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."

Filthy Pus-sicles

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about time they cancelled True Fantasy Live. I was on the early testing program and it was very slow, buggy, and didn't have anything going for it over other competitors like There, Inc. Plus, There has recently stopped development of their world as it's just not something that's ready for prime-time. Everybody and their dog is jumping into the MMORPG genre too. After all, why sell one game per year at $60 when you can sell it for $60 plus $10/month? As a result, tons of crappy games saturate the market and turn people off.

I hope you've enjoyed this FROSTY PISS!

Re:Microsoft's really good . . .

[blueZhift]

You can say that again! But in this particular case, while I'm disappointed, I'm not surprised. And it is probably a good business decision. While I'm sure MS is aching to crack the Japanese market, True Fantasy Online had virtually no chance of success. There's too much strong competition now. Final Fantasy XI Online has been very successful on PC and the PS2 leaving no room for another MMORPG on the console.

Hopefully all of the hard work Level 5 put into the game can be recycled into a decent offline RPG for Japanese XBox users at least. Politics definitely has some part in MS decisions. With respect to the failure of the XBox in Japan, I would say that the biggest problem is that they just haven't made the XBox Japanese enough in that market. It probably isn't easy, but they should at least be able to emulate Sony and Nintendo to get some traction there.

At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if XBox 2 never sees the light of day.

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]