Trimming fat from old decisions. They have almost washed their hands entirely of everything from the Mattrick era at this point.
Scalebound cancelled [Platinum Games and Kamiya have commented]
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Trimming fat from old decisions. They have almost washed their hands entirely of everything from the Mattrick era at this point.
It's okay
Obsidian > MS Xbox One exclusive contract - "Stormlands" > MS Cancels > Obsidian almost sunk because of it > Kickstarter - Pillars of Eternity > Success > Stormlands reimagined and further evolved > Tyranny
So
Platinum > MS Xbox One exclusive contract - "Scalebound" > MS Cancels > ??Platinum almost sunk because of it?? > Kickstarter - ???????? > Success > Scalebound reimagined and further evolved > ! Some amazing game !
Weltall Zero
Member
I was thinking the same thing. At the very least this should give every Japanese developer pause when considering similar deals in the future, if they are ever proposed that is.
Sure, let's pretend Okami and Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101 never existed. What the actual fuck?
Kazuo Hirai
I really want everyone to know how much more Titanfall 2 sold than Nioh. It was a staggering amount.
Sony you know what you have to do. Wine and dine Kamiya. Have Cerny take him around the world to visit the Sony first party studios and then make the sequel happen.
Had platium work with Sony before?
"Kamiya known as a Nintendo fanboy" -- My country's "wikipedia said so, is that true?
Conrad Link
Member
Ugggh, I love my Xbox One, it is my 'main' non-Nintendo console. But I'm also a huge fan of Japanese games, this was like the only ray of sunshine hope I had in that department. >_<
One of the few Xbox exclusives I actually cared about.
Had been waiting so long.
I remember thinking YES MS THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED! MORE GAMES LIKE THIS! when it was announced.
:'(
One of the few Xbox exclusives I actually cared about.
Had been waiting so long.
I remember thinking YES MS THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED! MORE GAMES LIKE THIS! when it was announced.:'(
Humdinger
Gold Member
Well, "mental health" issues were cited, they didn't say "mental breakdown." My guess (just a guess) is that he is emotionally exhausted, burned out, somewhat depressed, and probably very frustrated.
I saw Kamiya at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didnt want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, Oh, like youre doing now?
I was taken aback, and all I could say was Huh? but he kept cutting me off and going huh? huh? huh? and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I tried to walk away without looking at hum but couldn't help bit watch him block me on twitter, after successfully walking away I continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like Sir, you need to pay for those first. At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually to prevent any electrical infetterence, and then turned around and winked at me. I dont even think thats a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
He said, Oh, like youre doing now?
I was taken aback, and all I could say was Huh? but he kept cutting me off and going huh? huh? huh? and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I tried to walk away without looking at hum but couldn't help bit watch him block me on twitter, after successfully walking away I continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like Sir, you need to pay for those first. At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually to prevent any electrical infetterence, and then turned around and winked at me. I dont even think thats a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
Yeah but MS has distanced themselves from Japan for years now. Look at how they treated other "recent" Japanese related stuff like Phantom Dust and Crimson Dragon. This is just the final move. They don't give a fuck.
Honestly at this point this behavior only affects MS relationship with japanese devs?
Im not sure about that.
And maybe Lionhead is not sure about it either...
Vegetable Lasagna
Member
At least Platinum appears to care about their employees, I guess? I've spent most of my career in software/videogames. Any one of my employers would have shit canned and replaced the employees immediately before risking their relationship with the publisher.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Fixed.
I'd bet good money that Automata will sell more than than it's predecessor. Whether that is still a "bomb" in Square's eyes is another thing entirely. But Square also greenlit a Nier sequel in the first place which baffles my mind to this day (not that I'm not thankful for it because Nier is great), so who knows.
To be honest I could see another potential partnership between Platinum and Square in the future. While Square is obviously known for their RPG library, Square has also dabbled in more Action-y RPGs for much of their existence (more so in the PS2 era I feel). So long as things are budgeted accordingly I could see Platinum's usual style of gameplay/game design lending itself well to those types of games (as it seems to be doing with Nier).
Papacheeks
Banned
You mean this trailer which was about a guy and his dragon fighting a big ass monster?
Or are you talking about the tale end of this gameplay trailer that shows different players? When the actual gameplay in 2015 was all single player. The multiplayer stuff was in trailer form at the end of the gameplay for 2015
The multiplayer stuff wasn't seen till this last E3 and it looked rough.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
It was also a different game.
Weltall Zero
Member
I imagine you are half serious about this, but Platinum should totally turn over to crowdfunding, and I really wish they had done so before Inafune burned a huge chunk of goodwill towards ex-Capcom devs doing so. :/
They had multiplayer teasing literally in the the original trailer and were hinting at it all the way back in '14. They didn't just push multiplayer on Kamiya in the past year.
Don't. This isn't funny.
Below?
I wish you never posted this. It's like twisting the already hot knife inside our guts.
Kazuo Hirai
I really want everyone to know how much more Titanfall 2 sold than Nioh. It was a staggering amount.
I'd bet they use Denuvo this time,
If not I doubt the day1 pirate would ruin this game's sells in my country,a big market for such kind of game
Probably the last Japanese money bag they threw out.
You aren't wrong, no need to spoiler that post
Okay, brace yourself for a likewarm take (because this news is hours old now). I'm going to play devils advocate here -
Scalebound was first shown off at E3 2014 with what kind of looked liked a proof of concept render. So, I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and assume MS greenlit the game that same year. Let's say January for the hell of it.
It's now January 2017. Add it up just like grade 1 - 2014, 2015, 2016. That's 3 years !
Okay, so most games after 3 years, even in this modern age, should be entering that last phase of polishing. Basically, the game is playable from beginning to end and just needs fine tuning, bug fixing, balancing. The spit shine that separates the truly great from the "game of the week". Some games are even already finished by this point (but cost a lot more because you need a much larger team size to get away with it). Platinum isn't exactly a huge company and they've also got multiple teams toiling away on various projects so where does that leave scalebound ? Maybe 100+ people working on it ? At a minimum average japanese salary of 50,000 USD a year. That means MS has spent at least 15 million on this game so far, probably more.
They just watched another niche Japanese product get hammered with poor sales and a weak reception in the form of Re-core so you can imagine some of the investors getting cold feet over some parts of the gaming division. What does that mean ? cutting the fat off , especially if it's fat intended for a Japanese audience that simply won't buy your console no matter what comes out on it.
I mean, let's be realistic here - this game was going to bomb no matter what it's quality was. It sucks to admit it but it's been a money losing proposition from day 1. I'd actually thought it was just getting bumped to be more of a scorpio showpiece and perhaps that was intended ? now I'm thinking MS went in and saw the state of the game and thought long and hard and determined that it would cost too much to finish it. There could also have been an element of "okay, we're going to give you guys 25 million more to finish this game by March 31st 2018 but (insert element Kamiya refused to cut) needs to be cut and replaced with (insert lame game play concept that would probably lead to more sales) or we're shutting this thing down".
You could tell from all the trailers that this game was having some issues and like most games that fail to come out recently - was simply too ambitious. It wanted to be Monster Hunter , Devil May Cry and FFXV wrapped into one little title for a 10th the budget.
All I can hope and maybe all any of us can hope here - is that Platinum and Kamiyas studio are able to take all the stuff created for this game and repurpose it the same way Level-5 did back in the day when MS decided to cancel True Fantasy Online Live. You might recall we eventually got a dragon quest game that clearly used a lot of the same tech... not to mention rogue galaxy and dark cloud 2. Hell, some of those assets might have persisted all the way through to Ni no Kuni.
Whatever the real story is - this news sucks because despite the jank , Scalebound was the only XB1 exclusive left that I had any interest in because... I don't think cuphead will ever be released and I'm assuming Crackdown is getting shitcanned next followed by a delay (and eventual cancellation of) Sea of Thieves. It's okay though because we'll have Forza 7 and Forza Horizon 4 and Halo 6, 7,8,9,10 and Gears 5-24 to look forward to instead
The timing and consoles sold for Gears 2 and Gears 4 are however comparable though.
3 years after each consoles launch.
May 2008 - MS announces 10 million 360s have been sold in the US
May 2016 - NPD tracking has XB1 at 12.01 million
Gears 2 NPD - 1.56 million
Gears 4 NPD - 505k
Even if we consider a 0% digital purchase for Gears 2 and an extemely high 50% split (25% is what it average out to be usually) for digital for Gears 4 it's still coming 500k short and that's with XB1 having more consoles on the market than the 360 at the time.
Source: 10 million in May 2008
November 2008 NPD Sales
October 2016 NPD Sales & NPD chart showing May 2016 LTD for XB1
That should be coming to steam too
Papacheeks
Banned
Where is that in the original trailer that I posted which is from 2014? All it is, is the main guy and his dragon fighting a monster. There are not multiplayer shots of others in that trailer. It isn't until tale end of 2015 E3 gameplay they have a closing video not gameplay of a player hub, and joining to kill a monster.
Labolas
Member
Well, okay, sure, but I wasn't trying to state that as fact, but more of something that was so causing him so much stress that he had to take a break.
AZ Greg
Member
Cancel this joke post, MS.
entremet
Member
Sounds like BS to me.
Weltall Zero
Member
Hopefully it's sells enough, but Platinum Games are weird. People are excited, good reviews and in the end the sales are low.
Maybe their Designers have to think about a different approach.
Corpsepyre
Banned
Errrrrrrrrrrr.
CassidyIzABeast
Member
Sounds like a mercy killing to prevent an even larger clusterfuck from forming and further souring a relationship that was probably already a day past the expiration date.
The 2014 trailer had a bunch of other dragons coming at the end to help. Looking back that was obviously hinting at the multiplayer. Not to mention articles like this:
http://m.ign.com/articles/2014/09/19/tgs-2014-scalebound-developer-teases-multiplayer
They'd be kind of a dum dum for thinking that, I don't even live in LA
SunDimension24
Member
Around 1:30 in the 2014 trailer, 3 other dragons come into the frame and the main guy and the other 3 dragons go to attack the monster before it fades to title screen, which could imply there was initially thoughts of multiplayer.
The Antitype
Banned
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1qcwiZEu1fA
2014 trailer very clearly ending with several dragon riders appearing to help the main character defeat a large monster.
It's a niche genre, not much more than that can explain their failings even with their best games
Papacheeks
Banned
Dude your not fucking funny like at all, go troll somewhere else that would really help the thread a lot.
Theslammer
Member
wtf lmao
Vegetable Lasagna
Member
I also have a hard time believing this wasn't the expectation agreed upon going into development. Almost impossible to believe MS' expectations for a project marketed as a AAA release from its announcement changed in the middle of development. It's not like they picked up Scalebound in the middle of development to publish it.
Not to mention, my experience with MS is that will throw as much of their own manpower as needed to help out 3rd parties they have agreements with. There clearly was no bridge to salvage here regardless of who started the fire.
muzzymate
Member
As a fan of the console and it's hardware features but also a fan of Japanese studios, this greatly saddens me.
Host Samurai
Member
The worst thing about this, is that this was a complete waste of time for not only Platinum, but Platinum fans who have now been cheated out another Platinum game that could have been released (Hypothetically speaking)
Just a complete waste of time.
Just a complete waste of time.
Going off of this guy https://twitter.com/Adsinjapan/status/818562853359611905
CNET Australia contributer apparently.
Michael McWheator of Polygon seemed to also think there is some truth in Microsoft being sketchy here https://twitter.com/MikeMcWhertor/status/818558269518024704
MDSLKTR
Member
But seriously this story should be treated at Konami's level no less. Let's imagine a timeline where mgs5 was cancelled.
Papacheeks
Banned
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