Since the announcement back in 2017 that Scalebound had been canceled, a lot of blame has been directed at Microsoft for the decision, with many gamers feeling it was their fault for the game being canned.
However, a recent interview given by PlatinumGames’ Atsushi Inaba suggests that Microsoft were not entirely to blame for the failure of Scalebound, with PlatinumGames also having to take some of the responsibility.
Speaking to VGC, Inaba admitted that both sides had failed and that, ultimately, PlatinumGames did not do what they needed to do as a developer. He added that the studio found it hard to watch fans take their anger out on Microsoft knowing that they themselves played a role in Scalebound being canceled.
“Both sides failed,” Inaba said before adding that they “didn’t do all of the things that we needed to do as a developer”.
“Watching fans getting angry at Microsoft over the cancellation wasn’t easy for us to watch. Because the reality is, when any game in development can’t get released it’s because both sides failed.
“I think there are areas where we could’ve done better and I’m sure there are areas that Microsoft as a publishing partner wish that they could’ve done better. Because nobody wants a game to be canceled.”
It was rumoured a few months ago that Scalebound was being revived ahead of a release on the Nintendo Switch. However, it looks like that isn’t the case, with VCG revealing that they understand that there are no plans to restart development on Scalebound for a Switch version. As many had expected, they also confirmed that Microsoft is the holder of the Scalebound IP, and that in itself makes it nearly impossible.