“The team is heads down,” Huckaby said. “We drew a line in the sand when we said 2026. I don’t know if we’re going to make it, I just know that we’re going to do every single thing possible to make it. And part of that is not taking time for the distraction of CitizenCon.”
That means they already know they are not going to make it. Otherwise why say this more than one year before?
During a Q&A session following Sony’s latest financial results, Tao said that despite the negativity surrounding Sony’s live service offerings thanks to the issues with Concord and Marathon, she still believes live service games are worthwhile because they’ve added a revenue stream that didn’t exist for the company five years ago.
Probably priority? They have a tight deadline and skipping cut scenes is not a priority feature.
I have also seen game where dev deliberately ignore call for adding a skip scene button because they want their players to read the story. You can disagree with it but maybe the dev really think their cut scene is worth watching. That doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t play games, its just that they have high pride in their work.
I know the above is a controversial take. But I have no problem watching cut scenes if that is the dev’s intention.
But Blackbird’s cancellation was particularly shocking because it had blown away executives at Xbox just a few months ago. During the demonstration in March, Spencer was enjoying the game so much that Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios, had to pull the controller away so they could keep the meeting going, according to two people who were in the room.
This is a game that even Spencer was enjoying and then they just cancelled it. I have no word.