Don't you just love it when you're casually catching up on E3 videos and stumble across a gem of a quote from an industry figure? We sure do, and this one comes from Quantic Dream co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere. When asked by Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida when Detroit: Become Human is coming out, the smartly dressed exec replies: "It's coming out when it's finished thanks to Shuhei!" He continues: "We have the luxury of polishing our games at PlayStation."
Obviously it's common knowledge that Sony as a publisher isn't in the business of squeezing out horribly unfinished titles, but it's nice to hear a comment like this come from the head of a studio. We feel like there's a definite conversation to be had about whether Sony's first party studios are actually the strongest that they've ever been - and that's partly going to come down to how supportive the Japanese giant is of their work.
Anyway, you can watch Shu walk about the E3 2017 show floor in the video that we've embedded above.
Comments 25
What a dude. Unless he's really like Mom from Futurama.
A little dig at EA after Mass Effect?? LOL
Must say Horizon:ZD (the last exclusive I bought) was incredibly well polished on release for a big open world, ambitious game. In fact I am struggling to think of any I had issues with in that regard...
That was much more eloquent than my comment in the Days Gone article but pretty much what I meant, Sony has enough exclusives lined up for this year and next, no rush. Also no rush in part due to all the 3rd party support as well. If it didn't take Squenix 10 years to make a game Sony might have to deal with too many games, Kingdom Hearts 3 and NNK2 are a little too similar for a simultaneous release.
Guess we all just have to get used to living in a long term world, look at Star Wars, MCU and the Avatar movies. King Kong and Godzilla too if any one cares about those. Games are getting like that, long term view.
Yep. Delayed games isn't all that bad for us. In fact, it's actually only bad for the publishers as they're the ones leaking out extra money to support the developer polish their games.
Was the thumbnail image of Yoshida laughing taken when he heard Phil Spencer say "Pro is really competition for Xbox One S"
I had a smile on my face during the whole video.
Shu is adorable, I'm smiling during this whole video
@BAMozzy Or at MS after they canned Scalebound because it wasn't coming along fast enough
@FullbringIchigo Or Sony with Rime... Santa Monica also suffered layoffs when Sony cancelled an 'untitled' Sci-fi game following years of work... Its not just MS that 'cancelled' games.
However the point I was making was about releasing games in an 'unfinished' state - like Mass Effect... What that has to do with Scalebound, that was never released in an 'unpolished' state - the POINT of the article!!
I have NO idea why you had to bring Scalebound up - unless you are trying to be 'clever' and having another dig at MS for brownie points??
Awesome.
Gaming is boss right now. I'm never ever going to say a conference is bad, good, boring, the best ever, the worst ever etc ever again as lets be honest.
Every game was awesome! The conference was fun! Push squares coverage was the best yet,!
There's like 40 games I want to play!
Get in Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft you've all done well. Props to ubisoft, Bethesda and EA for chipping in.
Great times now bring on the games!
Apart from Drive Club?
@themcnoisy mate you are quitting games to become a pro deejay remember??
@BAMozzy Rime i dont know the whole story do you? It took ages we did not see anything so what would you have done? MS canned the most interresting title i think thats what he meant.
@kyleforrester87 Haha pro dj pffft.
Im still grabbing some music production gear and will be quitting gaming next year for my health! I spend to much time gaming and need to earn my millions lol.
@Flaming_Kaiser Of course we don't know the whole story surrounding Rime - same with Scalebound too. I know we didn't see a lot from Rime leading up to Sony pulling out, but Rime still released a relatively short time later in a finished state. We don't know why Santa Monica's Sci-fi game was cancelled by Sony after years of work - maybe because they preferred Horizon:ZD but they could have helped finish that game off instead of cancelling and losing Jobs. We don't know why Scalebound was cancelled either. I agree that it looked the most interesting game coming to MS and was my most anticipated title. Some say it was creative differences, some say that it was taking too long - who really knows. Sea of Thieves was expected this year but that's been delayed to next year so so its not as if MS don't give developers time on projects.
What irked me though was the blatant dig at MS and aimed at me because I also own an Xbox. The article seemed to be more about those companies that would rather release games in an unfinished, unpolished state rather than anything about 'cancelled' games. Releasing games that need a 'lot' of work post release to polish where as Sony will give them the time to ensure that the game releases in the best possible, polished and playable condition. It was unnecessary!!
With regards to cancelled games - like Scalebound, these are 3rd Party developed games and no doubt some 'contract is drawn up with some 'deadlines' in place and agreements. If you are approaching a 'deadline' and way behind, asking for a lot more time and money, you have to make a decision - whether the project is going to end up costing a lot more money than you think you can ever recover back, too far away from completion (ie If you expected the Project to be ready by 2016, it slipped to 2017 and looks like it won't be ready by 2019/20 at the earliest). Whether the project is still the 'same' game you bought into (something that Rime may have had and its similarities to other PS games) and the direction has changed into something else that they didn't want - you can either keep throwing money at it or walk away through breach of contract. As much as I hated the decision to walk away where Scalebound was concerned, I don't know the full story.
@themcnoisy I dunno mate I'll believe it when I see it, ain't no getting off this train we're on.
@BAMozzy no i'm not trying to dig at anyone i was on about when publishers cancel games when they are taking, what they think is too long to develop
i only said scalebound because that was the last big one i remember being cancelled but it's still the same point, some publishers released unfinished games like Ubisoft with AC Unity or as you said EA with ME Andromeda and some just cancel them like the afor mentioned Scalebound
in the end it adds up to the same thing, publishers not giving developers enough time to finish their games
BTW i own an XBOX too you know, i don't discriminate because of what system people decide to play on because at the end of the day you do what you want too it's your life
@FullbringIchigo I am sorry that I misinterpreted your comment. Its perhaps because of late, I feel I have a lot of comments directed at me because I stand up for MS (when I feel they deserve it) and can be 'honest' about Sony and people don't like that either. With E3 and the XBX and Pro, the different tactics when it comes to what games get shown etc etc, it seems that even when I praise Sony, someone replys (with my name) to have a dig at something MS has 'done'.
A simple example was when I stated that I would prefer it if Sony had shown more of the games they were planning to release in the year at E32016 (games like Persona, Nier, Nioh etc) instead of God of War, Spider-Man, Days Gone etc so they wouldn't be showing the same games two years running - then some replys - like MS did with Cuphead, Crackdown, Sea of Thieves...
The point of the article was discussing Sony - no mention of MS etc so I responded regarding Sony's E3 but some felt the need to drag MS in and link it to my name. Its getting really annoying. Of course the same thing applies to MS with those games too but the topic was talking about Sony's E3 - not MS. Scalebound is ALSO part of that issue and had they not mentioned it beforehand, shown it at E3, this wouldn't even be used to try and make MS and Xbox gamers irritated. Its not like Sony have not 'cancelled' games too. Its games like Scalebound, Cuphead etc the reason why MS were far more reluctant to showcase any of their longer term projects at E3 this year.
I bet if Sony had a third party developer that promised a game within 3yrs, and as that 3yr point approached was still 2-3yrs+ away from delivering, they would have to really think long and hard about whether it was worth chucking more money in, taking away money from 1st party studios, potentially even not able to see a return on that investment. If Scalebound had been 6-12months away, maybe MS would have persevered longer - who knows. Its still very different situation to making developers release unpolished, unfinished games to make a deadline - which is what the article is predominantly saying. Stating that Sony will give developers the time to ensure the released game is not broken.
I am just getting fed up with people responding to me and using the comments to have a dig at MS that really don't relate directly to the topic. So once again, I apologise for misreading and being a bit more snappy and irritated than normal...
Yes playing Horizon soon after launch and having a fully-working, polished and unbroken game out of the box was lovely. Well done Guerilla and Sony for that.
EA particularly should take note...
@Dodoo Also makes me a LOT more confident in buying a game like Days Gone on Day 1 - another big open world RPG which seems to be the most common genre for 'issues' at launch. Even the best RPG in recent times, the Witcher 3, had some issues at launch.
@BAMozzy it's fine, i can see some of the responses you have gotten and i understand, the same thing has happened to me in the past on here and it can get you worked up
and i too am sure if Scalebound was a bit further along MS would have stuck with it (it did look fun didn't it)
i just feel that all these buggy, unfinished games or cancelled games are indicative of an industry who just want's to meet a deadline for maximum profit and has zero respect for the consumers and EVERY publisher is guilty of it
a HUGE shake up is needed i think
also try not to let people get you down, just remember not everyone will share you views but that doesn't make them any less relevant or important
@FullbringIchigo Scalebound looked like it had a lot of potential when I first saw actual game-play - the bright open world and the combat with Drew and the Dragon. The last gameplay though, the 4-player co-op in that smallish dark area looked poor. It seemed to go on and on, chipping away at the health and then basically finished. I can't recall seeing any reward for doing it and really seemed to be 'different' from the game we were expecting. It lacked any of the big open world, any of the RPG elements etc. Maybe if they had shown the sequence in going from an open world into that area, cut down the fight significantly in length it may have kept some of the momentum but I think a lot were disappointed in that. In each case, performance was bad too with inconsistent frame rates.
I hear that Kamiya is a very erratic developer too. He seemed to be saying that the difference between western bosses and Japanese bosses is that Japanese bosses don't care how you get to the final product, as long as it all works out but western bosses (at least MS) like a more ordered progression and certain 'targets' met by certain dates. By that, I think he meant that instead of going off in random tangents, putting in new stuff just because, they had to work on getting what they had working, the mechanics in place etc to a certain stage first.
When rumours started circulating that Scalebound had huge problems during the development, Microsoft decided it simply couldn’t release a subpar product under its name. The company decided to review the entire design of the game, which brought an inevitable clash of opinions with the developer.
Also, Platinum Games had promised to bring Scalebound to console in 3yrs (they started on it in 2013 and would release in late 2016). When they reviewed the game after Platinum issued it wouldn't be ready until 2017, it was such a mess that it looked like late 2017 was unrealistic too. MS made a 'promise' to release in 2016 - it also reflects badly on them if they have to keep delaying the game over and over again, keep pouring money into it - especially if the sales forecast is 'low' - like 4-5m at most - which is excellent for an exclusive - which may also have dropped after that co-op demo...
The game was built in Unreal 4 which Platinum had never used before and were really struggling to implement the mechanics with this engine. It was absolutely riddled with bugs and glitches, the frame rate was poor and a number of animations looked blurry and unfinished - for a game that was expected to release in 'at most' 6-8months, it was a LONG way from the quality expected of a title that close to being released.
I know there was comments about the stress of the project etc too and you have two sides to that. I don't know what the truth is myself. An interesting Reddit post though from the Platinum Senior Graphics Designer about his opinion of the game stated "MS pulled the plug because the game design was really bad. He said the story was good, the engine was good but the actual design was appalling."
Microsoft couldn’t possibly delay the game any further, since the production budget would’ve blown out of any reasonable proportions. So the only decision was to cancel the game for good. The game had massive potential but maybe the ambition was too much for the current hardware and software to deliver. The Dragons AI was super complex - or would have been if PG could have fulfilled the promise. Similar I think to the bird-dog in the Last Guardian but on a bigger scale and with the Open World, lots of Combat and different enemies it was a struggle for PG. You couldn't just Ride the Dragon or command it to attack. It had its own personality and would grow, trust and evolve with you and your actions - something that made this even more appealing...
Shame as it was my most anticipated Xbox release. I still hope it isn't dead though... I would love to see the game get finished and release - maybe with all the costs involved it should go multi-platform as that should help sales and recover some of the investments.
We will never know exactly what happened and I don't like hearing about 'cancelled' games regardless. Its much harder to take though if those games were high on my wanted list!
@BAMozzy perhaps Platinum can take those assets and create a new game from them?
but yeah it was on my wanted list too
@FullbringIchigo Hopefully...
I can see MS's PoV. Its like going to builder who promises to build your house for £250k in 6m. Then as the 6m deadline approaches, the builder is asking for another £250k and saying it will be another 6m. However when you look at the plot and see how much work the builders have done in the first 6m, realise that its not going to be ready in the next 6m and the house when finished will be worth £350k and by the time you have spent money on marketing and fees, you will get back just £300k from at least £500k investment - probably more, do you persist?
Microsoft now owns the Scalebound IP that has never been used, owns assets for a title that will never be released and is out the development costs and advertising costs without any product to show for it - so it can't have been an Easy decision.
Maybe Kojima can make something similar from the ashes and experience he had on this but I think it would need to be built with new assets. Maybe MS can pass those onto one of its studios to build up something similar but I think the Scalebound name maybe tarnished now...
@BAMozzy yeah i think we won't be seeing anything with the Scalebound name in the future but as you said there is always a chance they can use what they have and recoup some of the losses at least
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