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[Gai Murakumo]

Are you fucking kidding me. What the hell.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Work on the game took a serious knock last autumn, Eurogamer sources say, when several senior members of the development team were forced to take a month away from the pressure of the project's heavy workload.

Genuinely curious about why they had to do this?

Heard he took time off for his mental health, yea :-/

Holy shit...

 

[mjc]

I wouldn't lay blame entirely on one side or the other, the game was never really good in what we saw anyways.

Was this the last of the games started by Mattrick though? Or did Phil spearhead this one?

 

[AdanVC]

Heard he took time off for his mental health, yea :-/

My god... he's hasn't even tweeted anything on the last week or so, I can imagine the amounts of stress (and personal/professional dissapointment) he must be going through right now Wishing all the best for him.

 

[Neuromancer]

and who exactly is picking up the tab for that?

DARPA

 

[Slayven]

and who exactly is picking up the tab for that?

activision, they had a good relationship with the Korra and TMNT games

 

[Noobcraft]

So does that make like $200,000,000 that MS has wasted on unreleased games this gen? Between Fable, Scalebound, and some of the smaller projects like Phantom Dust it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Immaculate]

Looked like trash probably dodged a bullet

 

[Jarmel]

They said that senior staff needed a break, not that the shifted workload between projects. If senior, lead staff is on vacation, is normal that the project falls behind.

Sounds to me like development was hell and they needed time off for their mental health. That's why it specifically states about the workload and major engine problems

That's even worse if they just took a month off.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

That's not how I read the article. This line:



doesn't sound like these members went to work on some non-Scalebound project at Platinum, but that they took time off from the company altogether due to presumably having nervous breakdowns, as apparently Kamiya is doing right now as well.

Prioritizing their workers mental health is a good thing, not a bad thing.

 

[Granjinha]

I'm not one to hate or anything but man MS managment is a complete and utter disaster. I'm sure Platinum had it's share of a blame in this, but c'mon:

Fable Legends, Press Play, Lionhead, the downfall of Halo and Gears (sales-wise, as Gears 4 is the best in the series)

They need a shake-up.

All of their successes were from basically the same group of producers (Ori, KI, State of Decay), let them run this shit

 

[Tain]

This is really upsetting.

I said earlier in the thread, but maybe it was the shift to Unreal Engine 4 that was key in development issues. If that transfer went smoothly you'd expect they'd be using UE4 for Nier: Automata too, but they aren't.

It wouldn't shock me if the way Platinum did things with their internal engines didn't gel well with how UE4 works.

But I thought UE4 was suppose to save Japan console developers /s

I don't remember many posters going that far, but it's hard to deny that other Japanese devs have had good results with the engine.

 

[YuriLowell]

So wait they forced them onto a vacation and then when the game didn't hit deadlines they canceled it?

 

[D4Danger]

So does that make like $200,000,000 that MS has wasted on unreleased games this gen? Between Fable, Scalebound, and some of the smaller projects like Phantom Dust it wouldn't surprise me.

numbers from my anus

 

[Bear Force One]

This reminds me a bit of what happened many years ago with True Fantasy, the game they were making with Level 5.
Microsoft and japanese developers don't seem capable of having a positive relationship....
Also I remember that Kamiya slipped on Twitter that things were not going well internally as far as Gamescom 2015.
If I had to guess I'd say that Microsoft asked them to change key aspects of the game too much to try to make the game more appealing for the market but things didn't go well.
Still if Platinum delivered great games with different publishers the fact they couldn't with Microsoft is a bit weird.

I will never recover from the loss of True Fantasy.

 

[sibarraz]

This reminds me a bit of what happened many years ago with True Fantasy, the game they were making with Level 5.
Microsoft and japanese developers don't seem capable of having a positive relationship....
Also I remember that Kamiya slipped on Twitter that things were not going well internally as far as Gamescom 2015.
If I had to guess I'd say that Microsoft asked them to change key aspects of the game too much to try to make the game more appealing for the market but things didn't go well.
Still if Platinum delivered great games with different publishers the fact they couldn't with Microsoft is a bit weird.

They also have bad games lately, the biggest one was star fox zero

 

[Hektor]

Let's hope Nier sells well enough so SE decides to fund further P* spinoffs of their popular IP's like Final Fantasy

 

[jooey]

and who exactly is picking up the tab for that?

Oh don't you worry, once I publish this online petition Sega will have no other choice

 

[Cday]

Of course Microsoft immediately is taking the flack for this and not Platinum for trying to develop 80 games at once.

 

[Anung]

If this was a reason to keep your Xbox, then you probably should have got rid of it years ago. What were you thinking?

That Microsoft would release a hype platinum game I can like? Stupid in hindsight I know.

 

[Cuburt]

I do feel like that last video I saw of it didn't feel like it had a specific hook to show off. Unfortunate that it's Kamiya's game having trouble but I could believe that's the case for this game.

 

[Milly Osworth]

Isn't that on Platinum? So far every article has mentioned that they were missing deadlines, etc. That's not going to keep getting you funding.

Yeah but in general, if you have to cancel big projects and have a poor first party lineup, thats Microsoft fucking up.

 

[Theorry]

God dammit Microsoft. It's literally only Halo Forza and Gears huh? This pisses me off so much.

People should have bought Sunset Overdrive and Quantum Break more then.
Its not that they arent coming it new IP's Xbox people just dont buy them. And seem fine with those games and every year a new FIFA and Madden.

 

[bidguy]

this is a really strange position theyre in now. they have a powerful console coming this year and hardly any exclusives hmmm

 

[mattp]

@PorygonNews
Scalebound possibly in danger of cancellation after Kamiya blocked the entire development team

 

[fireflame]

Only positive point is we won't have to care about Windows Store. But what a waste of time and effort

For once Microsoft was publishing a promising game, it was too good to be true.

 

[LiK]

Eurogamer onfirms it. RIP

 

[Maintenance]

Kind of funny that Spencer the saviour managed to have a worse track record regarding Games compared to the much hated Mattrick.

Can't believe people used those cringe worthy "I believe" avatars.

 

[Sjefen]

Crazy to think its been in developement for 4 years...

 

[sirap]

I love Platinum's output but I can't help but imagine Inafune laughing his ass off.

 

[Zedark]

Nriolak's post:

Thanks for the heads up! Really hope Platinum pull through, they have real talent, far too much to be wasted away on unsuccessful and cheap projects like they have in the last few years. Getting one or more new projects quickly indeed sounds imperative, but they still have their cult status for their combat going for them, so they might pull through relatively unscathed.

 

[ASilentProtagonist]

We all gotta send him love on his twitter.

Don't bring up Scalebound though. Still not gonna believe it until I see it.

 

[IgotElbows]

This sucks. I love Kamiya and I hate to see a developer's game get cancelled, but...

I remember this.
Just like the awful FF15 """boss fight""" who okayed these demos?

 

[Jarmel]

Prioritizing their workers mental health is a good thing, not a bad thing.

It shouldn't have reached that point in the first place.

 

[Nzyme32]

lol, Nintendo. Microsoft own the IP.

It can in part still resurface in some form as something else.

MS cancelled their Obsidian game meant for Xbox One, "Stormlands" - a "AAA RPG". That cancellation nearly sunk Obsidian entirely if it wasn't for Pillars of Eternity keeping it up. However, Obsidian got to keep the rights and eventually from that games demise came Tyranny.

Now of course, no idea of this particular situation, but it is possible the rights bounce back to Platinum or at least some of the property. I don't know.

 

[tilomite!]

Wow, big news. They had to have a ton invested in it.

 

[Quonny]

Looked like shit, PR dude was a giant dick, announced as an exclusive before the console landscape was as clear as it is now.

Not surprising. Seemed like it had some good ideas, but iffy execution.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

If they started the project 4 years ago, UE4 wasn't as matured as is now. It might have provoked some problems, specially Scalebound being an open world game.

 

[Psychoward]

They also have bad games lately, the biggest one was star fox zero

And korra and tmnt... honestly it's amazing Platinum has survived this long considering 50% of their output has been pretty underwhelming and that's without even getting in to their abysmal sales.

 

[robotrock]

I love Platinum's output but I can't help but imagine Inafune laughing his ass off.

Ehhhh he probably gets it after mighty no 9

 

[RulkezX]

Loving everyone rushing to blame MS and not the studio that is better known for making shitty licensed games or bombas that 4 people bought on Wii U.

The entire sum of people who think P* ate a good studio seem to be located on GAF

 

[Durante]

I didn't hear about this, can you talk about it?

There's nothing legal preventing me from doing so, but I shouldn't yet. Maybe a year from now
Also, before this gets blown out of proportion, it's extremely minor compared to the cancellation of a huge project.

Let's just hope for the best for Platinum, clearly not easy being an independent developer of large-scale games in Japan (or anywhere really).

 

[StrikeFirst117]

Speaking of which how many projects have Platinum had on the go while making Scalebound? Could this be a case of stress from developing multiple projects simultaneously?

 

[Simon-chan]

Bummer.

 

[butman]

As a PS4 user, if it was a PS4 exclusive and be cancelled I would be relieved. Sorry but the game looked dull as fuck.

 

[Noobcraft]

numbers from my anus

Fable Legends was reportedly $75M on its own, it wouldn't surprise me if it's at least 100M so far.

 

[Heckler456]

This isn't good for anyone, no matter which side of the fence you land on. I really hope this isn't a sign of things to come when it comes to Microsoft investing in the development of videogames.

 

[Producer]

Anyone remember PS4 haz no gamez? Good times...

Lol who gives a shit

 

[Theorry]

@PorygonNews
Scalebound possibly in danger of cancellation after Kamiya blocked the entire development team

Damn.

 

[Frozenprince]

Genuinely curious about why they had to do this?


Holy shit...

If you think crunch in western games is bad, Japanese crunch is on another level.

You live in your office.