If this game was likely to have been good and popular, it wouldn't have been cancelled. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I could assert that the leaks actually only factored into the cancellation because they failed to generate much (or any) hype for the game. That assertion is probably just as rediculous as Keaton's.
@KingofRogues: Previously, it's only been done by hacking or AI. If you know somebody who's done it on their own, you're the only one. The VP of the Classic Tetris World Championship states this was believed to be impossible "until a couple years ago."
@doublem-k: My first thought is they might reverse their decision about the mobile game Heartland being a standalone game and have The Division 3 at least start off in Silver Creek. Sokolova was still alive and Black Tusk wasn't completely destroyed at the end of the Warlords of NY DLC. The end of that DLC leaves open the possibility that at the start of The Division 3 Black Tusk is "the rightful military force" and that could force The Agent, Mari, Wall and Ortega to hide out in rural America. Reportedly, as recently as February Ubisoft wasn't planning on developing The Division 3 so this game doesn't exist at all yet. In its press release Ubisoft said Julian Gerighty is in the process of hiring the development team. If it doesn't get cancelled like so many other Ubisoft projects, I doubt The Division 3 will release before 2025-2026 at the earliest.
@santinegrete: Absolutely it can. Earlier this year the XBox shooter CrossfireX shutdown its servers. The single player isn't even accessible anymore. Depending on when a user bought the game, they simply refunded a player's money. Any "live service" game can become completely unplayable if a company shuts down its servers regardless if the game has multiplayer or not. This has become a huge issue with digital preservationists.
That's not to defend the Gamestop CEO's comment. He's not actually interested in game preservation. He's just interested because Gamestop hasn't figured out a way to become a profitable business without as many gamers buying physical discs.
I too miss physical discs actually. It's obviously much easier to buy digital, but I miss the days of being able to use games I'd completed to fund a purchase of a new game. I also wonder if the rise of digital purchases and less of a used market has impacted some genres, particularly sports games. Madden is Madden. Last year's game isn't radically different from this year. If a gamer's on a limited budget, why buy the game every year?
I'm not sure whether games announced to early, or whether certain developers/publishers go through more changes now that pushes the development of certain games back, sometimes years. The "poster child" for this is Ubisoft, and specifically Skull & Bones. That game began as an offshoot of AC and got delayed and delayed because personnel changes, and Ubisoft's new focus on live service games, sent the game completely back to square one (multiple times.) It seems like this happens more often than it used to, or maybe we just read about it happening more often than we used to.
@jenovaschilld: I don't understand these tax rules at all, particularly as they relate to shows that already existed. How can Paramount claim losses on a show if the network not only cancels the show but then refuses to even make episodes available for purchase?
Disney's also cutting back on Star Wars Celebration. They will no longer be yearly. The next one is in Tokyo in 2025. Disney is going to alternate their big Expo event and Star Wars Celebration.
Phil said this a while ago! It's not about the X/S, it's about losing the previous generation. The quote that got headlines was about Starfield, but the more important thing is what he said after that quote. As he said, "nobody" is going to forego their digital PS4 games/dlc and purchase a X/S instead of a PS5. I owned a XB1 and own an S, and don't regret purchasing either of them. But the reality is that the only way XBox closes the gap in console sales is if a future PS console doesn't have any backwards capability. I'm not sure there's a world where that happens.
I really would not be surprised to see XBox go "all in" on streaming/cloud gaming and not release another actual console. If they release any new hardware at all, it'll be a version of the streaming stick we've already seen on Phil's shelf. With the XBox app on smart TVs, Roku, Fire Stick, and potentially their own streaming stick they don't need to sell another console (which is always sold at a loss for the first year or so.)
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