https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs

Gates and Ballmer both were hated though when they had the reigns.

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.

Despite some technological hiccups and a lengthy development cycle, the game appeared to be making good progress. Employees were stunned to see it get caught up in the bloodbath.

ZeniMax Online Studios was founded in 2007 to develop The Elder Scrolls Online, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in the popular fantasy franchise that spawned Skyrim. After a rocky launch in 2014, The Elder Scrolls Online received several updates and went on to bring in millions of players while transforming into one of the publisher’s most lucrative games, bringing in $2 billion in revenue by 2024.

In 2018, the company began building a team for its next project, which it gave the code name Kestrel. (Later, the team switched the code name to Blackbird because they liked Kestrel so much, they wanted to use it as the actual name.)

The game faced some early technical challenges and was put on the backburner because of the ongoing success of The Elder Scrolls Online, which vacuumed up most of the studio’s resources. But in recent years, Blackbird’s progress had sped up. The team expanded to 300 people, delivered the impressive vertical slice in March and was aiming to release in 2028.

Blackbird was a third-person, online looter-shooter, not unlike the popular game Destiny, set within a new franchise. It had a sci-fi, noir aesthetic — similar to films like Blade Runner — and placed a heavy emphasis on vertical movement. Players could uses abilities such as double jumping, air-dashing, a grappling hook and wall climbing to fling themselves around tall buildings like superheroes.

I saw footage of the vertical slice last night and was impressed. It was a slick-looking demo with alluring visuals and battle sequences.

Xbox executives were also blown away when they played Blackbird in March, according to people familiar with the game’s development. Executives had nothing but complimentary words for the project.

Following that March meeting, the team began putting together a production plan that would flesh out the vertical slice and then build out more content for release.

Then, yesterday, the game was canceled, stunning everyone at the studio. Matt Firor, the well-respected studio boss and director who founded ZeniMax Online Studios and led The Elder Scrolls Online, immediately tendered his resignation.

Staff were not given an explanation for Blackbird’s cancellation. It was set to be an expensive project, and Xbox may have seen it as too risky. It was a new franchise and a live-service game entering an oversaturated market during a time when many other live-service titles have flopped. The team was also building a brand-new engine for the game while making it, which created a number of challenges. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to elaborate on why it was canceled.

But ZeniMax Online Studios was not an unproven developer. It was the maker of one of the most lucrative online games in history, a title that generates significant profits every quarter.

Canceled video games are easy to glamorize. They will always exist in a crystallized state, preserved in our imaginations without any of the flaws or controversies that inevitably arrive upon release. But for people who saw and played Blackbird, this one stung.

Microsoft's Xbox Cancels Blackbird, an Upcoming Game That Impressed Executives - Bloomberg

So it was paused after a shaky start and they went back to TESO but upon returning development was starting to go more smooth, so that apparent "7 years in development" may not have even been 7 years since they paused in the middle of it. If it's aiming to release in 2028 then it would have been 10 years as I predicted but again, that is including the pause so technically it would have been less than 10 years.

• It was receiving praise from everyone that saw it and played it.
• It comes from a studio that has given Bethesda $2bn in revenue in 10 years. 
• It comes from a studio that generates significant profits every quarter.

It was clearly cancelled for greed reasons and nothing more. They just want them on the guaranteed profit maker The Elder Scrolls Online and don't want them trying anything new because they need to save that money for AI.

Yeah, Gates was notoriously ruthless as both a businessman and as a person and even got Microsoft to be guilty of being a monopoly. Throughout the 90s it was always Silicon Valley vs the big bads at Microsoft. 

Ballmer to me was always a step behind the competition. That may have partly been due to him not being able to have full control till the mid 2000s when Gates finally stepped down as chairman and chief software architect, but even then, Ballmer was never really able to keep up with consumer technological advancements.

The only excuse for Zenimax cancellation is "poor Microsoft, they had to spend some money" Fuck that shit. I said that The Initiative/Perfect Dark was just an anomaly of an easily justified cancellation. Bet we'll be hearing next about how Everwild was looking great and development was going brilliant. I don't blame Matt Firor one bit for leaving Zenimax. He led his team brilliantly, he was making something amazing, and he got screwed over for greed.

• Being told by executives your game is amazing and they're blown away doesn't mean jack shit.
• Making good progress and hitting your deadlines doesn't mean jack shit.
• Bringing in good profits for the company doesn't mean jack shit.

How the fuck are ANY studios inside of Microsoft now meant to take ANYTHING that Phil, Matt, etc. at face value?

• You're a highly profitable studio, you're at risk.
• You're making an amazing game, you're at risk.
• You're hitting all deadlines, you're at risk.

Phil/Matt: This is amazing, time to cancel it.

Also it does sound a bit Destiny-like but looking at the shitshow Bungie is in lately, I'd argue that launching a Destiny competitor could actually be a smart bet to take advantage of Bungie's stumbling, if it was as amazing as executives were saying it was, then it could have had a strong chance at pulling jaded players away from Destiny, especially in 3 years from now when Bungie will likely be winding down on Destiny even more.

And it turned out that the thing people were using against it, the 7 years of development, wasn't even true because they straight up paused development at some point between 2018-2025 and went back to the highly profitable The Elder Scrolls Online, and since returning to Kestrel things were going smoothly. At no point was Zenimax Online losing money, turns out they're a big profit maker. 

If this is the justification we're using now then just cancel every single new IP with a big budget. Shit you might as well cancel Halo next, a big budget for an IP that has declined in recent times, not worth it, send it to AI /s.

Reckon we'll see Kestrel leaks soon of in-development footage, that stuff always happens when a great game gets cancelled for greed. I'm not ready for if we start getting reports that Everwild was amazing too.

This is sarcasm?

If they were going to be cutting out useless teams not pulling their weight, 343 and their butchering of the most important Xbox franchise should've been top of the list for years.

The fact they somehow got through this with literally a handful of job losses is the height of irony.

Would be better to scrap everything the current Halo team has ever worked on and just reboot the entire franchise. That might actually have fans excited for once.

I like how one day after the game got cancelled, everyone seems to know everything about it but just two days ago, nobody could tell you shit about it. Especially not what MS's executives thought about it.

Phil forgot the time like a fentanyl addicted when he played it! Well, it's an MMO so it could be true lol

To be fair, I doubt Phil and Matt actually wanted to cancel the Zenimax game.

Phil: Ima buy ABK, that’ll show daddy MS I can play with the other adults at the table 🤓

Phil: Wait daddy, don’t take my toys away!  😣

Phil: daddy? 🥺