20+ years later. If Cuphead is as good as that game, 200+ hours of fun doesn't seem like that big of a stretch for me. I've already put more time into Wild Guns Reloaded on PS4 than most games I've purchased for that system and it's a game that can be finished in 30 minutes.

 

[UKUMI0]

They had to list "big games" to compensate for the cancelation of Scalebound, and what did they list?
*snip*

Oh is it list warz time? Also nice job not including all the "smaller" games on Xbox One.

 

[oti]

List wars everyone!!

Is it really a war if there's a clear winner and a clear loser here?

They had to list "big games" to compensate for the cancelation of Scalebound, and what did they list?

-Halo Wars 2
-Crackdown 3
-State of Decay 2
-Sea of Thieves

For Playstation we have:

Horizon: Zero Dawn
Nier: Automata
GT Sport
Gravity Rush 2
Nioh
Persona 5
Uncharted 4: The Lost Legacy
Hellblade
Drawn to Death
Detroit: Become Human
Yakuza 0
Farpoint
Matterfall
Wipeout Collection
The Show 17
New Hot Shots Golf
Dreams
Pyre
World of Warriors
Nex Machina
Knack 2
PaRappa HD
Starblood Arena

I feel like this will put a lot of pressure on Sea of Thieves. The game looks quirky and charming but being one of the few exclusive games will put so much focus on that little game I don't think it wants at all.

 

[breveglieri]

Yeah thats a way to do it. Add the smaller titles to PS but "forget" the Xbox ones.

I just copied and pasted the list from Eurogamer, to be honest

Anything after Hellblade is "small" to me

 

[Theorry]

What smaller titles? I don't see any smaller title.

I do agree that the list war can have its own thread (and can happily get locked if needed to be) without detailing this thread. I'll unquote it.

I sorry i forgot the big AAA game like New Hot Shots Golf.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Well, Microsoft started it

They could just have announced Scalebound was cancelled and be done with it, but they had to list "amazing games" coming up in 2017, right?

It's on the first post...

What are they gonna do? Say that they cancelled one game without letting people know they have more coming?

"yeah, guys, we cancelled one game, sell your console, no more exclusive games are coming!"

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

That's a different scenario, isn't it? At that point the 360 was so far ahead of PS3 in the US/UK they could afford to coast by and experiment with new peripherals. That won't be the case with the Scorpio, especially if MS wants to treat it as a fresh start for the Xbox One/Nw console release all together.

If you look at the top selling games for One it's mainly third-party games. That's what's selling. The second Xbox doesn't get a new COD, Battlefield, GTA, Mass Effect etc. then we can talk about a dead console cuz that's is what's keeping the system alive. Third-parties have a lot of power this gen. EA and Ubisoft were the ones to sell these new consoles to the mass public.

 

[D4Danger]

I'm sorry, duckroll

 

[InquisitorAles]

Well, Microsoft started it

They could just have announced Scalebound was cancelled and be done with it, but they had to list "amazing games" coming up in 2017, right?

It's on the first post...

It's not like they were comparing their list to competitors line-up...

 

[Riposte]

If Nier Automata "Works" for Square-Taro I can see a new Drakengard from Platinum and they took some exp with Scalebound.

I can't see it being a Kamiya joint though.

 

[usp84]

Wow 4 years of work wasted it feels wrong that we will not see the result of this work

 

[OldRoutes]

Is it really a war if there's a clear winner and a clear loser here?

In quality or quantity? Because the 'quality' aspect is still up in the air... for both lists.

 

[lightskintwin]

Sega are too busy buying developers who make successful games though!!!

On a serious note why would anyone want to buy Platinum? As a company they're particularly worthless, I don't think their tech is anything special and they have zero ownership over IPs... so when people say they want them to be bought I have to scratch my head. Talent alone doesn't get a company purchased but what that company specifically owns.

Though that doesn't stop them from being a second party to a company.

This. If anything simply partner up for a game or strike a multiple game deal with Platinum as publishers have done in the past.

 

[Garlador]

So, your "evidence" is this having happened in the past? No actual evidence? Got it.

And I never said anything happened one way or the other. We don't know. If it was a contract issue, either PG signed a bad one, or PG can sue MS for breach of contract.

I... don't think you know what "evidence" is. Cause this is called evidence.

What you're demanding is iron-clad "proof".

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

I sorry i forgot the big AAA game like New Hot Shots Golf.

Hot Shots Golf is a multimillion dollar selling franchise. It's as big as it gets, and a game I'm desperately looking forward to.

 

[Mystic_Wanderer]

I know far too many people in the industry screwed over by big publishers to even justify answering all this dribble.

When the choice is between food on the table or being jobless, and you have no other alternatives, you take the offer given. Independent developers almost never have the leverage.

Have some perspective.

It's as banal as saying "don't like it, get a different job".

What are we playing basketball? Or did you mean drivel?

And if you don't like your job, you should get a different one. If you lack the talent or skill to do so, on you.

If what you do doesn't put food on the table, it's not good enough. End of story. It seems re-phrasing this isn't helping anybody, so this is my last comment on the topic. We don't live in a utopia or fairy tale world where everything is fair, nor a meritocracy.

 

[Maximus P]

On slightly the same topic I really hope city skylines xbox one edition doesn't get canned, big fan of the pc version and would love to play it on my xbox one as well but since Ive heard it was coming I've seen nothing on it.

 

[breveglieri]

It's not like they were comparing their list to competitors line-up...

No, but as a consumer, I am