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Xbox's Spencer says Scalebound isn't in development still

Xbox's Spencer says Scalebound isn't in development still

The head of Microsoft's Xbox division Phil Spencer (pictured) has said that PlatinumGames' cancelled Scalebound isn't in the works at the moment.

Speaking to IGN (below), the exec said that the game's cancellation in 2017 wasn't a high point in his tenure as the head of Xbox. Spencer said that he had taken a lot of lessons away from the division's strategy early in this console generation, saying that he's hesitant to talk about or show off titles long before they can be released, referring to Scalebound and Fable Legends. Both of those titles were cancelled with the latter seeing the closure of iconic British games studio Lionhead in 2016

Scalebound was announced at E3 2014 and suffered a number of delays before its 2017 cancellation. Since then, PlatinumGames has worked on projects including Nier Automata for Square Enix – which has sold more than 4.5m copies since its release. Platinum has moved to a move diversified strategy, apparently working on two of its own IP and looking to achieve a greater balance between its own properties and handling other people's franchises

In the past, Platinum's boss Inaba has said he felt Microsoft took too much of the blame for Scalebound's cancellation

"It's a tough one because I have a tonne of respect for Platinum, Kamiya-san, the team and I feel no ill-will and we talk to those guys. There's no animosity between the teams," Spencer said.

"We tried to go do something and it didn't work. I regret that we were as public about what we tried to go do. I did some learning around Fable Legends and Scalebound about being public about things before I know that we've got a real, believable plan and something that I felt in my hands and I know is going to be there. We just didn't get there with Scalebound and with the team. I say that across both teams. When you hear the teams talk about it, we love some of the ideas that we were trying to go do. Obviously we wanted to build and ship a great game to our customers. Every time we started a game, that's our end goal. So, of course, we're going to be a little upset that we weren't able to deliver on our goals with that title.

"We're not working on it. I'm not at Platinum today but I'm almost positive they're not working on it. It's something we've all moved past and it's not a moment that I see as a high point for me in my role."


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.