During an interview with IGN Japan (Translated by VGC), PlatinumGames wants to open up a discussion with Microsoft’s CEO of gaming, Phil Spencer on reviving Scalebound.
During an interview with Platinum’s president Atsushi Inaba and vice president Hideki Kamiya, the duo was asked if they’d like to revisit the game. Surprisingly, the company responded that the developer want to and would like to at least start having a conversation with Microsoft.
“Kamiya has always wanted to do Scalebound. So we’d like to have a proper discussion with Microsoft,” Inaba said.
“We did a lot of work on it, and it’s no use Microsoft keeping the game in its current form, so we’d like to do something about it (laughs). Phil! Let’s do it together!” Kamiya added enthusiastically.
The PlatinumGames developed Xbox exclusive was originally announced at E3 2014 with a release slated for 2016, which would be delayed later to the following year. Before that Microsoft announced the game’s cancellation going on five years ago back in January 2017. Back in November during an interview with YouTube Channel Cutscenes, Kamiya revealed the game’s cancellation was because the Japanese developer wasn’t “experienced enough”.
“Scalebound was a project we had teamed up on with Microsoft, they expected good things from us, and we needed to live up to those expectations with the project. It was a big challenge for PlatinumGames,” Kamiya said in the interview.
“We were working in an environment we weren’t used to… the hurdles we had to overcome were very big. We weren’t experienced enough and couldn’t get over that wall, leading to what happened in the end.”
In 2019, in an interview with VGC, Inaba revealed no single side was to blame and that “both sides failed” and Scalebound “didn’t do all of the things that we needed to do as a developer”. He adds that it “wasn’t easy” to watch Microsoft take the blame from fans after they announced the game’s fate in 2017 as it wasn’t their fault, says Inaba.
