Why Have These Popular 3DS Games Been Cancelled?

It has only been four months since the Nintendo 3DS launched throughout the UK and the rest of Europe, but already several top video games publishers have announced that they are cancelling their up and coming titles for the handheld console.

The list of 3DS games which have been confirmed as having been cancelled includes the following:

Saints Row: Drive By

My Garden

Assassin's Creed:  Lost Legacy

Mega Man Legends 3

Bomberman

Tetris 3D

Omega Five

As well as the above confirmed cancellations, there are also four more games whose production has been halted, pending decisions on whether to cancel them or not. These games are as follows:

DJ Hero (delayed, pending cancellation decision)

Crush 3D (delayed, pending cancellation decision)

Shinobi (delayed, pending cancellation decision)

BloodRayne: The Shroud (delayed, pending cancellation decision)

It is unclear why  many of these games have been axed, but what is even more worrying is that these titles come from big-name franchises and developers, and thus should have been extremely popular upon their release.

However, Sega has come forward and announced that it has chosen to delay their pre-released games, Crush 3D and Shinobi because of potential poor sales of the Nintendo 3DS console.

Studio Chief, Paul Mottram spoke to GameIndustryBiz about the cancellations recently. He said: "we're finding that everyone is not knowing what platform is going to succeed - we did our first 3DS title - we got Crush onto that, but we had to delay the release of that because of the success of the platform." [sourced from: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-07-14-nights-at-the-roundtable-interview]

Assassin's Creed: Legacy cancelled? Why?!?

The cancellations are also going to mean big gaps in the current 3DS release schedule, meaning that Nintendo 3DS users will have to wait even longer before new titles become available.

Nevertheless, It seems as though some of the cancellations have nothing to do with the Nintendo 3DS at all, but are rather the unfortunate consequences of major shifts within the video games industry instead.

For example, DJ Hero for the 3DS has reportedly been delayed, pending cancellation, because Activision is eventually planning to cease production of ALL its music-related game series, including Guitar Hero for the Wii, PS3 and Xbox because of: "Continued Declines in the Music genre..." [sourced from: http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/23615/news/dj-hero-axed-alongside-guitar-hero/]

Furthermore, according to a recent article on the CVG website, new 3DS titles like Bomberman and Tetris 3D, which were going to be developed by Hudson Soft, may have in fact been cancelled because of a company shift in which Hudson Soft has now become a wholly-owned, (as opposed to partially-owned,) subsidary of Konami, but this has not yet been confirmed.

However, even if this is the case, it still does not explain why other well-known videogame developers including EA (My Garden), THQ (Saints Row: Drive By) and Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed: Lost Legacy) have all cancelled their 3DS projects as well.

These game cancellations certainly do not bode well for the future of the Nintendo 3DS. An article for Kotaku.com summed up the problem nicely: " If developer after developer jumps ship, what kind of message does it send studios thinking about making a 3DS title?" [Sourced From: http://kotaku.com/5822519/whats-with-all-the-cancelled-3ds-games]

Mini Gamers is very disappointed to learn that these cancellations have occurred. The hope of the 3DS now rests with the other highly-anticipated game titles such as Resident Evil: Revelations, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle, Kid Icarus: Uprising, StarFox 64 3D, MarioKart 3D, to name but a few.

However, it has to be said that with many of the above games not being released until Winter 2011 at the earliest in Europe, 3DS gamers could be in for a long and boring wait before something truly interesting comes along.

Let's just hope that these games can do enough upon their release to promote and secure the Nintendo 3DS' dominance in the handheld gaming market over the next twelve months or so.

HAVE YOUR SAY...

What do you think of the above cancellations?

Do you think these cancellations will harm the Nintendo 3DS' reputation?

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