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[StoOgE]

That said, Spencer's statement that Scalebound's cancellation is better for gamers is some real shit.

It sounds like it wasn't coming out in '18 and they are going to take whatever budget was pointed in that direction and buy a 3rd party times exclusive or two that they can crow about at E3.

I don't disagree that the tweet came off bad. But, I'm willing to give him the "140 characters is not a lot" benefit of the doubt.

 

[Cow Goes Moo]

Here is the first page of the 2016 official showing
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1232689

you seemed to have missed some posts on that same thread in the first page

This looks AMAZING

By far and away looks like the best Platinum game ever. SO excited!!!!!

Ok this looks awesome. But what is Scalebound?

DmC Monster Hunter is looking great

I think it still looks really cool. Totally not what I expected, but still, looks fresh as fuck.

Game looks great but I wish the guy would shut up.

It's gonna be weird playing a PG game while someone literally tells you how to play it.



I'm sure it'll be good but yeah it seems to lack his propensity for speed and flashiness. The dialogue in his games always sparkles too, but here it's very flat and literal. It feels like they took the Westem AAA recommendations they sought from MS very much at face value.

Looked pretty awesome to me

Not very exciting to watch, but looks like it could be great. Monster Hunter where you fight with dragons by your side , sounds good to me.

That was fucking amazing.

Graphically, I thought it looked fantastic. Had a great scale to it, and reminded me of the Final Fantasy demo on the scale factor.

Way more interested in how the world and dungeons look but the bits fight seemed fun.

Looks pretty fun

The character design on the otherhand..YIKES.

I guess I shouldn't expect much from Platinum in that dept.

It looked interesting up to when he put his headphones on

I thought it looked ok, not amazing. Reminded me of Lost Planet but bigger scale.

I liked what I saw.
My only issue is that the gameplay seemed kind of slow.

Looked fine to me, although im a Platinum stan but still. Yall cant judge it on a boss fight you aint play

I thought it looked awesome.

obviously there are more but it wasn't a total disapproved showing apparently
---
for my own amusement i searched the word faith and was pretty unsurprised at some diehard fans

here's how beloved P* is to some neogaf users in that same thread

I'll give this faith for Kamiya, writing off W101 was the most idiotic decision I did this gen

I have faith in kamiya and his team. I honestly don't think the game was meant to be played by shooting arrows from 100 yards away.

The demo we saw last year was really good so I feel they just chose a weaker section to demo this year. I still have faith in Kamiya.

Wasn't feeling the boss fight tbh, but I have faith in P*.

Also thanks to it coming to PC, I have zero need to buy an xbox now.

Kamiya has yet to make a bad game.

I have faith in this, PG games usually don't demo very well. This happened several times.

Platinum games demo bad. Even wonderful 101 looked like dogshit on demo. This will be a masterpeice. Kamiya has never made a bad game, have some faith.

I had no idea this was also coming to windows 10.

Gotta get this day1.

 

[Wereroku]

As the owner of a publisher (board games, but still), its amazing how much behind the scenes stuff can go wrong. Usually the smaller party (designer) is the one that crows the loudest to sources. It behooves MS in absolutely no way to shit talk a designer, but the designer needs to get it out there that it was not their fault so that future partners are not scared off.

We'll never know what exactly happened here and where blame lies. I've had designers publicly announce changes to a game weeks before it went to release, and then publicly blame me for the games failings in forums. I read it, I know the story is far more complicated, and I said absolutely nothing. Because it benefits me in no way at all to get into the weeds.

But Platinum sounds a lot like Chip Kelly after he got fired.:

http://deadspin.com/chip-kelly-is-playing-the-game-1790708785

In the case of this product, my guess is the budget creep was not going to align with sales expectations. It was a red meat announcement at a time that MS needed to win back the core gamers trust. It didn't work beyond some hooting and hollering at E3, it was clear based on sales of other red meat titles (ReCore) that this strategy was a money losing gambit that was not getting them the gamers they wanted to grab. Likely bc Sony was engaged in the same activity (TLG, FF7 remake, etc) and staved off any possible momentum MS might have had with that demo. So, when you are a pet project with limited financial upside on the sales end, missing deadlines and budget milestones is going to be an easy call from the publishers perspective.

This likely also does not bode well for Crackdown, but I hope I'm wrong.

However from Platinum's track record we know they are a company that are spot on when it comes to properly budgeting and developing titles within reasonable time frames. Why is it suddenly completely off the rails and on them when the only difference between this project and earlier ones are the publisher. Seems like the leaks coming out involved Platinum trying to fix the scope of the project to get it performing well and released and getting told no by MS. There is usually 2 sides to a story but having 2 companies having the same issues in the same generation seems to suggest the devs maybe telling the truth on this one.

 

[Crayon]

I've crying all day. Had to leave work early because I couldn't concentrate.

You poor thing. Getting Nier?

 

[Permanently A]

The Scalebound project was by far the hypest project MS had in their damn portfolio this generation. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is on crack and likes to distort facts. This was The big one almost everyone was looking forward to. Sure, they had a lackluster E3 showing but nothing that indicated getting the project cancelled for.

I think you're on that crack yourself my guy. Yes, among hardcore gamers who know P+ Scalebound was hotly anticipated despite a lackluster E3 showing. The Master Chief Collection was much more anticipated, both by hardcore and the masses.

 

[Last Prime]

Haven't played FF but with TLG we got a lovely game, which to me as a gamer matters more than recouping costs. And it gained Sony a lot of goodwill, which is also worth something.

I'm not saying anything bad about those two games. I'm just saying this could have turned into a 10 year development cycle considering this was Hideki Kamiya attempt at developing an rpg.

 

[gamz]

However from Platinum's track record we know they are a company that are spot on when it comes to properly budgeting and developing titles within reasonable time frames. Why is it suddenly completely off the rails and on them when the only difference between this project and earlier ones are the publisher. Seems like the leaks coming out involved Platinum trying to fix the scope of the project to get it performing well and released and getting told no by MS. There is usually 2 sides to a story but having 2 companies having the same issues in the same generation seems to suggest the devs maybe telling the truth on this one.

And of course the size and scope of the game.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

The sales of Bayo 2 + W101 along with Wii U's overall reception probably had something to do with this decision.

I think MS realized that making the internet denizens happy didn't mean actual long-term success. There just aren't enough of us relative to people who might play Forza or a Halo game.

The issue I have with the "follow the money" reasoning is that their mainstays are also doing worse than previous iterations. Maybe it's solely down to the generational refresh, but it's weird how little introspection they are seemingly displaying with the Forzas, Halos, or Gears games when everything else gets the hard side eye.

You're right, but their current mentality is weirdly limited. It's like how everyone raises their kids wrong, unlike your special baby that is tearing down the wallpaper.

If the game isn't good and they're throwing money at it that could be thrown at a game that turns out good, cancelling it is better for gamers. Seems really simple.

I don't agree with this, but it wasn't my point, and has no relation to the post I was replying to. It was a bad statement to make, regardless of how true you think it is.

 

[jayu26]

Look, I know I am not the only one who thought that this game looked like complete dog shit. It was specially baffling that this was coming from Platinum. However, when Shinobi dropped the rumor that Microsoft's exclusive list might be getting smaller yesterday morning in the MS first party thread, I was also the first one the dismiss Scalebound cancellation outright. After all it had more showing than Crackdown and Platinum is known for delivering the games on time and on budget. Whereas, we have seen zero gameplay from Crackdown despite the fact that it was suppose to have multiplayer beta last summer. Then we found out the it is Scalebound that is getting axed. That was shocking and still is. Combine that with Microsoft's history with couple of other developers and well timed tweets and we have this massive thread.

Even people like me, who thought that this game did not look good and was going to be a big flop, are completely caught off guard by this turn of events. Moreover, we care about the developers and only hope for best for them even when we don't like their games. So naturally we get curious when shit like this happens.

On that note, some of you should check out the thread about cancelled Sony Santa Monica game. According to posts in there you will get the impression that it was suppose to be first person, third person, sci-fi, epic, with cars and spaceship, which was shooter, RPG and MMO, fucking Unicorn of a game that Sony tore away from out hands...

We do this because we care.

 

[FinaruDensetsu]

I think you're on that crack yourself my guy. Yes, among hardcore gamers who know P+ Scalebound was hotly anticipated despite a lackluster E3 showing. The Master Chief Collection was much more anticipated, both by hardcore and the masses.

It was a just a remaster collection. This is new IP. If that was the hypest thing that's kinda sad.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

Which makes me wonder, what's more damaging to your brand: Canceling an anticipated AAA title late in its development cycle or releasing said title and it being awful / a technical mess. Assuming that's the reason it was canceled of course.

To that I would ask what you see more of. People complaining about a game being ultimately bad, complaining about a game they never go to play, or people complaining about a game being broken.

Personally, I don't ever really see people complain about games they never got. Sure it will sting for those looking forward to it, but they didn't part with any money or sink 30 hours into garbage. They will move on, just like the people who got the game and thought it was shit. But give someone a broken game, and it will rankle forever. They lost time, money, and excitement for something that should have been resolved by the people they handed cash to. That would be my position, that a broken game is more harmful than a bad game, and a bad game more harmful than a cancelled one.

Perhaps the cancellation is of greater issue here due to other cancellations and a lack of interesting announced future titles in place of it, but ultimately how invested can you be in a couple of videos? Do not answer if you have followed FFXV for 10 years. That is probably the exception

 

[hawk2025]

Do you not understand the false equivalency citing a budget game like Lococycle vs a Scalebound?

Read the discussion.

The point being made by him was related to quality, not budget.

 

[Wereroku]

The sales of Bayo 2 + W101 along with Wii U's overall reception probably had something to do with this decision.

I think MS realized that making the internet denizens happy didn't mean actual long-term success. There just aren't enough of us relative to people who might play Forza or a Halo game.

No but sometimes losing money to have a passion project in your portfolio is not a terrible thing either. I doubt TLG will make any significant profit but it is a prestige piece that looks good on paper. That is the whole reason it was allowed to be finished to begin with.

And of course the size and scope of the game.

How much bigger in scope was this compared to Bayonetta? Platinum has done large scale games before. Hell Kamiya has directed large open world games before. The only difference here was the Co-op. From everything leaking it seems to be that Platinum was running into some technical problems with the XBO that MS would not budge on. I am guessing that would be the 4 player Co-op since all of their big games have involved some form of online co-op. It just seems odd that everyone is pointing all the blame at Platinum when we have other examples of MS dictating features and then giving the teams impossible deadlines and reduced funding to implement them.

 

[Permanently A]

It was a just a remaster collection. This is new IP. If that was the hypest thing that's kinda sad.

Indeed. But I assure you Halo is far more popular than Platinum with the masses.

 

[Kaako]

I think you're on that crack yourself my guy. Yes, among hardcore gamers who know P+ Scalebound was hotly anticipated despite a lackluster E3 showing. The Master Chief Collection was much more anticipated, both by hardcore and the masses.

Lol just no. Fuck a MCC when compared to a brand new IP by Kamiya at the helm developed exclusively from the ground up for this generation.

 

[Rad-]

"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"

The way he words it makes it sound like Xbox division had their budget for this year decreased and had to cancel something. Or they moved that Scalebound budget somewhere else like Scorpio.

That last line also does sound like it wasn't going to be released this year.

 

[StoOgE]

However from Platinum's track record we know they are a company that are spot on when it comes to properly budgeting and developing titles within reasonable time frames. Why is it suddenly completely off the rails and on them when the only difference between this project and earlier ones are the publisher. Seems like the leaks coming out involved Platinum trying to fix the scope of the project to get it performing well and released and getting told no by MS. There is usually 2 sides to a story but having 2 companies having the same issues in the same generation seems to suggest the devs maybe telling the truth on this one.

This was also a pet project of Kamiya, and it's 4 years in development.

It might have been the multi-player that P wanted to cut, and that might have been a no go for MS given the performance of single player experiences on the console.

I'm not saying this is one side or the others fault, but MS may have in Phil's early days as Xbox head been a little looser with the purse strings for projects that they realized had limited upside.

I'm sure MS intended for lots of their new franchise games to be huge. I'm sure Ryse, Sunset Overdrive and ReCore along with Phantum Dust, Scalebound and Crackdown looked like a good way to claw back gamers that jumped on the 360 that had not moved onto the Xbox One.

I'm sure as they started getting sales data on titles over the '16 holiday season they had to make decisions and for better or worse Platinum games are pretty niche. For a company that had a hard time moving a Gears of War and Halo title, trying to ice skate up hill may have seemed like throwing good money after bad.

It sucks for Platinum and for us (my first post in this thread was me being upset about the loss of the game). But from MS standpoint, I get it. The Xbox division made a lot of pivots towards "the gamers" and have not been rewarded for it over the last 3 years in software sales.

 

[tiredheadcrab]

All these companies have competition from other places even if one of them was to drop out .
Lets say two of them drop out and that leaves only one .
They would still have to worry about other things some more than others .
Like mobile , PC , streaming etc etc .

I am sure Sony would be very happy in competing with PC, mobile or stream. None of those really tackle the living room. It be like what cable companies do by not interfering in each other's areas so they don't need competition. I don't want to hear Steam is huge competition for the game consoles. On a smaller scale sure.

 

[gamz]

Look, I know I am not the only one who thought that this game looked like complete dog shit. It was specially baffling that this was coming from Platinum. However, when Shinobi dropped the rumor that Microsoft's exclusive list might be getting smaller yesterday morning in the MS first party thread, I was also the first one the dismiss Scalebound cancellation outright. After all it had more showing than Crackdown and Platinum is known for delivering the games on time and on budget. Whereas, we have seen zero gameplay from Crackdown despite the fact that it was suppose to have multiplayer beta last summer. Then we found out the it is Scalebound that is getting axed. That was shocking and still is. Combine that with Microsoft's history with couple of other developers and well timed tweets and we have this massive thread.

Even people like me, who thought that this game did not look good and was going to be a big flop, are completely caught off guard by this turn of events. Moreover, we care about the developers and only hope for best for them even when we don't like their games. So naturally we get curious when shit like this happens.

On that note, some of you should check out the thread about cancelled Sony Santa Monica game. According to posts in there you will get the impression that it was suppose to be first person, third person, sci-fi, epic, with cars and spaceship, which was shooter, RPG and MMO, fucking Unicorn of a game that Sony tore away from out hands...

We do this because we care.

Can't compare Crackdown to Scalebound to begin with in terms of a revenue stream.

 

[FinaruDensetsu]

Indeed. But I assure you Halo is far more popular than Platinum with the masses.

Of course Halo as a property is far more popular. It's an established IP. It'll likely be "more popular" than anything that ever gets made on Xbox. A remaster collection though is not what I would define as generating hype.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

But what if it meant the studio gets to continue existing and creating their brand of unique software?

Not that I think there's a chance in hell Nintendo buys them.

They're more than fine as they are. If they ever needed some company to buy them I'd rather it be Sega or maybe Capcom instead. They would slowly shrink at Nintendo, in a cage.

 

[jayu26]

Can't compare Crackdown to Scalebound to begin with in terms of a revenue stream.

Where am I comparing their revenue streams?

 

[StoOgE]

No but sometimes losing money to have a passion project in your portfolio is not a terrible thing either. I doubt TLG will make any significant profit but it is a prestige piece that looks good on paper. That is the whole reason it was allowed to be finished to begin with.

Right, and Sony has the ability to do that right now with their software sales and install base.

By all accounts, MS just had a bad Christmas season for Gears of War 4. You don't buy a 500 million dollar IP, start up a new studio and sell less than a million copies of a game without repercussions.

I'm guessing Phil is on thin ice right now with the powers that be, and if this game was not coming out in '17 I'm sure millions more into a game that had limited sales potential was not on anyone's mind. Especially with MS having a handful of 'prestige' releases that did little to improve their market share.

 

[Chris1]

It sounds like it wasn't coming out in '18 and they are going to take whatever budget was pointed in that direction and buy a 3rd party times exclusive or two that they can crow about at E3.

I don't disagree that the tweet came off bad. But, I'm willing to give him the "140 characters is not a lot" benefit of the doubt.

Yeah I don't think he meant how it sounds (at least I hope not LOL). Like you said it was probably gonna get delayed into 2018 and Phil decided to just say fuck it and put that money elsewhere.

 

[badcrumble]

Platinum is sort of famous for knocking deadlines out of the park and for doing great work with little time to do it. I think it's frankly wishful thinking to blame this on them.

 

[jayu26]

Right, and Sony has the ability to do that right now with their software sales and install base.

By all accounts, MS just had a bad Christmas season for Gears of War 4. You don't buy a 500 million dollar IP, start up a new studio and sell less than a million copies of a game without repercussions.

I'm guessing Phil is on thin ice right now with the powers that be, and if this game was not coming out in '17 I'm sure millions more into a game that had limited sales potential was not on anyone's mind. Especially with MS having a handful of 'prestige' releases that did little to improve their market share.

Pretty sure they bought it for $100 million.

 

[hawk2025]

Again, if the Xbox division has to shuffle money around and relocate it elsewhere with only a handful of products currently in deveopment...

This discussion is even more important. Why were they spending money on things like Tomb Raider if the budget was being tightened?

 

[Oersted]

Indeed. But I assure you Halo is far more popular than Platinum with the masses.

Yes. But Halo is losing relevance (still much higher than Platinum, mind you) and you need as plattform bit more than Halo.

Right, and Sony has the ability to do that right now with their software sales and install base.

Didn't Sony start their first party iniative during the PS3 era when they were behind MS install base wise?

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Again though, they're not going to do that unless they actually think that the profit they'd make from the game is actively lower than what it would cost to get it out. Not total, that's a sunk cost either way, but the cost from the time of the decision to cancel. That's a low bar presumably considering when it was scheduled to release, which almost surely points to the development being VERY troubled and nowhere near as finished as you'd believe a game slated to ship within 6 months would be.

I think they can definetly do that, after watching ReCore and QB sales. Is clear that strategy they started 3 years ago, if not working and a PG focused SP game is not going to change that trend.

Even if they may have got more money releasing it, that canceling it now, they probably think that investing that budget on other software is a better idea, with (maybe) more earnings.

 

[StoOgE]

The issue I have with the "follow the money" reasoning is that their mainstays are also doing worse than previous iterations. Maybe it's solely down to the generational refresh, but it's weird how little introspection they are seemingly displaying with the Forzas, Halos, or Gears games when everything else gets the hard side eye.

You're right, but their current mentality is weirdly limited. It's like how everyone raises their kids wrong, unlike your special baby that is tearing down the wallpaper.
.

Oh, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. MS has to be very afraid that their bread and butter franchises are not doing as well as they did, or even in the same ballpark.

But, I'm not sure a Kamiya prestige project was going to turn their fortunes around. Honestly, I'm not sure what will. I think they got killed by the initial Xbox One reveal and have never recovered. Scorpio may be the make or break moment for the division. It's a chance to regain a strong footing with core gamers and see if they start to see improving sales with Halo 6, etc over the next 18 months.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Pretty sure they bought it for $100 million.

That was Pachter's speculation, it was never confirmed by anyone.

Unless you have a link saying otherwise?

 

[StoOgE]

Pretty sure they bought it for $100 million.

Either way.

That is a shitload of money for a game that might have brought in 30 million in revenue since then not even account for operating and marketing costs to create Gears 4 and whatever was spent on Shangheist before it was canned.

 

[Bluenoser]

It sounds like it wasn't coming out in '18 and they are going to take whatever budget was pointed in that direction and buy a 3rd party times exclusive or two that they can crow about at E3.

I don't disagree that the tweet came off bad. But, I'm willing to give him the "140 characters is not a lot" benefit of the doubt.

Yuck, I would hope they would have learned their lesson about doing that from RotTR.

I wonder when MS will officially pivot on the games division to stop misleading the hardcore fans into thinking they can re-live the glory days of gaming at some point on an Xbox console, because it's looking more and more like that will never happen.

 

[jayu26]

That was Pachter's speculation, it was never confirmed by anyone.

Unless you have a link saying otherwise?

Oh! So that number is most definitely wrong

Either way.

That is a shitload of money for a game that might have brought in 30 million in revenue since then not even account for operating and marketing costs to create Gears 4.

I am not disputing with your point. You still have a point.

Again, if the Xbox division has to shuffle money around and relocate it elsewhere with only a handful of products currently in deveopment...

This discussion is even more important. Why were they spending money on things like Tomb Raider if the budget was being tightened?

Because they were throwing thing at the wall the see what sticks. As it turns out Tomb Raider deal didn't go so well, Phantom Dust was a complete lie and Scalebound is not cancelled. Only backwards compatibility stuck. Not sure how many Xbox they sold because of that however.

 

[Kaako]

Again, if the Xbox division has to shuffle money around and relocate it elsewhere with only a handful of products currently in deveopment...

This discussion is even more important. Why were they spending money on things like Tomb Raider if the budget was being tightened?

Definitely an important discussion to be had given the current state of MS Games division. I feel like the TR deal was made much before the Scalebound deal and before a time where the budge was being actively tightened.

 

[Ragnorok64]

Whelp, I hope Platinum can use whatever tools and techniques they developed for this on thier next project. I was hoping to get this on PC but I guess now there's nothing in Microsoft's stable that I want.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Definitely an important discussion to be had given the current state of MS Games division. I feel like the TR deal was made much before the Scalebound deal and before a time where the budge was being actively tightened.

TR deal was like 2 years ago or something?

More if we count when the talks started. It was in the middle of the "get gamers back" strategy. And is another example of not working and why MS is doing what is doing.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

Again, if the Xbox division has to shuffle money around and relocate it elsewhere with only a handful of products currently in deveopment...

This discussion is even more important. Why were they spending money on things like Tomb Raider if the budget was being tightened?

Because the first one sold over 8 million copies and it was also there answer to UC4 .
What MS and SE did not see was TR had a big fan base but not one that was going to move from there platform of choice.
Now we have UC4 selling near 9 million copies and TR will be lucky to get half the sales of part 1.

 

[Permanently A]

Lol just no. Fuck a MCC when compared to a brand new IP by Kamiya at the helm developed exclusively from the ground up for this generation.

That's your opinion, and its certainly mine too. But the numbers don't lie, MCC generated far more interest than Scalebound.

Of course Halo as a property is far more popular. It's an established IP. It'll likely be "more popular" than anything that ever gets made on Xbox. A remaster collection though is not what I would define as generating hype.

Well it generated excitement, and excitement is hype. You asked for "one game at that stage presentation that even came near Scalebound as far as hype" and I delivered. A better question would be "one NEW IP that came near Scalebound"

Yes. But Halo is losing relevance (still much higher than Platinum, mind you) and you need as plattform bit more than Halo.

Agreed.

 

[Kaako]

Oh, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. MS has to be very afraid that their bread and butter franchises are not doing as well as they did, or even in the same ballpark.

But, I'm not sure a Kamiya prestige project was going to turn their fortunes around. Honestly, I'm not sure what will. I think they got killed by the initial Xbox One reveal and have never recovered. Scorpio may be the make or break moment for the division. It's a chance to regain a strong footing with core gamers and see if they start to see improving sales with Halo 6, etc over the next 18 months.

Agreed, but will they be able to make it just by banking on their usual heavy hitters as always: Halo/Gears/Forza ?
My gut feeling says they'll need those new IPs more than ever before.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Oh, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. MS has to be very afraid that their bread and butter franchises are not doing as well as they did, or even in the same ballpark.

But, I'm not sure a Kamiya prestige project was going to turn their fortunes around. Honestly, I'm not sure what will. I think they got killed by the initial Xbox One reveal and have never recovered. Scorpio may be the make or break moment for the division. It's a chance to regain a strong footing with core gamers and see if they start to see improving sales with Halo 6, etc over the next 18 months.

I don't know that it would have helped, but I'm skeptical how much it would have hurt, especially this deep into development. Speculation that Spencer is on thin ice seems more likely to me than the game being completely unshippable. Microsoft has shown no reluctance to shipping unfinished games this generation, as recently as a few months ago. I don't know that they'd take any worse a hit from cutting it to $40 and just making back whatever on it than cancelling it, though maybe they would have and I'm wrong.

All that said, I agree with you they never recovered from the Xbox One reveal, but I am also of the mind that they have had multiple opportunities to do so and have failed. They have decided, seemingly on the back of the 360's success, that compelling exclusives do not really matter, and I can not for the life of me figure out why the numbers have not brought them back to reality. Maybe it was being burned on games like Quantum Break, but they keep punching the water and wondering why it hasn't relented yet.

The "2017 will be great!" refrain doesn't even elicit an eyebrow raise from me anymore, because I suspect they don't believe it, either. I don't know what Spencer's current plan is for the Xbox Division, but unless he is hiding Scorpio ammunition under his coat like the RE4 merchant, it is honestly hard to tell exactly what Microsoft is doing to rehabilitate their image.

 

[tiredheadcrab]

Oh, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. MS has to be very afraid that their bread and butter franchises are not doing as well as they did, or even in the same ballpark.

But, I'm not sure a Kamiya prestige project was going to turn their fortunes around. Honestly, I'm not sure what will. I think they got killed by the initial Xbox One reveal and have never recovered. Scorpio may be the make or break moment for the division. It's a chance to regain a strong footing with core gamers and see if they start to see improving sales with Halo 6, etc over the next 18 months.

That's why I keep saying in he Scorpio thread that MS should name that console something else that is not Xbox one. Drop the one and come up with a slicker name and try to distance yourself from that system. I don't think they recovered fully from the 2013 announcement. That was a kick in the balls for them.

 

[That1BlackGuy]

Then why are they not doing so great? Why are people not buying Gears 4, Halo like they use to on 360?

Diversity in early 360 and og xbox is what helped them. Having a combination of playing solo, local co-op or online is what made them popular. A lot of people had 360's but didnt even have them tied to the internet. They played local split screen. Same goes for early halo games that later focused more on multipler as time went on.

Making your console lean towards multiplayer experiences actually limits the types of players you can have player base wise. That tonal shift they had from early 360 to later is what has fucked them. They only want their curated library to be multiplayer based with service type updates to them to keep people in their games. Which is something you can't force it has to happen organically especially if it's built from the ground up to be that way.

For your first point, I addressed it briefly in the second half of my previous post. Business is not static and trends change. What worked in the past does not work now, what works for Sony will not work for Microsoft or Nintendo, there are too many factors that goes into growing a brand. Increased competition and dominance from major third parties, install base, the XONE online debacle, the MCC debacle clearly damaging the Halo brand; these played a part in the decreased sales of Halo 5 and Gears 4.

Regarding Diversity Microsoft can't blow money on a bunch of exclusive games no one will buy (which is what happened this generation for MS outside of their core franchises). Project Spark underperformed, D4 underperformed, Crimson Dragon underperformed, Happy Dungeons underperformed, Quantum Break unperformed, Sunset Overdrive underperformed, Scalebound would've likely underperformed and so forth. A vast majority of those titles are single player focused games, what good business sense would it make to keep investing in things that are costing you money? Especially as the cost of game development rises.

Now let's look at Valve, look at how successful their properties are, what's the common trait among them? Multiplayer, long term support, eSports, recurring revenue, etc. all built around a few key franchises. You can't build these initiatives around one-and-done single player products. Even further, let's look at Halo 5 and Gears 4, even if they don't sell the front end numbers their predecessors did, the post game support and microtransactions ensures more profit over the long term from a smaller but more dedicated base that knows your game(s) is a known quantity and will buy the next installment. I am not sure what you mean by MS games forcing the multiplayer service model, Halo and Gears are proven multiplayer commodities not new IPs which is why they are leveraging those brands for their new potential new direction.

Can diversity help their lineup? Yes, it absolutely can and did for Microsoft in the past. If in the future they announce a bunch of new games I certainly won't complain, however with changing market realities Xbox doesn't have the luxury of an unlimited budget to throw money at whatever they want, they have to maximize their ROI with what they do have.

 

[BossRush]

Alright, so, on one hand Microsoft should have known what they were getting into by hiring platinum to make a game, platinum development cycles tend to take a while when it comes to their own IPs, and more often than not they need a bit of touching up at the end.

On the other hand, Microsoft probably just didn't want to wait another year for development of a game that's very niche in its fan base, and I can't really blame them for that. Hell, I like platinum and I probably wasn't going to buy an xbone for one game.

 

[michaelius]

Oh, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. MS has to be very afraid that their bread and butter franchises are not doing as well as they did, or even in the same ballpark.

Microsoft corporate culture - they seem to be completely disconnected from what people actually want and they always expect that people will use their stuff just because they made it.

If we look at broader picture they only succeed where they already have near total monopoly and even then it's almost never a painless transformation like with Windows 10.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Alright, so, on one hand Microsoft should have known what they were getting into by hiring platinum to make a game, platinum development cycles tend to take a while when it comes to their own IPs

Here is an exhaustive list of Platinum IPs:

 

[Bluenoser]

I don't know that it would have helped, but I'm skeptical how much it would have hurt, especially this deep into development. Speculation that Spencer is on thin ice seems more likely to me than the game being completely unshippable. Microsoft has shown no reluctance to shipping unfinished games this generation, as recently as a few months ago. I don't know that they'd take any worse a hit from cutting it to $40 and just making back whatever on it than cancelling it, though maybe they would have and I'm wrong.

All that said, I agree with you they never recovered from the Xbox One reveal, but I am also of the mind that they have had multiple opportunities to do so and have failed. They have decided, seemingly on the back of the 360's success, that compelling exclusives do not really matter, and I can not for the life of me figure out why the numbers have not brought them back to reality. Maybe it was being burned on games like Quantum Break, but they keep punching the water and wondering why it hasn't relented yet.

The "2017 will be great!" refrain doesn't even elicit an eyebrow raise from me anymore, because I suspect they don't believe it, either. I don't know what Spencer's current plan is for the Xbox Division, but unless he is hiding Scorpio ammunition under his coat like the RE4 merchant, it is honestly hard to tell exactly what Microsoft is doing to rehabilitate their image.

I'm intrigued to see what they have cooking for announcements at E3. I think the ship has sailed on Japanese partners not named Square Enix, so they will have to go for a studio that can churn out a big game out of Europe or NA. Maybe they have some ideas that they can use to put Coalition back to work right away unless they are tied up on Gears DLC. Maybe source a project from Bioware? Or grab Ubisoft and fund an AC spinoff title? Lots of opportunities out there, but they don't seem to be interested... or maybe those studios aren't because the effort-profit ratio isn't there due to the smaller install base.

I just don't see the point in releasing a mid-gen console upgrade with no plan in place to support it, so something has to give.

 

[StoOgE]

Great insight here! It makes a lot of sense that you, on the publisher side, lack the incentive to run around playing the blame game that designers do. So even some kind of impeccably researched and sourced Scalebound tell-all article in the short term would be weighted towards Platinum's side.

Personally, I'm suspicious of MS being either too unforgiving or sending mixed messages to developers, if only because of Phantom Dust before this and Stormlands before that. It's like they wanted to do one thing with their lineup and then switched strategies entirely.

And Platinum's track record speaks for itself. They aren't known for scope/budget creep, they're known for being the guys you hire to stop the bleeding and get a damn game out.

We'll probably never know exactly what went down, but I lean towards MS being a tough partner for any studio making a game outside a sure-thing genre. Which overlaps with a lot of the insights in your post.

My pure speculation guess is:

1) Online was not a strong suit of Platinum games, but an absolute must sticking point for co-op for MS to be interested.

2) They wanted the game out in 17

3) It needed to run on Scorpio and look fucking amazing doing so.

I think all three of those probably ballooned the scope on Platinum.. Platinum probably agreed to all of them at various points in time and then they hit the squeeze, suggesting cutting all of some of the above and MS no longer thought the project aligned with their 2017 plans.

I'm sure there is lots of blame to go around, and I'm sure MS having a ton of high profile swings and misses hurt Platinum through no fault of their own. But, I also get that MS is a business and sometimes you gotta make unfun decisions.

 

[RichiRamjag]

The Master Chief Collection far surpassed Scalebound's hype.

It also soured a lot of people on that franchise. One that was already slowing down as it was.

 

[reKon]

I like to cherry pick sometimes too...it was the #1 rated x1 exclusive people were looking forward to here.

Which is frightening because the game really did not look good or seem interesting enough in the gameplay videos that we saw. The competition is high for these open world games so you sort of need to stand out enough for people to invest the time into playing.