Xbox: Announcing our exclusives too early has been a mistake
Shannon Loftis, general manager for Microsoft Studios Publishing, said she regrets that Crackdown 3 was announced years in advance
Microsoft continued to put a focus on its Xbox One X console at this year's Gamescom, announcing a special Project Scorpio edition and promising over 100 Xbox One X enhanced titles but the lineup at the show had little in the way of new games. The fact that Crackdown 3 - one of Microsoft's first-party games that would have been released around the time of the Xbox One X hardware - has now been pushed back into next spring has only amplified the situation. It's a mistake that Microsoft is learning from, and a lot of it has to do with announcement timing. Shannon Loftis, general manager for Microsoft Studios Publishing, admitted to Polygon that announcing Crackdown 3 back at E3 2014 was a mistake.
"I think we probably announced Crackdown too early," she said. Loftis noted that the game's three modes needed more polish: "So we had to take the extra time, [and] make sure that we're delivering the game the Crackdown fans want. It was a super hard decision to do that, and it was made harder because we announced the game."
It's a situation that Microsoft wants to rectify in general with its product announcements. That may be why we didn't hear about much in the way of brand-new games but that doesn't mean the Xbox team has nothing in the works.
"I think in the past we have made the mistake of announcing some exclusives a little bit too early," she continued. "We're trying to learn from that mistake and do better, so we have a bit that's in development now that we're not talking about. We're in this for the long haul, and we wanna make sure that not just in the spring of 2018, but in the summer, and in the fall, and the spring of 2019 that we'll have great, unique, fun experiences for Xbox gamers."
Despite the Crackdown 3 delay, Microsoft says that Xbox One X preorders are going swimmingly. Although units were not announced, earlier today the company did announce that it's seeing sold-out inventory in certain territories and "record-setting sell-out times."
The Xbox One X officially launches on November 7.