Bandai Namco has revealed that it cancelled at least five in-development games, and will change its internal development structure moving forward. Stricter rules will make it more difficult for future games to proceed past specific development milestones, as increasing costs make games even more expensive, risky propositions.
Word comes to us by way of the company's latest earnings report (thanks IGN), which reveals the body count: at least five in-development games have already been culled so far, with the company pointing to the poor performance of certain games as a contributing factor. IGN suggests one is likely Blue Protocol, an MMO published in partnership with Amazon Games, released in Japan last year but hasn't yet made its way to other territories.
The success of Tekken 8 is a silver lining, with Bandai Namco recently revealing it has sold more than two million copies so far, and they expect it to continue selling well over the next year. It certainly casts the recent news that Bandai Namco sold its share of the rights to the Elden Ring IP back to FromSoftware last year; perhaps the publisher has a cash flow problem.
Do you think we will ever learn the identities of Bandai Namco's cancelled games? What do you think is going on over at the storied publishing house? Speculate wildly in the comments section below.
[source ign.com]
Comments 25
Hoping that they'll continue making platformers like Pac-Man World and Klonoa. The remakes were very promising, and I would like to see more of those titles.
You can't expect every game to bring Elden Ring money. Their mistake for hiping up the shareholders.
I hope games like Code Vein II or a Scarlet Nexus sequel weren't cut.
With AAA game costing so much we're going to lose the quirky non-mainstream games. No one will be able to afford to to take a risk on anything other than the broadest appealing, mass market game. It'll be a bland conveyor belt of incremental variations of whatever genre is currently popular.
I’m being honest, a lot of Namco’s games are kinda bad. Besides the Tekken team, they mainly pump out pretty meh anime games. Hopefully JJK was the straw that broke the arena fighter camel’s back. There’s so much potential for Namco but they’ve just been squandering it. Give us old IPs like Klonoa and Pac-Man World with new entries, stop neglecting Soul Calibur, and do actually creative stuff with your anime IPs.
Praying a new Ace Combat with PSVR2 compatibility isn’t one of them.
@Deoxyr1bose don’t they also do little nightmares? From what I understand that very popular as well?
How can they say Blue Protocol has been a failure if it hasn't even launched in the west yet. Hopefully we get a new Tales of game this year, already looking forward to Sand Land, Little Nightmares 3 and SynDuality.
In all honesty, the only games that I buy from Namco are Tekken or Soul Calibur titles and that really is it. Although Ridge Racer was a popular title on the original PlayStation, I never played it myself and I always preferred Virtua Cop to Time Crisis. There was one game in the Arcades they made that stood out for me though, Prop Cycle! That was amazing fun, but probably not a great fit for the home market! 😂
Tales remaster or new entry better not be one of them. We've gone from a game almost every year to one in a decade.
They make alot of lackluster games, for every Tekken, there's a Jujutsu Kaisen. So many niche titles with very few having mainstream success
@AndyKazama Same. I had a blast with Code Vein, and Scarlet Nexus was ridiculously fun, I even picked up all the DLC in a sale. Would love to see more of both.
@NieR_Dark I hope in a scarlet nexus 2 that the stories run side by side rather than having to do Ng+ for the second story (and trophies)
@AndyKazama Yeah, that would be a nice addition. Was nice to keep your skill points though, made most of the second playthrough a breeze 😂.
But yeah, flicking between the two would be nice.
After playing a lot of Granblue Fantasy Relink this weekend, would be really cool if they took a look at that and allowed you to play as every character during side quests. Could add a lot to it.
@AgentMantis totally agree, it's already happening. It's the same ***** year in year out. But the sheep keep buying so devs aren't going to moan. It's all about maximum profit, forget original quality games.
My game library has a lot of Namco titles in it, one of my favorite developers of all-time but these days it seems like it's Tekken, Tales of and then everything else. And even Tales of can be hit or miss. I'd love Ridge Racer to come back but sadly I don't think Namco has a clue what to do with that IP anymore.
I like Namco but the only games I really buy from them are just Tekken and Soul Calibur. Most of their other games are just arena anime/manga fighting games that I pretty much avoid.
Can we have another ridge racer please
I wanna pray that a new Klonoa title, if there is one, wasn't one of those cut in-development games.
the current business model for AAA titles is unsustainable these games are costing around 100-250 million to make so the games have to sell to critical acclaim in the next 90 days we are going to be in big trouble in the United States and inflation I predict is going to run rampant and no one in the US is going to be thinking as a majority to purchase games when that first domino falls your going to see mergers, massive studio closures and layoffs and a world reckoning like never seen before this is going to be the last year that gaming studios are going to turn for profit
@Deoxyr1bose Anime IPs have a lot of potential to be great games that don't ask that you've seen the show, instead that's all they do with it. The Witcher games didn't ask you to read the books, nor does most other licensed adaptations.
they need just to ban anime arena fighters and warrior games for the next 5 years and make real creative games.
@UltimateOtaku91 It is unlikely a new Tales game will release this year. They just released the expansion to arise last year didn't they?
I guess they could remaster Abyss or something like that. But, it won't be a major new entry.
Reallllllly hoping a new Ace Combat in VR didn't get turfed
They should rehire (If any left) the team members that worked on Soul Calibur 1-3 as those were the Best in the series IMO. And what happened to weapon break from Soul Blade/Edge? That was such a good mechanic that forced you to parry or focus on attacking. Now that they've mastered various martial arts in Tekken, they can bring that mechanic back and give the SC fighters their own unique martial arts after their weapon breaks.
Hopefully not Digimon games 😔
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