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Role Playing (Games) XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

True Fantasy Live Online Cancelled 57

Posted by simoniker from the neither-live-nor-online dept.
Sad Gamer writes "Well, it seems long-awaited Xbox Live-compatible MMORPG True Fantasy Live Online has been cancelled. Apparently: 'The main reason cited for this action was the inability to deliver the intended experience to users of Microsoft's XBox Live service in Japan...' This leaves a tiny list of titles that left that can help to push XBox Live in Japan. 'Now Japanese XBox Live users only have titles like Halo 2 and Dead or Alive Ultimate to look forward to in the upcoming months.'" GameSpot has a full translation of the brief Microsoft Japan press release regarding this previously discussed, Level 5 created MMO, formerly likely for Western release as well, which notes: "The MMORPG genre, across all platforms, has become an incredibly crowded and competitive marketplace. In response, Microsoft Game Studios has decided to streamline its portfolio, making fewer bets in this genre."
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True Fantasy Live Online Cancelled More

True Fantasy Live Online Cancelled

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  • Filthy Pus-sicles (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's about time they cancelled True Fantasy Live. I was on the early testing program and it was very slow, buggy, and didn't have anything going for it over other competitors like There, Inc. Plus, There has recently stopped development of their world as it's just not something that's ready for prime-time. Everybody and their dog is jumping into the MMORPG genre too. After all, why sell one game per year at $60 when you can sell it for $60 plus $10/month? As a result, tons of crappy games saturate the

    • Re:Filthy Pus-sicles (Score:2, Insightful)

      by schild ( 713993 )
      What are you babbling about? There, Inc. has all but disappeared and they weren't even in the same class. One was going to be a cel-shaded Everquest-esque MMORPG and the other was a social experiment that barely classified as a game but more as a virtual world. People are jumping into the MMO genre because it's new (read: the wave of the future) and there's a lot to be said for player retention in these types of games. Unfortunately very few people know how to make them right. What has happened here is Mi
      • Sigh, forgot html tags. (-1, crappy formatting)
  • I was considering buying an Xbox when this came out. I was really looking forward to it.

    Maybe it makes sense, the Japanese xbox market is small, and I've heard from several places that cel shaded games are unpopular in the West. What a shame, I love cel shaded games. Maybe there will be a pc release one day...
  • The MMORPG genre, across all platforms, has become an incredibly crowded and competitive marketplace. In response, Microsoft Game Studios has decided.

    READ:

    The MMORPG genre, across all platforms, has become an incredibly crowded and competitive marketplace. In response, Microsoft Game Studios has decided that 'True Fantasy Online' might be too blatant a rip-off of other RPGs from more experienced competition [square-enix-usa.com], especially given that the everyone's favorite pseudo-PC has had such great success [gamerankings.com] in the exc
    • There's a good chance that in Japan it would have been called something other than "True Fantasy Online," being the title would probably be in Japanese and all.
      • I imagine it would have still been called "True Fantasy Online". A remarkably high number of Japanese games have names that are English phrases, and are sometimes even written with roman letters rather than the Japanese phonetic alphabet. Giving your game a title that uses words in a popular foreign language (like English, French, or German) is something that Japanese consumers seem to find stylish.
    • Yeah, but this game was being made by Level 5, a Japanese company and the creators of the Dark Cloud series.

      I for one was excited about this game, and I'm sad to see it go. Oh well, at least Dark Cloud 3 is still in development for PS2.

  • unique features? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @05:29AM (#9323654) Homepage
    You know, in my brief look over of the game, I failed to see any unique features that would make it competitive in the MMORPG market. Perhaps someone can point some out to me.

    Seriously, nothing pisses me off more than seeing some new cookie cutter MMORPG come out with zero new features just trying to capitalize on an existing franchise or powerhouse marketing.

    • Initially what had really impressed me was the graphics engine and the sheer customizability of the characters. It would be difficult to run around the world and see identical carbon copies of tpeople-- at least, that's the impression I got from previews and screen shots. Voice chat would also have been a neat feature for the MMORPG set (AFAIK; I really only play FFXI).

      I was sort of looking forward to TFLO, until I sold my Xbox (because nothing good was coming out for it in the near future and I'd played

    • Re:unique features? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bugbread ( 599172 )
      The obvious one is that it's a MMORPG for the XBox, which would make it unique. Since some people prefer to play games on their consoles, for better or worse, this would be a big deal for them.

      As for playing TFLO on a PC, I agree with you completely.

    • Re:unique features? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Zonk ( 12082 )
      The XBox component would have made it unique. I know that I would have liked to try a MMOG via XBox live.

      It would also have been the first MMOG to natively and ubiquitously support voicechat.

      I think MS has made a mistake in ditching the MMOG market. It may be getting crowded, but the propertie s they were creating had features that set themselves apart from the crowd in interesting ways.

      Mythica and TFL would have been cool games. A combined 5 or 6 years of dev time, flushed down the drain because Microso

  • Microsoft's really good . . . (Score:3, Insightful)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @08:32AM (#9324260) Homepage
    . . . at canceling these days. Talk about Japan not having any titles? What does that leave in Microsoft's pocket for the US after Fable and Halo 2? Mechassault 2? Citizen Zero, another MMORPG that has been in development for two years and will most likely get canceled as well? Ooo. My guess is that anyone working for MS right now, either first or second party, has sent out more than a few resumes in the last few weeks and is all but waiting for The Email. Unless they're Bungie and (ironically) Rare.

    Which reminds me. Need proof of in house politics at MS? Note that none of Rare's wholly unimpressive games have been canceled. -cough-PeterMoore-cough-.

    I hadn't seen True Fantasy firsthand, but I will say that the fact that you didn't have to fight at all seemed rather interesting. It's nothing new, but it seemed to be a focus rather than an afterthought. Fishing sounded cool, is all. And, it was by the team that did Dark Cloud 2, which was excellent. Oh well.
    • You can say that again! But in this particular case, while I'm disappointed, I'm not surprised. And it is probably a good business decision. While I'm sure MS is aching to crack the Japanese market, True Fantasy Online had virtually no chance of success. There's too much strong competition now. Final Fantasy XI Online has been very successful on PC and the PS2 leaving no room for another MMORPG on the console.

      Hopefully all of the hard work Level 5 put into the game can be recycled into a decent offline RPG
    • What does that leave in Microsoft's pocket for the US after Fable and Halo 2? Mechassault 2?

      Halo 2
      Fable
      Mechassault 2
      Doom 3
      Jade Empire
      Full Spectrum Warrior
      Star Wars: Republic Commando
      KOTOR 2
      Starcraft: Ghost
      Sudeki

      Xbox has plenty of titles in the pipeline.

      If you're going to troll, do it right... It's official; Netcraft confirms: Xbox is dying.
      • Halo 2 - Check, said that
        Fable - Check, also said that
        Mechassault 2 - Check, said that
        Doom 3 - Not first party
        Jade Empire - Check (I did miss this one, granted)
        Full Spectrum Warrior - Not first party
        Star Wars: Republic Commando - Not first party
        KOTOR 2 - Not first party
        Starcraft: Ghost - Neither exclusive nor first party
        Sudeki - Ummm, probably allowed to live because it was so close to completion

        So, again, where are the titles in Microsoft's pocket? And, if you'll check my previous posts, I
        • You didn't make it very clear that you were referring to first party titles. So, of the titles I mentioned, they'll have Halo 2, Fable, Mechassault 2, Jade Empire, and Sudeki. This is not enough for the next 6 months? In addition to that, they'll have:

          Unreal Championship 2 (yes, from Epic, but Microsoft is the publisher)
          Forza Motorsport
          Conker Live and Reloaded
          BC
          Kingdom Under Fire
          Kameo
          Perfect Dark Zero, but god knows when that'll come out.

          So, lets say that of the 11 games I mentioned, 4 or 5 will be ver
  • "In response, Microsoft Game Studios has decided to streamline its portfolio, making fewer bets in this genre."

    And those would be... uh... all those... uh... online fantasy titles like...uh...

    (Unless, like the EA Sports line, Microsoft is whacking their internal Fantasy RPG's to attract Square-Enix?)
    • And those would be... uh... all those... uh... online fantasy titles like...uh...
      Brad McQuaid & Sigil Studios' Vanguard... for the PC of course.
      This, following the cancellation of Mythica, and the sale of Asheron's Call's hosting and administration back to Turbine Entertainment.

      My guess is that TFLO was going to get pushed back again - and what's the point of releasing a massmog for the XBox in mid 2005 - when the neXtBox is going to hit at xmas05?

      This likely indicates they're going to back off their
      • what's the point of releasing a massmog for the XBox in mid 2005 - when the neXtBox is going to hit at xmas05?

        That's one of those places where backwards compatibility comes into play, if that comes into play with the Xbox successor. The promise for backwards compatibility in the PS1 let a lot of developers continue to pursue projects that would have vanished from late releases otherwise.
      • Microsoft is trying to get a jump start on the competition by going for the XBox 2. But I'm concerned that they're going to slice off the existing market by not offering backwards compatibility and screwing over the current generation of XBox owners. (Myself included)

  • Well this sucks. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AzraelKans ( 697974 ) on Thursday June 03, 2004 @11:59AM (#9326494) Homepage
    Sometimes events like this remind me that MS actually has no experience in gamedev only in business, fantasy whatever online wasnt such a bad idea simply because there are no other MMORPGs for the xbox.

    Of course that game was not going to work in Japan, final fantasy its an institution there and the game its more than a tad similar to it, but thats not all, most of the audience in Japan is tech savy and perfectly capable of using other more mature (although more complex) games like WOW , FFXI or EQ2, the only way to market this game was to offer it to total non gamers who wanted to learn about online playing and MMORPG basics. Its a shame MS didnt saw that and instead tried to xerox copy FFXI to the book.

    Well that leaves a HUGE niche for an Xbox live rpg , who would take the call now? bioware? dare I say Blizzard? (hey! I can dream at least). Anyway chances are the answer is "no one" and we will have to wait until xbox2 (xbox-j) arrives. so as stated: this sucks.

    [rant]
    If you are wondering why no project of Rare has been cancelled, Its simple, MS knows RARE has tons of industry experience and they dont. So they let them have their way even when they dont fully understand what they are doing.
    Thats not the case with the rest of their teams (except bungie) since they are oftenly almost as unexperienced as MS.

    Sometimes this backfires as proved in "grabbed by the ghoulies" which was mostly a failed gameplay experiment but wait til you see what they did with "conker reloaded" after seing the e3 trailer my confidence in them has been recovered, lets hope it lives up to expectations.
    [/rant]

    • as proved in "grabbed by the ghoulies" which was mostly a failed gameplay experiment

      You evil bastard. How dare you insult the brilliance of a game like "Grabbed by the Ghoulies". It was not a failed experiment. It was a revived [1up.com] one :-P

      It's just like P.Diddy said [slashdot.org]! Microsoft does care about its gamers.

  • Am I the only person seeing all of these references to Mythica, and TFL or TFLO and thinking 'Myth: The Fallen Lords for Xbox? Sweet!'?

  • Well poo (Score:3, Insightful)

    by XellDx ( 737289 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @03:49AM (#9332838)
    There goes the sole reason I wanted Xbox live.
    Seriously though, this shows if anything how immature in the Industry microsoft actually is. They've been hyping this game for almost 3 years now. I mean, this was a major presentation at last years E3. I won't say that I didn't see something like this coming with TFLO being a complete no show this year, but jesus. To cancel the game when it's so close to being finished?

    The reason I say it shows immaturity it becuase this game has a fan base in the US and it hasn't been released yet.So of course its being marketed towards Japan first, the land thats completely over saturated with MMORPG's. It might not be as big as MS wants for a MMORPG, but since Xbox live pretty much only cover shooters and sports games right now, they're limiting the subscriber base to people who only want to play those types of games; Games which are intrinsicly[sic?] better played with other humans who can be made fun of face to face. (Granted, there are some exceptions, but those have only recently started to arise). Back on the point about this being launched in Japan, the Xbox is obviously not doing as well as hoped over there. Hello? Mr. Balmer? Can you pay attention and maybe release the game where you have people buying your system? Thanks.

    To show this game for as much has been shown and then throw it away suggests that MS is starting to think about how much money they are really losing. Unless Factor 5 has been lying to us and the game was horribly incomplete, this is a very, very bad message.
  • Final Fantasy. Which brilliant, creative and original marketing talent came up with the name 'True Fantasy'? Were they looking for a name that said 'cheap knockoff'? Maybe they think the word 'Fantasy' is obligitory?

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