Marvel MMO Officially Cancelled
It has been long rumored that a major first party Xbox 360 title had been scrapped, which led many to the conclusion that Marvel Online Universe, from the creators of City of Heroes would be the one to take the fall. In an interview with Microsoft’s Shane Kim, MTV news confirmed the rumored cancellation was indeed an reality.
Shane Kim had this to when asked, “I’ll confirm. Marvel and we have agreed to end development on the MMO. It was an amicable decision…. It’s just something that we felt that, for us and for them, it would be better if we ended development. Which is disappointing, because that had a lot of promise. But sometimes you have to make these decisions.”
So what was the reasons behind the cancellation? As it turns out it wasn’t anything to do with problems in the development cycle, but rather Microsoft choosing to be rather pro-active and cancel the project before it would fail.
“When we first entered into the development and agreement of the development of ‘Marvel Universe Online,’ we thought we would create another subscription-based MMO. And if you really look at the data there’s basically one that’s successful and everything else wouldn’t meet our level or definition of commercial success.”
Personally, I think Shane Kim is wrong on a few points, while WoW is definitely in a league of its own, there have been several other MMO’s that have done very well for itself in the past, certainly enough to meet Microsoft’s satisfaction. But, it is true that as of late, the market has been filled with quite a few failures. While the market seems extremely one sided, the 360 still in a platform of its own that lacks a solid MMO offering. While the time won’t be now, it seems inevitable that someone will get the formula right for the consoles.
At least since Microsoft’s heart never really seemed to be into this project to begin with, they cancelled it instead of releasing a half hearted attempt. Those seem to be the projects that continually fall in the World of Warcraft’s massive wake.