I’m fine with a Platinum acquisition even if the games aren’t really for me. It’d add much needed diversity and would be another step into Japan.
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How long or how many contractual obligations is PG under right now? It seems like they have a few plates spinning, so any sort of acquisition by any company would take even longer to see any fruit prosper from the seeds. A quick glance shows Babylon’s Fall slated for March 3 2022 and Sol Cresta slated for February 22 2022. So those should be winding down. I don’t think they have any release dates set for Bayonetta 3 and even less is known about Project G.G. other than it’s very close to the starting line.
AC was great…just gimped on the switch.
Nintendo’s website lists Bayo 3 as having a 2022 release date. It’s plausibly a Q4 game. Project G.G. is self-published, so any buyer would become the publisher of that game and is not really a concern.
Platinum’s website says they have 294 staff as of Feb 2022. It’s not a surprise the quality of their stuff is uneven - they’re made with very modestly sized teams.
They are already spread thin since they have so many projects they are working on and I dont think they have a big enought team to make a game of the scope of scalebound.
I see a repeat of history.
But I dont care if they do, Microsoft is a trillion dollar company and they print money so by all means do it.
I don’t think Kamiya was begging. He called us Xbox gamers bugs. I like Platinum Games, but it seems that it’s in his ideology to think us Xbox gamers are not worthy of their games.
稲葉「フィルからも胡蝶蘭届いてましたよ」
— 神谷英樹 Hideki Kamiya (@PG_kamiya) February 7, 2022
俺「え、マジ？」
稲葉「どーすか呟いてみたら笑」
俺「やっとく笑」
…で呟いたら狂った外来昆虫が大量に飛来…ご苦労さまです…https://t.co/abjQECK1hV
Kamiya’s twitter personality is a joke. A character. It doesn’t actually represent him lol. He literally used to make “your mom” jokes (which Bayonetta references in a Smash taunt).
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I came to my conclusion because of other factors, such as snubbing Xbox for some of their multiplats. I never understood the hate of Xbox among some Japanese developers. Some even supported Stadia over Xbox.
I’m not sure it really makes sense to blame Kamiya for where ports go. Especially since only one of them that would make any sense is The Wonderful 101. Everything else is either made by different teams or tied up with Nintendo (Bayo 2/3), or both (Astral Chain).
Yeah, until their self-published games like TW101 or Sol Cresta don’t land on Xbox, I don’t believe him honestly.
Like I said, Sol Cresta also is PG owned, not self-publishing indie-level games and then begging for MS money is not a good look. Usually a show of faith is important.
I agree with Rand here, he says that Kamiya and Inaba speaking publicly put pression on MS and Xbox higher-ups won’t like that, he speculates that at most MS would relent the IP with the promise of a GP day one and/or timed exclusivity, they won’t make another Scalebound with MS money.
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How much say does Kamiya actually have on business decisions of the full studio though?
Like I get if we were talking about his games specifically, but stuff like Astral Chain and Sol Cresta aren’t his, right?
Inaba spoke also and he is president and CEO, Kamiya is also vice-president, come on man. They are bluffing. They want MS money and don’t even bother to make a step in Xbox direction.
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I’m just asking a genuine question here, no need to get upset.
I’m not upset, but people think devs are above bullshits and sneaky behaviours…they are not, certainly not Kamiya&co. If I were MS, I’d say to them: “ok, we’ll buy you and then you’ll get your budget and your game”, otherwise it will end badly again, because they will take other projects for sure to minimize the risks and the cycle will repeat itself.
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I don’t agree with the sneaky behaviors piece, but I agree that something needs to be done to prevent the elongated dev cycle due to spreading themselves too thin across projects.
I just have to point out though, Platinum isn’t the only Japanese developer with a history of skipping Xbox in recent years. Hell, I’m pretty sure AI2 is the first new game from SpikeChunsoft themselves that Xbox is getting, and as we can tell that may have been pushed by Xbox doing backend deals with them (AI and Danganronpa launching on Game Pass).
Whether you want to consider that sneaky, weird business decision, etc is up to you, but it is a track record shared among many Japanese developers.
They want the money upfront because they don’t trust Xbox, it’s not rocket science, but they are not entitled to them, expecially Kamiya&co which burned a ton of them. XD
Like I said, Phil&co won’t like PG going in public and putting pression on them to talk about Scalebound again, they could have talked to him (or some Xbox people) privately behind close doors and reach some kind of deal like SpikeChunsoft or many others, something along the lines of putting TW101 and Sol Cresta in GP as a show of genuine faith wouldn’t be bad, considering also the GP versions would be the most played by far and they’ll get some of MS “jiuce” they are clearly after (TW101 remaster bombed, even of the platforms of their faithful followers XD).
I think the middle tier devs who aren’t even trying to reach out Xbox simply don’t want to deal with it for their own reasons (and someone, be sure about it, certainly still hold some grudge over a zillion year ago issue), I’m speaking about Atlus, PG, Falcom, NIS, Arc Sys, etc…
I think immediately assuming bad blood is causing most of these ports to not happen is a bit of a leap.
In the case of Level 5? Sure. Platinum? Maybe.
But the rest, really? Is there really anything that would even push that narrative?
I don’t like blanket statements like that for obvious reasons. Lol
I said “for their own reason and SOMEONE etc…”, the main reason is clearly not trusting MS commitment to Japan (I also don’t trust MS fully yet, imagine them), you didn’t even read well and dismissed the whole post, expecially the most important part, which is Phil possibly not liking PG public outing, shared by Rand, which personally knows Phil and Xbox people.
Sorry, must’ve skimmed the “own reasons” part, but saying “I don’t read well” is a bit of a weird statement to make.
You keep doing you!
I’m not a native english speaker, sometimes things get lost in translation.
Anyway, clearly the main issue for middle-small japanese devs is MS commitment over Japan. PG saw 70 billions for ABK and thought “I want a piece of that cake”, clearly, this acquisitions made huge waves even over there. But, like I said, their own commitment over Xbox doesn’t seem very genuine, considering they skipping the platform completely after Scalebound.
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