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Starcraft Ghost Put On Hold

Posted by Zonk on Sat Mar 25, 2006 06:39 PM
from the never-going-to-get-it dept.
Entertainment Games
After numerous previous delays, Blizzard has made the likelihood we'll ever play Starcraft: Ghost effectively nil. They've announced they're putting game development on hold indefinitely, as they're reconsidering options for the next generation of consoles. From the Gamespy article: "Like many in the industry, we've been impressed with the potential of the new consoles, and we're looking forward to exploring that potential further ... In addition to allowing us to determine the best course for StarCraft: Ghost, this review period will help us lay the groundwork for our future console games."
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[+] Starcraft: Ghost for Next-Gen Consoles? 28 comments
Gamespot's weekly rumour control tackles several issues this week, the most intriguing being the possibility that the Starcraft: Ghost title may be coming out on next-gen consoles. From the article: "However, according to Blizzard, the listing is erroneous. 'It is not coming to next-generation consoles,' said a spokesperson. 'It is currently slated for the Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2.'" They also state that the rumoured Xbox 360 name is likely a non-starter. Which is probably a good thing.
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About a zillion readers wrote in to tell us about all the commotion over at the Blizzard site. Following a countdown, they've announced the latest Starcraft game, Starcraft: Ghost. Note that this game will be console-only, and the FAQ is very adamant that this is not a Starcraft 2.
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Starcraft Ghost Put On Hold 25 Comments More /

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  • next gen ad infinitum (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gEvil (beta) (945888) on Saturday March 25 2006, @06:43PM (#14995230)
    So, the game that was announced five years ago that was going to run on the then "next generation consoles" (ps2, gc, xbox) is now being put on hold to decide if it will run on the current "next generation consoles" (ps3, 360, rev)? Just turn the thing into a damn PC game and get it out the door!

    • Re:next gen ad infinitum (Score:5, Funny)

      by flyingsquid (813711) on Saturday March 25 2006, @06:48PM (#14995252)
      "So, the game that was announced five years ago that was going to run on the then "next generation consoles" (ps2, gc, xbox) is now being put on hold to decide if it will run on the current "next generation consoles" (ps3, 360, rev)

      Maybe their production facilities are running low on crystals and vespene gas.

      • It's called, "Oh, shit. We could make World of Starcraft on these Consoles and make bank."
      • I think its that they have too many customers playing WoW and have reached their farm limit. Spawn more overlords!

        No, seriously, that wasn't just a joke. Where is the higher return on investment for a couple million dollars and thousands of hours of programmer time -- improving WoW's sales by 5% or delivering a smash-hit console FPS? When you sell a box of FPS: The Killing for the PlayCube360, you have to split the pie with the console manufacturer (license fees) and the retail store. When you sell an

    • Why bother finishing off the game when they have just realised (with World of Warcraft) how much money a single MMORPG game can make them?!

      From Blizzard's point of view, they've just discovered a Warcraft goldmine that has 999,999,999,999 gold!

      That means it's time to... SEND THE PEONS!
    • Just turn the thing into a damn PC game and get it out the door!

      Don't say that! Having worked at Atari for six years, I've seen a lot of PC titles tossed out the door before they were ready. If the game sold a lot, it would get a patch. Otherwise, the patch gets cancelled because the corporate office didn't want to waste money. (Never mind that if more effort went into avoiding a patch in the first place, the bean counters wouldn't be crying about wasted money.) Blizzard should do it right or not do it a

  • Damn, just damn (Score:3, Insightful)

    by larry bagina (561269) on Saturday March 25 2006, @06:45PM (#14995236) Journal
    Of course, I love starcraft. So the good news is we can imagine how awesome this game would be without the disappointment of it not living up to our expectations.
    • Me, I actually thought it sounded kind of lame... a starcraft FPS? Come on, I don't want them wasting their time on this. I want them building STARCRAFT TWO.

      I lived for starcraft over battle.net, and I'd love to see an updated version. Warcraft 3 was OK, but I liked the scifi feel of starcraft much better.

      • Re:Damn, just damn (Score:5, Funny)

        by mrchaotica (681592) on Saturday March 25 2006, @07:09PM (#14995345)
        Warcraft 3 was OK, but I liked the scifi feel of starcraft much better.
        I liked the "send 400 Zerglings hurtling towards the enemy base all at once" feel better, as opposed to Warcraft 3's "micromanage 2 units" feel.
        • "send 400 Zerglings hurtling towards the enemy base all at once" Don't you mean: Select 12 zerglings, send to enemy Select 12 zerglings, send to enemy Select 12 zerglings, send to enemy Select 12 zerglings, send to enemy... Starcraft is great in many ways, but awful in several others. Instead of Ghost can't we just have a version with better squad handling, order queues, and not locked to 640x480*? It'd take them a month to make, and me and half a million other fans would buy it. It's like they have so m
      • I agree. Starcraft was much better than WC3, and is probably the best RTS made so far. However, I also really hope Starcraft is not the end of the genre and Blizzard actually tries to make Starcraft2.

        As such their refocusing on cosnoles is really worrying. It is well known that RTSs have always sucked on consoles. If Blizzard decides to go to consoles they will probably abandon the RTS genre.

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Perseid (660451) on Saturday March 25 2006, @06:46PM (#14995246)
    The sequel to Starcraft: Ghost, tentatively named Starcraft: Ghost Forever, is tentatively slated for early 2007...
  • I believe that makes the release schedule as follows:
    1) Nintendo Revolution/Go
    2) Playstation 3
    3) Duke Nukem Forever
    4) Phantom Console
    5) Starcraft Ghost

  • Best ... Advertising ... Ever (Score:5, Funny)

    by MagicDude (727944) on Saturday March 25 2006, @06:58PM (#14995291)
    This is a brilliant move to promote the stealthyness of SCG. What kind of stealth based game would it be if you could see it coming from 6 months ahead of time? Come christmas time, you'll walk into your local Best Buy, and there will be a huge display which just appeared overnight. Even the register biscuits [penny-arcade.com] won't know how it got there. It'll be beautiful.
  • It appears that the success of WoW has made Blizzard even lazier than they were before.

    Blizz Guy A: "Hey Bob, should we, uh, you know... start programming Ghost again? (Beavis laugh)"

    Blizz Guy B:"What's the point, Dick... we're making more money than we know what to do with in subscription fees... just go look at more night elf porn, dumbass. (Butthead laugh)"
    • Remember that their parent company VU is one of the world's largest media companies now, has had losses in the range of Bill Gates's entire wealth, and the good chunk of one billion USD that Wow pulls in is the only thing keeping their gaming division afloat. Folks who play wow know that it's not getting alot of it's profits reinvested. Player theory is like Sony Games keeping Sony's other divisions up, VU is using Wow to get urgent hard cash. Because they're such fucking sad sacks of shit, instead of usin
  • Much like the delay with Diablo 2, this doesn't surprise me coming from Blizzard. Their lack of dedication and work ethic makes me want to boycott all Blizzard games now. It's disgusting how they only focus on ONE game, and we all know what game that is, because it generates the most income for them. Maybe one day Blizzard will regain a reputation again that will make me want to buy their games. DIGUSTING.
    • Looking at the same events with a different perspective, they are looking to generate money by making people the most happy. (Very different from how government's generate money).

      So to maximize profits/happiness, they have decided to scrap a game that seemed a little unoriginal. It read like a combo between Halo and splinter Cell. It might have come out a little like Brute Force - a great game, but not Blizzard Worthy.

      These guys have never failed to hit it out of the park and they are the only company I w

    • Re:This is news? (Score:4, Informative)

      by code-e255 (670104) on Saturday March 25 2006, @09:16PM (#14995790)
      Blizzard has several different studios. The main one's working on World of Warcraft (they're working on the expansion, The Burning Crusade atm); Blizzard North, which made the Diablo games, is working on some new unannounced project, and Swinging Ape Studios are working on SC: Ghost. So no, the company isn't really focusing on only one game. Lack of dedication and work ethic? Get a clue, mate. Blizzard is arguably the best game developer in the world. The reason why they're indefinitely delaying Starcraft: Ghost is probably because it's not amazingly great, not because they just can't be bothered working on it anymore. Blizzard, unlike Electronic Arts, don't make games for the same of making money per se; they make games because they love games. Because their games have all been extremely successful, and because they've got millions of die-hard fans, releasing something that's below their quality standard would only tarnish their name. They've got enough money, so they can afford to indefinitely delay a project. Ever heard of Warcraft Adventures? They completely cancelled that game after years of development because it didn't live up to their standards.
  • If you've checked the latest (!) graphics and platforms (PS2...), you'll see it's a yesterday's-generation game and looking about as good as Unreal Tournament 2003.

    It would be perfect if it was released just about the end of 2006 / early 2007, but with an entirely different engine + art and geared for Xbox 360 and/or PS3. But Blizzard would never have time for *that* in such a short time, and if taking more time, then the game would stand out too much, now would it?

  • Screw Ghost (Score:4, Informative)

    by Doomstalk (629173) on Saturday March 25 2006, @09:11PM (#14995778)
    I'm still waiting for Warcraft Adventures [wikipedia.org]!

  • Not surprising (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shoptroll (544006) on Saturday March 25 2006, @10:06PM (#14995953)
    I really think the problem with Ghost is that they know that it isn't going to whet any Starcraft fan's appetite. On the other hand, they've invested so much (as it seems) into building this that they can't axe it like they did Warcraft Adventures.

    Unfortunately, having announced this before the Xbox was originally released and now with the XBox on its way to its deathbed I'm not entirely surprised to see this getting put on hold permenantly or for the next gen depending on which story you want to believe. With it's only target platforms getting phased out at the end of the year is not a good time to release especially if you want to get anything back on a title thats been in development as long as this has.

    Let's not forget that its shifted development teams twice and then brought internal when they acquired the last development studio that was working on it. Also, I believe the gameplay and style was different at every E3 it was shown at (based on reports), which doesn't help either.

    Sadly, the name is quite fitting now.

  • Yay! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Guppy06 (410832) on Sunday March 26 2006, @01:16AM (#14996506) Journal
    So now the Phantom will have two pack-in games!

    This is going to be the best N64 game ever!
  • I'll admit, I'm not following SCG because I don't general play FPS. However, I will say this is not the first time Blizzard has axed a game well into development, and frankly, I applaud them.

    They had some kind of weird video RPG story game (it kind of looked like the 80s dragonslayer) that had Thrall as a young orc in a slave camp, and you played him growing up or some weird stuff like that. Weird premise for a game at that time, and they were right to think "no one will buy this it's so 80s, lets kill this crap."

    How much crap has been hyped, delayed, delayed again, put on hold, taken off, and then finally brought to market and shown to be the crap it really was. Why put us all through that?

    If Ghost is not going to be a game we can expect something different, fun, or unique of, then lets kill it and move on. I never did like the marketing department at Blizzard as their marketing always comes out like everyone of them has an upper cocktail for breakfast and hype there stuff waaaaaaay too much, but kudos to the people at Blizzard who have the balls to say "this is crap, shut it down and stop the bleeding now. We aren't going to make money." And that's the real thing, will SCG be any real breakout exciting title? Or will it look like a Halo clone based off of a PC strategy game who's only fans will be fans of that strategy game?

    Real corporations start projects and kill them all the time without releasing to market. Unfortunately software companies push these projects too hard and announce them very very early as compared to the rest of the business world. It's a skill to know when to kill a project just as much as when to start it.
    • installed base.

      While the number of PCs out there is huge, the number of game consoles is huge as well, and console games have been selling better than PC games for several years now.

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