I would say the XBOX console is doing fine and is in fact getting better and better with time.

First party output is not doing fine, but that doesn't necessarily doom the entire division. They made some bad bets that didn't pan out. Who would have thought these well known companies would put out such underwhelming products? I'm not sure how much of a hand Microsoft had in the development of Scalebound or Quantum Break apart from supplying the money. Ultimately it's the developer that puts out a subpar product. Now of course there are plenty of outside factors that can influence the quality of said product, time being an especially important one. Which makes me really curious how badly was Scalebound doing that they decided to just scrap it altogether instead of giving the dev team more time to work on it. Things must have been quite dire for them to look at it and say "nope, let's just not bother with this at all."

@ayuoichi: I also dont want to derail the thread but I dont like being corrected when i'm right ;)

Nioh is being published by Koei Tecmo and there are many games like Yakuza 0 that Japanese devs dont think will sell over seas so they dont bother localising it, let alone porting it.

Well shit. I'll concede on that then but I do think there are a lot of japanese games that dont get released on PC. It's getting better sure but it still isnt the norm.

I know I might be coming off as a fanboy, honestly I dont care where I play games. I just dont remember seing a ton of japanese games on Steam.

I know MS has said about Xbox One and Scorpio being in tandem but I think they need to use Scorpio as a partial reset. The Xbox One never really fully recovered from its unveiling and the PS4 has just sold crazy numbers. The Xbox One was envisioned as this always online connected living room box rather than a games console and as a result became a very confused product that saw many of its stand out features such as Kinect and original TV content get swept aside and was essentially re-engineered into a traditional games console.

I want nothing to do with the Windows Store, broken ports, or dead multiplayer populations. These are all elephants in the room whenever PC is brought up.

@mrcraggle: Selling Scorpio is gonna be a real problem for MS if they make it look good it'll upset exising XB1 owners but not good enough and it won't sell the numbers, Sony's just been though this with the Pro looks to be an unwinnable battle. If Red Dead 2, Destiny 2 and Battlefront 2 all hit this year with their Sony partnerships and $199 Slim and Pro price cut, Scorpio won't get off the ground Crackdown 3 would need to be GOAT.

I would say that the end game is that they didn't want another Quantum Break situation on their hands. It's a smart move.

@humanity: I don't know how much this source can be trusted, but here's a video talking about Scalebound. I would also say that Quantum Break clearly went through the ringer because of the amount of change that happened with the Xbox division from when it was revealed to when it finally was released. They recasted the whole game and who knows how the TV component was originally supposed to work. With Xbox shutting down their TV division, it sort of messed up this whole game.

@colonel_pockets: Yah I dunno how much weight to put behind some YouTuber and his "sources" especially when he makes a lot of assumptions on the part of both parties. This might be an unpopular opinion but I still stand by the fact that it is your job as a developer to protect your work. Of course I know nothing about game development so maybe thats just impossible, maybe retaining creative control over your work is a thing of the past or something that never existed. For many years Kojima was seemingly able to exercise almost complete control over his projects until Phantom Pain so it did happen here and there.

The ending of that video where he says "this isn't the last we'll be hearing about Scalebound" is something that I would most strongly disagree with. A game that many people have all but forgotten got cancelled - I'm pretty sure this very much is the last we'll be hearing about it.

This whole thread is predicated on a number of far-reaching suppositions founded on nothing more than the most cursory observation. There's no reason to assume Microsoft is no longer making singleplayer games (Dead Rising 4 was just released, and its multiplayer component was actually stripped down from the two previous iterations). There's no reason to assume that Scalebound was cancelled for any other reason than it was not going to be completed (it has already been in development for three years and multiple sources refer to its status as being stuck in development hell, per this Engadget article). There's no reason to assume intention in the cancellation of Scalebound and what this means about Microsoft as a whole. All this means is that PlatinumGames was having a hard time and the project was clearly costing a lot of money. The key citation is that several senior staff members on the team were forced to take a month off specifically because the development pressure was too intense, which only exacerbated the project's developmental delays. This, coupled with a game that reportedly was struggling to run in the chosen engine, meaning a rebuild of the engine or a port to a new one, sounds like a game in serious trouble.

Additionally, there is an overwhelming response by the public of being underwhelmed by Scalebound to begin with. Why continue development on a game that doesn't seem to be drawing much interest, but is costing millions and devouring its development staff alive?

Sometimes a cancelled game is not a death knell, it's just a cancelled game.

Sure, I think any dev worth their salt has to go all out to protect to persuade suits to protect integrity of their project from bad business ideas

but realistically speaking if Microsoft is funding the project, there is only such much pushback you can give. They pull the funds and you are done. Microsoft isn't going to be hurt that badly by taking a total loss on a project but the dev sure is. There's zero leverage here for the dev.

This isn't EA or even Sony they are dealing with, it's Microsoft where the Xbox division is just one component of their machine. They don't need these projects to succeed like other publishers do and even Sony & Nintendo need them to.

There's been enough really bad reports now from people working with Microsoft now for me to think there is a major problem with the way Microsoft works with devs

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-05-12-lionhead-the-inside-story

http://kotaku.com/how-a-small-game-studio-almost-made-it-big-1696997142

And it's a consistent story and one that sounds incredibly plausible to me. If Microsoft changes leadership midstream (and they did) and they suddenly give you a mandate to completely redesign your game around a Product as a Service philosophy instead the traditional rich single player experience while also not giving you any additional budget to do so, I don't see how that isn't a recipe for disaster. That's not even factoring in that some concepts may not translate well to that model in the first place (Scalebound strikes me as one that would have to be rebuilt from the ground up if it's going the Product as a Service route).

I wouldn't be surprised if the Scalebound situation was a mix of legit quality concerns on a passion project and incompetent publisher meddling where they make unrealistic incongruous feature demands on the dev.

@slag: I would agree it was probably an unhealthy mix of the two, although I'm curious what the ratio actually was. On one hand, as you mention, Microsoft hasn't had a stellar track record in dealing with developers in the past. On the other hand, Platinum hasn't been exactly banging out homeruns over the past few years either.

@humanity: oh yeah for sure. I'd love to know what actually happened. We'll probably never know for sure.

You're right Platinum has put out some real phoned in stinkers of late, but I feel like most of their subpar stuff has been contract work (Turtles, Korra) where their original IP has been for the most part a lot better (bayonetta, vanquish). I guess I was just hopeful Scalebound would be better because it was theirs.

That's not necessarily true for sony either. They have other divisions that make them money and over the last two years Sony itself is profitable. Yes the games division is profitable but so is their Camera division and I believe their TV division has turned around as well. Granted this is new for Sony since they were squandering money prior to Kaz becoming president .

@slag: There are 2 common things about each of Platinum's games. They're great and they don't sell well. I look at the licensed projects they took as contract work to keep the company going. It's hard fathom any other reason when you look at the difference in quality between Bayonetta 2 and The Legend of Korra. Maybe there games not selling has finally caught up to them.

@kcin: Except that Dead Rising 4 is only a timed exclusive. I don't think it is a far stretch to question what the big picture is for the Xbox. This is the 3rd game cancelled (that we know of) in the last couple of years. Two of those games were in development for multiple years too.

And? Microsoft paid for the exclusivity. As for the 'point' that games were cancelled after being in development for a very long time, and how that is somehow evidence of your conclusion: games in development for multiple years are either aiming for something that can only be accomplished across a long timeframe, or have lost/needed to change direction. Cancelling games that fall into the latter camp makes complete sense. Microsoft didn't get where it is by submitting to the sunk cost fallacy.

I completely do think it's a far stretch to use this as a platform to question what the big picture is for the Xbox. Scalebound sounds like development was a depressing mess, and it increasingly left less and less of an impression on the public as it revealed itself. Microsoft sounds like it was smart to have cancelled it, and reading this cancellation as reflective of some larger issue seems more reflective of a desire to find meaning where there isn't any. The real story here is what the fuck is going on with PlatinumGames these days.

@kcin: Platinum Games have a consistent record of releasing titles particularly ones on a tight budget too, and their lower quality games tend to be the budget ones which is understandable. A developer and publisher should be working together to release the game, Scalebound is another high profile title MS failed to bring to market. After dumping $75 million into Fable Legends which by all accounts was ready to release and a game Lionhead didn't want to make, I wouldn't be suprised if Scalebound has been a more expensive mistake. MS decision making continues to be shocking this generation Lionhead Fable Legends, Phatom Dust, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Scalebound have all been a giant money pit.

@colonel_pockets: Platinum Games are working on two games for the Japanese market and they have Nier Automata releasing soon.

I'll just go back to the original question, "[what is my view of] The future of the Xbox?"

I think Microsoft will have a two tier business: 1. trying to sell Xbox One S to the general public while 2. Trying to entice higher-end console games to Scorpio. And, they will keep that two tier strategy until Xbox Cinco. To be honest, I don't think there is much of a market for high end consoles...because most anyone who is thinking that way is one step away from getting a cheap Gaming PCs.

So Xbox is will fine, it will be in second place for this current generation. I do not buy into this iterative hardware scheme in the same way some pundits do. I think the consoles space has been iterative for a long time it just that around teh time of PS2 the iteration started to feel different with far more iterative hardware changing without the power or processing being talked about. Now, in place of what was just a slim upgrade we are seeing a two prong iteration with slim going low and Neo/Scorpio going high. Yet I think after five or six years we will see see a PS 5 and Xbox Cinco - except it will be spelled like Scinco, Synco, or some other nonsense because it isn't REALLY the fifth one.

Honestly, I think Sony and Microsoft will keep doing the console thing for many more years to come. One will be on top, then the other; as is the cycle of such things. Consoles will be like consoles -except in so far as they become more and more PC-like. And, of course, PC will stay PCs in so far as they - always dream of being Prom Queen by trying to be more console-like each year.

I would love to know how Scalebound's fraught development is Microsoft's fault. Until something comes out saying so, I don't understand how Scalebound's development problems can be laid at the feet of Microsoft, and anyone saying so without sources or evidence is guessing.

If you want to say "Microsoft has a problem with first-party/exclusive games", I won't contest that. They do. Their problem is they basically don't have any. But the premise of this thread is that "Microsoft is clearly getting out of the single player games business", and that the cancellation of Scalebound is what proves this. No, it isn't clearly doing anything except cancelling Scalebound, a game on a long, dramatic, and expensive development cycle, that excited basically no one, and reportedly needed an engine overhaul in order to run properly. The OP then extrapolates that this has something to do with a plan to have PC and Xbox gamers spend more money on microtransactions via games-as-service models. That's an unreasonable leap of logic for which there is no basis.

Microsoft can afford to dump expensive games it may or may not want to market. You can see that as a huge mistake and that it seals the fate of the Xbox if you want, but that willfully ignores the fact that Microsoft is insanely fucking rich and can simply choose to do that. But hey, gimme a shout when Nintendo cancels a Mario game and then we can have this conversation.

One way to sell shitloads and on the surface seems simple to me. Turn the xbox into a PC, put a windows 10 mode on there.

@el_dude_a_reno: that wouldn't be too bad an idea for the scorpio, but having price/performance match with actual pcs may not make it look to appealing to pc buyers.

@kcin: A publisher doesn't hand a developer a bag cash and just bugger off, Kamiya has also stated many times they can't make the game with MS tech support. Scalebound in the OP is described as multiple-centric title it had co-op mp since day 0, neither the OP nor I is making the assertion Scalebound's cancellation is proof that MS are getting out of the single player business. We have no definitive proof as to the cause of Scalebound's cancellation clearly something went wrong and both parties are likely to blame but for now its only hear say and rumour. And the fact is all of MS remaing titles fit the games as a service model which is Nadella mantra, its not an unreasonable assumption Xbox is doing the same. And the cause as to why previous Xbox heads have left the company because of upper management outside interference.

E3 2016: Hideki Kamiya talks Scalebound - "The biggest game of my career"

Both making the bet on the game, but also support where we don’t have the technical knowledge or get stuck. They have such a breadth of resources at their disposal that they’re able to support us.”

Kamiya Talks About Xbox Exclusive Scalebound And Microsoft

“Microsoft is very hands on and they check everything while you’re working together. One of the things we’ve noticed, because they keep you honest, is that we’ve been making this game faster than we normally would.”

You may not be saying that, but the OP is literally about that assertion.

They basically have no single player games on the pipeline, unless they have secret studios that are working on other projects. I think that is really unlikely.

So since Microsoft is clearly getting out of the single player games business, what does this mean?

It also asserts that Microsoft is pivoting towards games-as-service models exclusively:

This leads to the play anywhere feature being added to the Xbox brand this year. They are trying to branch the PC and Xbox communities with their games. By making games as a service, Microsoft can have people play on PC and Xbox One. They can carry their saves and progress between machines. Most importantly, they will spend more money on these games.

So now that we've established this, what do I think of this?

I'm not even sure how this proves that Microsoft is going to get players to spend more money. Playstation had 'play anywhere' functionality between Vita and PS4. How did players spend more with that model? How would players "spend more money on these games" with Microsoft's inclusion of the Windows 10 platform in the Xbox games ecosystem? They would, in fact, be buying fewer copies of the same game (one copy for both PC and Xbox, rather than one for each platform), thereby spending less. "Now that we've established" what, exactly? If anything, this is evidence of an effort to have players spend less money.

I don't have an issue with saying Microsoft has few first-party titles in the pipeline, or that they have trouble with exclusives, or whatever. I agree with that. It's observable fact. I am just disagreeing with the OP and taking umbrage with the assertion that the OP has proven that Microsoft is getting out of making single-player games. I also think it's foolhardy to guess which company played what role in the cancellation of any game without someone inside telling their story, and so far all the stories around Scalebound seemingly place the fault at the feet of the developers. But who knows? Maybe Microsoft did something somewhere to force PlatinumGames to use the wrong engine, or to overwork their staff for several years, or to trap the game in development hell. Alternatively, maybe Platinum got in over their heads, or maybe they started off on the wrong foot and never course-corrected. Who knows.

That's the point: who knows.

@kcin: Very few people buy multiple copies of a single game and this is where I disagree with OP 'play anywhere' is MS's forlorn hope to people to use the windows store. If a small fraction of Stream users buy into the Window store it would be a gold mine for MS. The fact is MS is selling significantly less hardware and software 'play anywhere' enables people to buy into the XB1 ecosystem without having the console and earn more from each player with microtransactions.

See, this is a good point, especially since they gave Windows 10 away for free for a very long time, and Windows is the most-used OS in the world, trouncing console ownership by many magnitudes.

I do, however, feel like this is a different point than the OP.

@colonel_pockets said:

In case you have not heard, Scalebound was cancelled today by Microsoft. This has left me feeling sort of empty inside for multiple reasons. Is Platinum in trouble? Is Xbox in trouble? Platinum could be saved for another blog. I'd also like to apologize ahead of time for my english. I'm still working to get better at it, so please bare with me.

Phil Spencer was appointed to be head of Xbox a couple of years ago. A lot of people, including myself, thought this was a great thing. For the most part, he has done a great job. Xbox One's are selling well now, Xbox One backwards compatibility is a great feature, and Xbox Live continues to be the best console online service.

With all of that said, one could argue that the quality of Microsoft Studios games has gone down. Recore possibly wasn't finished, Quantum Break was arguably Remedy's worst game, Halo 5's campaign was critically panned, and Gears 4 is more of the same (I think it's the worst numbered Gears game). With the downward trend in quality, sales have also gone down for their big titles (Gears 4 and Halo 5).

Now Scalebound has been cancelled. So where does Xbox go from here? As of right now, Xbox has Sea of Thieves, Halo Wars 2, maybe Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2 and probably an unannounced Forza Motorsport game. What do those games all have in common? They're all multiplayer first games. Even games that were cancelled, Fable Legends and now Scalebound were multiplayer-centric. They basically have no single player games on the pipeline, unless they have secret studios that are working on other projects. I think that is really unlikely.

So since Microsoft is clearly getting out of the single player games business, what does this mean? I think Minecraft is the answer to this question. Minecraft is a phenomenon. It is a game that has been playable for years, but continues to be on the sales charts. They continue to update it and people continue to play it. It is one of the prime examples of "games as services". PC games such as League of Legends, Dota 2, Overwatch, TF2, CSGO, etc.. are continuing to be updated and they are being rewarded by people playing a lot. This correlates with people spending more money on these games (skins, blind boxes, keys, hats). They only want to create games that can last a long time because their other games are not selling well.

This leads to the play anywhere feature being added to the Xbox brand this year. They are trying to branch the PC and Xbox communities with their games. By making games as a service, Microsoft can have people play on PC and Xbox One. They can carry their saves and progress between machines. Most importantly, they will spend more money on these games.

So now that we've established this, what do I think of this? I've never been a Halo guy, so a new Halo doesn't really speak to me; especially after Halo 5's campaign and Gears 4 was not that great. This is leaving me at a crossroads with the Xbox and I'm sure I am not the only one. None of their "console exclusive" games are that interesting because they are mostly tired franchises. I don't know how they can win me back.

With the Scorpio on the horizon, I can only hope that Microsoft does their best to create the best possible games because then their games as a service strategy will not succeed.

I'm not happy to see the news of Scalebound's cancellation, but it wasn't overly surprising. Frankly, this wasn't the type of game that appeals that much to the Xbox One community, just as the Xbox brand struggles to gain a foothold in Japan. Scalebound always looked like a Playstation-ass Playstation game (for better and worse) that was being brute-forced into the Xbox ecosystem. I appreciate that everyone was trying to bridge a cultural gap, but these realities had the game a bit behind the 8-ball from the start.

Spencer's tenure has had its hits-and-misses, but he's been pretty terrific overall for the console. I'm continually impressed with how well he manages to be both an effective CEO and legitimately open with/responsive to the userbase. While MS certainly has the clout to suffer some failures financially, it lost the ability to take many more hits to its reputation after so many gleefully jumped on the "fuck MS" bandwagon early on with the Xbox One, many of whom still haven't really jumped back off after they arguably should have. If Scalebound was headed down the wrong path as it seemed (or if interest had simply waned), axing it was really the only move. MS simply has to get ahead of potentially deleterious shit like this by acting quickly and decisively as they did with Kinect, as there are a metric shit-ton of journalists/bloggers just waiting to rip into "corporate" MS for any and all failures.

I'm not sold that the quality of Microsoft Studios games has really gone down, either. Gears of War 4 and Halo 5 were both well-received overall. Quantum Break was flawed, but still a decent game. Recore was the only one that was really disappointing. Also, this post conveniently ignores the entirety of the Forza series, of which the three latest games have been absolutely stellar. So, of their first-party stuff, there's seven games of late here, five of which have been somewhere between good and superb, one of which was okay, and one of which was lacking. That track record isn't bad by any stretch, all things considered.

The assertion that MS is "getting out of the single-player games business" is more than a little hyperbolic. The Forza games in particular can easily be argued as single-player games first, as the whole Drivatar system basically exists to allow people to play the game WITHOUT needing to utilize traditional online multiplayer. As for "games as services", there isn't much of anything beyond Minecraft (which pre-dates the Xbox One) to indicate that this is Microsoft's strategy going forward. It's a weird logical leap to mention some of Steam's most microtransaction-y PC games and then bring up Microsoft's "Play Anywhere" functionality as if it's somehow related. If anything, this effort to unify the PC/Xbox is basically a tacit admission by MS that the PC Microsoft Store isn't ever going to compete on its own against the Steam juggernaut, and instead is attempting to make both the Xbox and PC simultaneously a bit more attractive as a package of sorts. In other words, they're specifically NOT trying to compete anymore in the "games as services" space because it's a competition they've already lost and they know it.

Perhaps there's little of interest to you presently/upcoming, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true of others. Personally, I'm way into Forza Horizon 3 right now and I'm having a blast with it. There have been about a billion of these "no exclusives interest me" threads, and they grow a bit tiresome. Yeah, if you poo-poo multiple franchises because a well-regarded game was "not that great" or because you didn't care for the campaign portion of another, whilst ignoring other franchises, you're kind of boxing yourself into a corner where you're near-impossible to please. Maybe consider broadening your horizons a bit. I can't quite parse out what you're wanting here, as it seems like you're wanting amazing single-player experiences whilst being super-bummed that "multiplayer-centric" Scalebound got the axe. At any rate, it's pretty clear that Microsoft is trying their damnedest of late to give the overall community what it wants, even when that may unfortunately come at the expense of a game like Scalebound that apparently didn't command the kind of appeal to continue pursuing.

Really, this level of criticism can be true of everything anyway. It's like having a PS4 and complaining that there's not much outside of Naughty Dog's games, or having a Nintendo and complaining that there's not much outside of Mario. If you're willfully rejecting the bread-and-butter franchises (even when quality entries are offered), then you may be asking a bit much. I'm not sure why exactly people feel so entitled now to just be constantly showered with incredible exclusives. Even when quality exclusives do come out, the response is "meh, it's not that good" or they're nit-picked to death, because I guess people expect their platform to demonstrably prove to them why they should own it over the others so they can be "right" in their choice. The reality is, that's a path to inevitable disappointment. Very rarely does a game-changing exclusive come along on any platform, but all platforms have their strengths and weaknesses to where people should be able to find something worth playing, regardless of platform.

Scorpio will be interesting to watch. I can pretty much guarantee that people are going to complain endlessly about how expensive it is (even if the sum of its parts is near or greater than its selling price as with the original Xbox). I don't necessarily agree that it has to have amazing first-party games to succeed, nor do I feel that it's obligated to. If it provides high-end PC gaming power/performance without the headaches, people (including myself) may well buy it for that alone. Even if MS never makes a good first-party game again, which seems incredibly unlikely given the excellence of the Forza franchise, solid franchises in Halo/Gears, potentially reinvigorated franchises like Crackdown, etc., third-party games should easily be at or near their best on the beefy Scorpio, as no console is even going to come close from a hardware standpoint, while a superior PC setup will likely come in well-beyond its price. It may well find great success simply by being positioned in a previously-vacant space, and I hope it does.

Fair enough, I wasn't aware things had turned around for them elsewhere! That's good to know, thank you.

Still even if you assume Sony is more like Microsoft than a typical publisher, I think my point still stands about comparative leverage given that Platinum has also worked with Activision, Sega, Konami, Square Enix and Nintendo.

Platinum also has a rep for getting stuff out quick (maybe too quick with some of their licensed stuff), so I'm more inclined to believe the Scalebound delays were at the minimum at least partially due to the publisher.

Oh absolutely, they are hardly the only developer who takes on contract work until they get a hit IP.

In Korra and the TMNT's case I believe it was due to the internal team working on those games. If my understanding is correct they shared the same director , Eiro Shirahama, who I don't believe was the lead on any of their other games (even other licensed games like Transformers: Devastation). So maybe there's an issue with his team specifically or maybe he's just been given an edict to get the games out by a certain date whether it's good or not. Who's to say?

I must admit, whilst this sucks big time (Scalebound being canned and thus the jobs of those working on it being put in a awful situation), it seems a tad hyperbolic to suggest this is Microsoft slowly canning the Xbox division.

This game may have been in development hell where the game was straight up not working and would need porting to a new engine, or other major issues where pumping more money in made little sense to Microsoft from a publisher standpoint. I am not saying this is the case, I am not there so can not say. They could have gone the Sony way and allow this to continue (see The Last Guardian and Gran Turismo as examples of this) but maybe Microsoft felt the money was better spent elsewhere?

If they feel the games as a service model works best, then they will have the research to back that up. Popular games seem to be stuff like Rocket League, DOTA 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike GO, and so on, the games where people can keep coming back and will give more money. However, as others have said, they are also working on games that do not feature that (such as Dead Rising 4). However, there is an element of this creeping in (REQ cards in Halo and Gears of War, seems like something similar maybe in Halo Wars 2 from what I read of the pre-order bonus stuff, but maybe I am wrong on that front).

If we focus on just the negatives then yes things can be bleak, but that applies to all the console makers (and publishers/store fronts such as Valve, what game(s) are they making right now? However I get why with Steam making a lot of money for them). But lets flip it around, Microsoft keeps pushing the backwards compatibility on an almost weekly basis which will help them with publishers/brick and mortar stores. They get money from old games being sold on the Xbox digital storefront (games that probably have tailed off long ago sales wise) and physical stores get to sell the games on pre-owned and so forth. This will help them build some good will there.

I don't know, I am rambling a little here, but I just wanted to throw these points out, if somewhat muddled up, but I stand by the original point that this seems hyperbolic to suggest this is Microsoft killing off the Xbox division because they have canned a game.

@johnlocke: MS is not canning the Xbox division anytime soon, if anything the worse case scenario is Xbox running stuck on auto-pilot just pumping out the core pilliars with few extras here and there. The Last Guardian was never always in active devlopment only ever having a small team if its sell 500k Sony will atleast break even or make some money, Gran Turismo despite taking forever to release if puts up great numbers in the end and is typically a much better seller than Forza as the genre is bigger in the EU where Sony is much stronger. The fact Scalebound is a Japanese game on the Xbox and a Platinum one to boot it stood little chance of selling and after 4 years in development using most of Platinum Games 200 strong staff would have cost quite a bit far more than the Last Guardian. Halve of all XB1 owners according to MS have never used backwards compatibility and in the top 50 most played XB1 games only one BC title is on that list Black Ops, BC is not moving the needle in any meaningful way.

@colonel_pockets: First, regarding your English - you are able to write in English better than many whose first language is English!

Very interesting point regarding many of their first party titles being multiplayer focused. I had never thought about that. I suppose their lineage with the Xbox Live service has always been their cash cow and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

@panzini But they canceled a Platinum game! Clearly the Xbox division is lost with no direction.

I'm pretty sure if Microsoft had canned an exclusive third party title from any other developer it would just be a blip on most people's radars.

@grimluck343: I more made this post about how they have cancelled multiple games over the past couple of years (at that we know of). Two of them were in development for a handful of years. This is sort of been building up for a while.

@notnert427: Like I said in the post, I'm still working on my English. Instead of giving my opinion on Halo 5 and Gears 4, I should have just said that the excitement level around those franchises has gone down over the years. I realize that consoles don't stay alive with exclusives, but this time they don't have Call of Duty to lean on.

@tyn0mite: Thanks! I feel my technical writing has gotten better, but actually explaining what I want to say needs work. I'm rooting for Aaron Rodgers and the Pack this weekend.

Fair enough. FWIW, your English is very good. I wouldn't have noticed at all if you hadn't mentioned it. As for Halo and Gears, it may well mostly be a product of having to try and appeal to a different generation of gamers. Halo: CE came out in 2001 after all (though it's still great). Perhaps if the MCC had released fully functional, it may have caught on a bit more than it did. All things considered, Halo 5 and Gears were both pretty solid entries for their respective franchises, and I think you may be being a bit harsh on both, but that's JMO. (Speaking of CoD, that franchise's dip in quality over the years is arguably far worse than Halo or Gears, so that's some perspective worth considering.) I think there's still some great things ahead for Xbox, but how Scorpio fares will obviously be key.

Keep at it! And, yes... Go Pack Go! You're alright in my book!

The couple "troubled" exclusives have been rather ambitious/poorly thought out (depending on how you view it):

Scalebound was going to be an RPG from Platinum. I believe there was an IGN interview where the head said he always wanted to make an RPG, which means little prior experience. On top of that they (Platinum? more likely Microsoft? no idea) decided to tout 4-player co-op boss battles in some form as a major selling point.

The Phantom Dust remake was apparently jumping on the card game bandwagon, but with real time rendering of action (from the Kotaku post-humous article). Developer Darkside Games did not have a full game under their name.

Quantum Break probably was completely retooled as they struggled with how the game would integrate TV aspects (even the final product had a lot of complaints from gamers that didn't want to watch hours of TV).

Fable Legends was announced when the idea of asynchronous multiplayer was at its peak. Note I said "idea", because in reality few games have really stuck around. Since then, Evolve failed, Rainbow 6 Siege took a while to gain a rather small footing.

Crackdown 3, which according to Phil recently is looking great, was going to implement "the power of the cloud!!!tm".

Recore seemed like a slam dunk at the time, in concept and talent, but that was before Comcept turned into a burning trash can. I also suspect the Recore backlash might have deterred Microsoft from just putting what is done of Scalebound out to die.

Gigantic's development took so long that the MOBA heatwave AND the hero shooter heatwave came and went... Can't say I'm too optimistic about that one.

Even Sea of Thieves is really ambitious. Fingers crossed they pull it off.

New ideas are of course welcome, but much riskier to invest in as well. In many cases the developer also didn't have a track record of making the genre of game in question. (Things can certainly work out as well, such as Double Helix making a new free2play Killer Instinct) Microsoft is certainly at fault for a lot of the decisions, especially if the rumors of their requests to make abrupt direction changes are true.

I do wonder if they should just made a few safer "X" but in "Y" games. My examples would be Warhammer 40k space marines (gears with a slapped-on hot IP), and the Saboteur (open-world in WW2). Those 2 games are really not innovative (perhaps I'm giving them too little credit?), but I would be happy if Xbox has exclusives on that level. Even Naughty Dog is on a rotation of Uncharted and Last of Us. And the new God of War trailer was well-received by fans for its tone change. Horizon Zero Dawn is at its most fundamental an open world 3rd person action game, but the theme has been very intriguing. These are definitely overly simplified view of the games, and my point is not to belittle Sony's titles. Given how deeply entrenched Halo or Gears is in their respective fans' minds, 343 and Coalition might be better off making a new IP in a different setting, with freedom to try a couple new ideas (but not too back-to-the-drawingboard-ly new) without angering fans of Halo or Gears. Microsoft also had the unique problem of keep the Halo and Gears IP, but losing the original developers, hence their first couple games have been very standard entries in those series, almost as "training wheels". Hopefully Microsoft will let them (and us fans) take a couple years off from Halo, Gears and Forza.

@francium34: Another one that was cancelled was the game that The Coalition was working on before they were assigned to make Gears for the rest of eternity. It's disappointing. I hope Microsoft is able to blow us away with what they currently have because they don't have that big Fall game right now.