While Champions Online is slated to release on the Xbox 360, it doesn't appear as though it's going to be coming anytime soon. Cryptic CCO Jack Emmert commented to VG247 that there are still ongoing discussions in incorporating the game into Xbox Live.
“Microsoft’s a big company, and they have to work out all the various issues related to MMOs,” said Emmert. “It just takes time for the big beast known as Microsoft to get moving. I really have no explanation other than that, because it’s as baffling to developers as it is to everyone else.”
The game runs on the Xbox 360 hardware right now, according to Emmert, but he is not optimistic about the game releasing close to the PC version, which is coming out next week. “This year? I don’t know,” said Emmert. “Right now we’re just talking with Microsoft. Right now the ball is firmly in their court. We’re ready to go, but until we get the go ahead from Microsoft, right now we’re sort of waiting.”
The development team for Final Fantasy XIV indicated similar problems with Microsoft, and that's why the game will be coming to PS3 first. While Xbox Live is the standard for online services on consoles, it's still amazing that Microsoft is having all these publisher-side issues seven years after launching the online service and four years into the Xbox 360's life cycle.
1 Comments
August 31, 2009
I bet it has to do with how big of a cut Microsoft gets for the mmo subscriptions.