Game dev and publisher Bandai Namco has apparently canned five different unannounced games due to an “underperforming game.” The Japanese dev didn’t point fingers, but it’s speculated that the underperforming game is Blue Protocol.
As spotted by IGN, Bandai’s financial earnings report touches on the cancelations and that it’s putting in place “stricter rules” on games getting the green light. This is no doubt spurred on by increasing game dev costs and the struggle especially now to hit a game that can stay with the player and remain relevant enough for the lofty $70 price tag associated with most new AAA games.
So, while on one hand, the dev found great success with Tekken 8, it sounds like also incurred a lot of loss with 21 million yen loss. While not specified, it’s speculated that Blue Protocol is the unnamed game. Aiming for a Western release sometime this year, the free-to-play MMORPG already saw release elsewhere as early as June 2023 (Japan). But, for one reason or another, its North American release is lagging behind, with Amazon Games pegged as the Western publisher.
Obviously, as these games were unannounced we’ll probably never know what games were slashed, but we’re sure most of them were either new IPs or revivals of niche properties that Bandai probably felt wasn’t worth the high-dev costs to potentially not get enough traction to be worth it in the end.
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