True Fantasy Live Online Cancelled

Sad Gamer writes "Well, it seems long-awaited Xbox Live-compatible MMORPG True Fantasy Live Online has been cancelled. Apparently: 'The main reason cited for this action was the inability to deliver the intended experience to users of Microsoft's XBox Live service in Japan...' This leaves a tiny list of titles that left that can help to push XBox Live in Japan. 'Now Japanese XBox Live users only have titles like Halo 2 and Dead or Alive Ultimate to look forward to in the upcoming months.'" GameSpot has a full translation of the brief Microsoft Japan press release regarding this previously discussed, Level 5 created MMO, formerly likely for Western release as well, which notes: "The MMORPG genre, across all platforms, has become an incredibly crowded and competitive marketplace. In response, Microsoft Game Studios has decided to streamline its portfolio, making fewer bets in this genre."

Comments

Well this sucks.

[AzraelKans]

Sometimes events like this remind me that MS actually has no experience in gamedev only in business, fantasy whatever online wasnt such a bad idea simply because there are no other MMORPGs for the xbox.

Of course that game was not going to work in Japan, final fantasy its an institution there and the game its more than a tad similar to it, but thats not all, most of the audience in Japan is tech savy and perfectly capable of using other more mature (although more complex) games like WOW , FFXI or EQ2, the only way to market this game was to offer it to total non gamers who wanted to learn about online playing and MMORPG basics. Its a shame MS didnt saw that and instead tried to xerox copy FFXI to the book.

Well that leaves a HUGE niche for an Xbox live rpg , who would take the call now? bioware? dare I say Blizzard? (hey! I can dream at least). Anyway chances are the answer is "no one" and we will have to wait until xbox2 (xbox-j) arrives. so as stated: this sucks.

[rant]
If you are wondering why no project of Rare has been cancelled, Its simple, MS knows RARE has tons of industry experience and they dont. So they let them have their way even when they dont fully understand what they are doing.
Thats not the case with the rest of their teams (except bungie) since they are oftenly almost as unexperienced as MS.

Sometimes this backfires as proved in "grabbed by the ghoulies" which was mostly a failed gameplay experiment but wait til you see what they did with "conker reloaded" after seing the e3 trailer my confidence in them has been recovered, lets hope it lives up to expectations.
[/rant]

Well poo

[XellDx]

There goes the sole reason I wanted Xbox live.
Seriously though, this shows if anything how immature in the Industry microsoft actually is. They've been hyping this game for almost 3 years now. I mean, this was a major presentation at last years E3. I won't say that I didn't see something like this coming with TFLO being a complete no show this year, but jesus. To cancel the game when it's so close to being finished?

The reason I say it shows immaturity it becuase this game has a fan base in the US and it hasn't been released yet.So of course its being marketed towards Japan first, the land thats completely over saturated with MMORPG's. It might not be as big as MS wants for a MMORPG, but since Xbox live pretty much only cover shooters and sports games right now, they're limiting the subscriber base to people who only want to play those types of games; Games which are intrinsicly[sic?] better played with other humans who can be made fun of face to face. (Granted, there are some exceptions, but those have only recently started to arise). Back on the point about this being launched in Japan, the Xbox is obviously not doing as well as hoped over there. Hello? Mr. Balmer? Can you pay attention and maybe release the game where you have people buying your system? Thanks.

To show this game for as much has been shown and then throw it away suggests that MS is starting to think about how much money they are really losing. Unless Factor 5 has been lying to us and the game was horribly incomplete, this is a very, very bad message.