Microsoft Talks Marvel MMO, Fable 2, & Mass Effect News

Microsoft's Marvel MMO has been the subject of much rumour and speculation suggesting that the Cryptic Studios developed title has been canned.

Featured in an interview on MTV, Microsoft Game Studios' Corporate Vice President Shane Kim revealed that the title is very much dead in the water.

"I'll confirm. Marvel and we have agreed to end development on the MMO. It was an amicable decision," claimed Kim. "It's just something that we felt that, for us and for them, it would be better if we ended development. Which is disappointing, because that had a lot of promise. But sometimes you have to make these decisions."

The reasons behind the decision appear to be the unparalleled success of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which instilled the sense of fear amongst Microsoft executives about any subscription-based MMO that doesn't sport the brand from working.

So just the latest Microsoft MMO never to actually make the cut, will Xbox 360 owners ever get to enjoy the genre on their home format, or like True Fantasy Live Online, is it all just a pipedream? Exactly what position this leaves Cryptic Studios who watched NCsoft seize control of the City of Heroes brand after the Microsoft agreement remains to be seen.

The interview continues with Kim's high expectations of Fable 2 and other Lionhead titles (Project Dmitri). Responding to today's earlier news, Kim also maintains that the newly-hired Kudo Tsunoda would not be serving as CliffyB's boss for Gears of War 2.

Intriguingly Kim responds to suggestions that Mass Effect will move over to the PlayStation3 following EA's acquisition of Bioware. Suggesting that Microsoft will remain the publishing partner, Kim's states, "From a platform perspective, is it the most important that Microsoft Games Studios publishes it or [rather] that it's exclusive to the platform? That's the way we have to think about it."

Suggesting that Microsoft will give reign to EA in order to keep the title platform exclusive, the only other situation could be EA refusing to play ball and stopping work on the planned sequel. Certainly chances are looking greater and greater that PS3 owners will enjoy Bioware's latest RPG at some point.

Finally with a word of caution for Xbox 360 owners looking forward to Remedy Entertainment's Alan Wake, Kim suggests that the reported 2008 release may "not necessarily" be correct.