Rumor: Milo for Kinect Cancelled

[Chris_D]

Eurogamer is reporting that Milo, formerly one of the most promising projects for Microsoft's 360 Kinect add-on, has been cancelled. From Eurogamer:

Development on Lionhead's motion-sensing relationship simulation was officially halted yesterday, with "19 contractors" let go, according to a source claiming to be close to the situation.

Two teams will now focus on the Fable franchise, Eurogamer was told. According to our source, the old Milo team will reuse the Milo tech for a "Fable themed Kinect game".

So far Microsoft and Lionhead have refused to comment on the claim, but we're working on that.

The news comes as some surprise. Only last month Molyneux told Eurogamer Project Milo was on.

"Of course!," he said when asked whether we'll be able to buy it in the shops at some point in the future. "I wouldn't be working on it if I didn't hope that to be true, yes."

In July Molyneux admitted he finds it "insanely hard" to convince others of the validity of his new game ideas before they're realised.

Source: Eurogamer.

[Chris_D]

This did seem like it could have been a worthy spiritual successor to Seaman on the Dreamcast. My interest in Kinect wanes further.

[Wolvie]

Originally Posted by Chris_D

This did seem like it could have been a worthy spiritual successor to Seaman on the Dreamcast. My interest in Kinect wanes further.

Gah! My interest just went into the negative. At this point I would have to think about it if MS wanted to give me a Kinect sensor.

[Gorvi]

Wasn't this rumored and shot down 2 months ago?

[Generation ABXY]

I thought it was, too, Gorvi...

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Gorvi

Wasn't this rumored and shot down 2 months ago?

Actually there were three blurbs of news, them admitting that they had taken Kinetic out of the "release" of Fable 3 moving the contractors to other parts of Fable and old te hint that future patches may add something.
Then Fable 3 rampdown beginning, which would result in "contractors going" As with the last 2 Fable games and is pretty standard in game dev.
That was like 4 weeks ago. It also makes since that contractors would leave as they were the original peeps hired to propose/test and push Fable 3 interaction with Kinect and they are the same internal group as those looking into Milo per their blog posts.

Oh and the tech is indeed going to be used and reused in all internal MS studios and it states right there that its going to be used for Fable based game interaction.

Milo could have been something...uh unique. But as was pointed out to me on another thread. No matter what, P.M. always has a problem explaining his stuff to people, as his own brain is like a frying pan always cooking eggs for future omelets.

[Gorvi]

Originally Posted by Karak

No matter what P.M. always has a problem explaining his stuff

He may have a problem explaining them, but he's damn interesting to listen to while he's trying.

[MachEnergy]

Originally Posted by Gorvi

He may have a problem explaining them, but he's damn interesting to listen to while he's trying.

I think it's the British accent

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Gorvi

He may have a problem explaining them, but he's damn interesting to listen to while he's trying.

He is. Some of the peeps at TED posted and one of my CSR's actually knows a professor who got to see it and its like they saw the future hahahaha. But moving to the future is plagued with potholes. P.M just ignores the potholes.

[Cactaur]

Originally Posted by Karak

P.M just ignores the potholes.

Flying cars are not affected by potholes.

[MachEnergy]

This news does seem an awful lot like what happened earlier. Perhaps we will see yet another resurrection? It just seems like such a waste of time for him to take Milo to TED and show him off only to have it canceled a couple months later.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by MachEnergy

This news does seem an awful lot like what happened earlier. Perhaps we will see yet another resurrection? It just seems like such a waste of time for him to take Milo to TED and show him off only to have it canceled a couple months later.

P.M. had some unique things to say about his TED talk. Also interesting were the posts by the people that went and saw it.
He can create excitement from just about anything

[ElektroDragon]

No, what the said two months ago is that it would never appear as a released product, and would be an internal tech demo only, whose tech would be used on other projects. Now they're going one step further and canning the team.

I'm not surprised, and this probably won't be the first canceled project. If you think about it, there's not that much you can actually do inside a game when you are in essence just inserting a human powered virtual stick figure in it with no button control.

[MagGnome]

Yes, more Fable! :/

Perhaps that will become a yearly franchise, ala Halo? Having two teams working on Fable titles certainly suggests such a reality.

[Orca]

Weren't the layoffs part of the Fable 3 contracted workforce?

[Shieldmaiden]

There's a highly entertaining PM interview up at Eurogamer. Ellie Gibson is fast becoming one of my favourite game journalists and certainly one of the most entertaining.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Orca

Weren't the layoffs part of the Fable 3 contracted workforce?

That's what the original posts stated a bit back. But I would not doubt in any way that they saw Milo and decided to move the tech to an established franchise.

Think about it this way. People bitch about Kinetic and games both hardcore(whatever that means) and casual.
So they move Milo which is spiritual(his words) to Fable which is an RPG or softly termed hardcore game type.
It makes sense and fits with them making it clear the technology behind Milo is moving forward. They may now try to move Milo styled gameplay into Fable.

One thing Fable always involves family. I could see P.M. trying to have a game based on Kinetic tech that involved the story of a brother and sister and you having to raise your kid brother/sister and using Kinetic. Who knows just a guess. But since they said the tech is still being used they have just moved it to a brand name.

I can also say I am mildly surprised to hear anyone say anything about Milo. Ever since it was released COG seems to have been 100% against Milo from the start. I didn't even know a single person here though anything about it was positive.

[Shieldmaiden]

Really? I find it absolutely fascinating, I've just been trying not to get my hopes up.

[Purple Santa]

Originally Posted by Karak

I can also say I am mildly surprised to hear anyone say anything about Milo. Ever since it was released COG seems to have been 100% against Milo from the start. I didn't even know a single person here though anything about it was positive.

I thought it was interesting and wanted to know more about Milo. I'm actually interested in Kinect too. But I don't want my gamer card revoked so I stay quiet about such statements

[Chris_D]

I'm not sure if I ever posted anything about it but for me it was probably one of the most interesting titles announced for Kinect (not such a high bar I know).