PlatinumGames promised a hectic 2020 year and that’s how it has been. After receiving a large capital investment from Tencent Holdings, the Japanese studio published on Monday a mysterious website called Platinum 4, which is actually the purpose of launching a total of four video games to the market. The first one is already known, The Wonderful 101: Remastered, which is already available for backers via Kickstarter; the rest is yet to be determined, but is there hope for a possible return of Scalebound?
Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya, top managers of the Platinum 4 project and now focused on making The Wonderful 101: Remastered a success that was once available on the platform of Wii U (2013), have chatted with Eurogamer on the occasion of this concatenation of announcements. Scalebound is a name that is always put on the table, whose cancellation is still present in the minds of the players of the Xbox ecosystem.
This exclusive production of Microsoft, it seems, remains in full possession of Microsoft; in this way, reality makes things clear: however PlatinumGames pretends Scalebound is one of the four Platinum 4 games, it doesn’t depend on them.
When asked if they have talked to Microsoft about an eventual return of Scalebound: “This was an intellectual property that belongs 100% to Microsoft. Whatever happens with this project, we can’t really do anything with it unless Microsoft leaves us. But it’s a game that we fall in love with and love. If the opportunity arises, it’s something we would love to return to,” says Inaba.
From now on, Platinum Games wants to stop relying on third-party publishers and move on to self-publishing. Now they have economic support from Tencent and, above all, the desire to focus on new video games.
Meanwhile, PlatinumGames continues to work on Bayonetta 3 and Babylon’s Fall.
