Microsoft: We thought Oddworld would beat Halo

OXM UK: Munch's Oddysee had more "internal buzz" than Bungie.

[dirigiblebill]

Oddworld's great but it was never a big seller. Hard to imagine anybody picking Munch over a new shooter - but then I guess shooters weren't as dominant back then...

[NukaCola]

I'll tell you what happened. MS was going with Oddworld after spent millions taking it from Sony. Then Halo came around and they shifted all their resources to that, and even called it "Combat Evolved" becuase that is what their marketing reps thought would make it sell. Not once did MS give a crap about the games themselves, they treated it like a coorperate weasel would. Halo became their headliner, and then they let Oddworld die off, very similiar to how they are with RARE titles. If their marketing gurus don't think it'll sell millions, they won't make any effort in it. Thank god Oddworld Inhabitants is back creating new games, remastering what almost was erased from memomry on the Xbox, and putting them in HD on PC and PS3. Plus they have new games developing and are working with Just Add Water, and getting an HD remastering of Abe's Oddysee is more than epic! Best game I have ever played was that and Exoddus. So when I read this, I thought yeah Oddworld could of been just as big, but it's MS and they would kill of 10 games that would sell a million a peice for 1 title that would sell 11mil. Greedy and I hate it. Not all games have to sell millions, but when you don't support them and give them a chance, you end up like we are now. It's September and only one exclusive has been release from MS all year.

[Fishy Fingers]

NukaCola, telling you like it isn't.

[user858621]

Kinda like how sony ignored resistance and ratchet and clank to focus on uncharted forcing Insomniac to go multiplatform right? ;)

[NukaCola]

I am a huge Oddworld fanatic. If it weren't for Munch's Oddysee, I wouldn't ever of bought an original Xbox. But I wanted to play the series, so I got one. I am glad I did but initial reasoning was for Oddworld. Then MS completely abandoned the series and let it die. Thank god the company is sticking strong and Oddworld is back.

@waseem335
Bro, Insomniac has had more support than any other Sony developer. They have about 15 or so games with them alone and have more games developed for PC than any of their 1st party exclusives. Sony didn't force Insomnia to go multiplat, they were offered a partnership to create a seperate IP which looks great BTW.

This isn't fanboyism, or Xbox bashing. But MS as a compnay shouldn't be in the game industry. They have no passion fr gaming as an art, it's only money and marketing and mountain dew ads, and cirque de solei. They doe this all the time. They put so much money into franchise to obtain it, then when marketers said go with Halo, they just let the franchise die. They could of spread their resources equally like Sony does with all their games, but MS only focuses on 1 or 2 IPs at a time, and Oddworld was almost extint because of MS alone.

[dc1]

Me you and a hand full of others were the only ones to purchase an original Xbox to continue our Oddworld experience. ... sadly you are 100% correct in stating that that the platform switch was the primary reason why the franchese failed. To put it simply, it was ill advised to leave you entire user base and expect the same results.
I'm sure it caught everyone off guard.
****Please Note that this isn’t a slight at the xbox. I'm sure that if Halo moved from the original Xbox to the PS3 they would not have had the success offered to them through their legacy user base.

[humbleopinion]

NukaCola, that is kind of delusional. Microsoft had only a single game contract with the OI afterwhich they went switched publishers to EA.

So MS never killed anything (on the contrary, you can see her that from a marketing perspective they expected this game to be bigger than Halo) and in fact neither did EA: It was OI themselves who wanted to put OddWorld to rest in order to focus on a movie franchise they were working on (don't remember the name, but eventually it never came out).
You sound like an ignorant fanboy when you claim that on one hand Ms abandoned the series where without MS support as a publisher you wouldn't even have Munch's Oddysee (where was the allmighty Sony back then and why didn't they publish any game in the series?)

[andrewsqual]

Shame it never did well on the Xbox1 because they were trying to sell the game to morons like this. http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[ChronoJoe]

Well they pulled Oddworld away from it's fanbase. What'd they expect, everyone on Playstation to suddenly convert?

Microsoft pretty much killed Oddworlds devs. :/ least they're back to developing now though. I can't imagine they'll be considering any exclusivity deals with that platform again...

[Baka-akaB]

No one twisted Oddworld's devs arm . Had it be successful , people would be praising instead their shrewdness .

[ChronoJoe]

I didn't say that it wasn't Oddworlds devs decision. Just that it was a stupid one.

[Droid Control]

I brought my original Xbox for oddworld. I didn't even know what Halo was! lol

A friend of mine said: 'You have an Xbox? You should really get Halo!'

I said: 'What's halo, a game about Angels?'

[Miiikeyyy]

The original Oddworld games were the best, Abe's odyssey and Abe's exodus!

[ginsunuva]

I got an xbox a week before it was released, and they also gave me oddworld and halo to try.
At first glance, Halo looked like a snowmobiling game...that was rated m. Go look at the box art I swear it looks like snowmobiling if you glance at it!
I loved both equally

[Relientk77]

Oddworld is a great series

[smashcrashbash]

@ waseem335. Yeah Sony FORCED them to go multplat. It has nothing to do with the fact that Insomniac doesn't belong to Sony and they could have gone multiplat whenever they wanted. Don't fool yourself.

Insomniac's games like many other games were brought to light because of Sony. You think that Ratchet and Clank would have done better on the shooter happy 360 or the love Mario and friends and nothing else Nintendo crew? Sony have supported Insomniac and their games from the start for better and for worse.

On topic @ dc1. they should have known better. No way Oddworld Stranger could do as good on the Xbox consoles then on the Sony ones.Face it games like these suffer on their consoles. Microsoft took what remained of RARE and massacred one of my favorite characters of all time,Banjo and Kazooie (Never will forgive them for that Nuts and Bolts garbage)The developers should have realized that before trying to jump ship and leave the real Oddworld fans behind.