Dating back to February of this year, PlatinumGames began to take a prolific stance as the team established a very vocal standing in the industry at the time. This happened to spruce from the ongoing Platinum4 initiative which the team shared to be the first stepping stone towards becoming a self-publishing studio. However, the team has then went on to spun into potentially returning to other beloved series without the initial publishers controlling development or where the respected sequels will land.
One being Bayonetta: PlatinumGames’ head Atsuhi Inaba told IGN Japan that the team if managing to establish a new entry without Nintendo on its back, the team developer would have to resort to yet another Kickstarter campaign with an even higher benchmark to reach as well. Elsewhere, the studio went on to tell that it would again like to break off its leash for Astral Chain also with Nintendo. However, the team is afraid that only Nintendo can make that decision.
Around that time, there also happened to be claims which suggested that Microsoft at one point approached PlatinumGames to join the Xbox Game Studios family. And it made sense – the team did initially work on the platform exclusive Scalebound earlier this generation before its cancellation. However, that is not the case at all Atsushi and studio Director Hideki Kamiya tell in a new interview.
Speaking with Video Game Chronicles, the two spare that the rumors that circulated at the time are purely fabricated as they were not aware of them until reading the headlines as well.
I did read some rumours about Xbox wanting to purchase PlatinumGames, and I thought, “people on the internet write the craziest stuff”, because that conversation has not come to our doorstep at all.
Atsushi Inaba, PlatinumGames’ Head
Adding on, Kamiya went to share that perhaps the rumors only surfaced due to the fact that he still worked at PlatinumGames which could have sparked the reports to hit the internet. “Maybe somebody reminded them that I’m still at the studio, and they were like, ‘right then, forget that! We’re not going to acquire them!’”
While it still is unsure for Microsoft’s stance on the issue since only one side of the coin has been cleaned, we will have to wait if Phil Spencer or other Xbox executives comment on the matter. The firm has shown to be rather eager into bringing more projects from Japanese developers to its platforms either through marketing campaigns or developing an agreement to release titles only on PlayStation to launch later on for Xbox.
On the discussion between Microsoft and PlatinumGames, Inaba told Eurogamer Portugal that the team would like to acquire the publishing rights for Scalebound. Especially since the game never properly picked off, this looked to be the easiest task of the three previous projects to come to fruition for the developer. You can read the full report by heading here.
What is your opinion if Microsoft actually acquired PlatinumGames?
Source: Video Game Chronicles
