Topic: D&D Heroes -- XBox Exclusive

[Kasceis]

Quote
News Update: Atari and Infogrames' development studio Hunt Valley announced today that the release date for Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes, the cooperative multi-player, fantasy game, under license from Hasbro Consumer Products, has been moved to October 2003 and will be exclusive to the Xbox platform. "The full development team is extremely excited to be working with Microsoft and Wizards of the Coast to bring this product exclusively to the Xbox platform. As the only Dungeons & Dragons product coming to Xbox, we are fully committed to presenting an authentic, highly social, thumb-punishing adventure this fall", said Scott Walker, VP and Executive Producer.

Ok, I have been waiting for this game for about 5 months now, so I go and check their site out today(which is RARELY updated) and I see that the release date was pushed back.  No big deal, what game isn't delayed.  Then I go on to read that the game will be XBox exclusive...

My guess is that M$ paid off the company to make it XBox exclusive.  This is a very poor decision because they just lost my $50.  I wrote them a letter saying how much I was displeased, but hey, money talks not the fans.  This is from the official site...check it out yourself.

You just don't advertise a game for all systems and a month before the release announce that it is delayed and will be an exclusive to the system you don't have...thats just plain insane.

[Infernal Monkey]

Ah well, they've only hurt themselves.
I was kinda keeping track of this game, but you can never trust D&D licensed games. Remember D&D on NES/Master System/Genesis/Game Gear?

*Silence falls over the forum*

... Exactly! Terrible games.

[Thrackerzog]

I have a feeling this might be another temporary exclusive game like Splinter Cell was, at least I hope it will be. First off, this game, albeit cool and all, isn't really a big game. It is not going to be a system seller like Halo, Zelda, GTA, etc. Hell, Splinter Cell was a much bigger game, I remember a lot more Splinter Cell hype before it came out. I read somewhere not too long ago (it was probably in these forums) that when a company like Microsoft gets exclusive rights for a game they have to may the company making the game the projected amount that the game would make on the other systems, and this can be a lot of money. I know that MS has the money, but if they didn't do it with Splinter Cell, why would they do it with DnD Heroes. Secondly, this game has been in development for a while. I'm sure work has been done on both the PS2 and GCN versions and I doubt the developers would just let all that work slide. This is all just hopeful speculation on my part and it's unlikely that we will be sure for a while because these temporary exclusive deals have some sort of media blackout stipulation.  

[Crazy]

This might be bad of me to say,  but THANK THE LORDS....    that's $50 i don't have to spend *whew*   my pocket just let out a sigh of relief.

then again,  that's one D&D game i don't get to play ; (

[Plugabugz]

The same thing happened to the Alias game that's due out in the Autumn.
The first press release specifically said ALL consoles.
The next one then says Xbox and PS2.

Guess which gets the chop? IT's unsurprising, but I can see why no one buys games made by these developers, with the developers turning around complaining that the Cube makes no profit for them.

[Kyosho]

I found out the news a few days ago when I was curious when my D&D Heroes was coming out.  And I see on the website it was Xbox exclusive.  I had pre-ordered it too.. so I was pissed off cuz that cost me gas money and I had to drive over to EB to transfer the funds to something else.  I ended up pre-ordering 1080 Snowboarding... which I am probably going to cancel too after seeing the videos from E3.  I was hoping they would change it up a little more.. but I guess I was wrong

[Termin8Anakin]

It's been like this before.
I hate it when developers do this. They do it all the time. LucasArts did it with RTX Redrock, Acclaim did it with Gladiator and I think NBA Jam. Sega's done it.
It's all a conspiracy:

People won't buy Gamecube cause there's not enough games. Developers won't make games on Gamecube cause no one buys it.

I've said it many times.

[The Doc]

This is not the first game that was scraped for PS2 and GCN, Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance was also canned for both PS2 and GCN, and both are now only exclusive to Xbox! What the hell! I see what Microsoft is doing here, they are playing the developer a ton of money so they can get that game exclusive to their console! I really do not care about D&D Heros, however I was looking foward to Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance. Does this piss anyone else off? GCN is number two in worldwide sales and games are still geting scraped on the console. It just blows my mind!

The Doc  

[lastexit]

It's no coincidence that the poorest developers seem to be the quickest to move where the money is.  There is obviously a ton of behind the scenes power-flexing going on and that is driving these "decisions" to have exclusive titles, etc.  

The best thing on this issue I've seen thus far is Capcom showing that the Gamecube sold HIGHER than projected,while xbox and pos2 sold lower, yet they are planning to cover GC LESS next year and the other two more.  This contradicts the entire industry PR

[Ymeegod]

Actually the GC has the lowest amount of 3rd party sales in general and that's why developers have been canning games.

For example, Red Rock which was a PS2/GC game.  Try explaining that.  Or what about Sega sports?  It's still coming on the PS2/xbox?

Whole big list.

Alot of times the reason behind xbox getting the most from these developers is because these are PC developers--which means the can easily make xbox games since the already know how to program for the api.

[Kasceis]

Oh well, they can keep their game, I wouldn't even want it now if it came out on the 'cube.  They are only hurting themselves by making it exclusive.  Bring on Baldur's Gate 2!  D&D is just copying them anyway so I'll just stick with BG.

[Hostile Creation]

As long as I get Nintendo games and other, GOOD third parties, I'm happy.

[Perfect Cell]

Gladiator was cancelled? The RPG From Lucasarts? a damn shame that game i was going to buy for sure.... Sheesh.... Nintendo needs to get it together!