Crackdown 3’s Early Announcement Was A Mistake, Says Xbox Head of First Party

If Crackdown 3 ends up launching in 2018, it will launch a full four years after its initial reveal and announcement- a rather shocking state of things. Crackdown 3 has multiple developers working on it, has been propped up as the showcase for multiple technologies over its development cycle, and has been repeatedly delayed- originally, it was due to launch in 2016.

Speaking to Polygon, Xbox head of first party Shannon Loftis admitted that announcing the game as early as Microsoft did had been a mistake. “I think we probably announced Crackdown too early,” she said. “We definitely underestimated the challenge of making sure the quality bar of all three of those modes was high and it delivers on what we need to deliver on.”

She reiterated something that Xbox boss Phil Spencer has been saying for a while, too- that Microsoft has learned from this, and intends to not announce games this early going forward.

“I think in the past we have made the mistake of announcing some exclusives a little bit too early. We’re trying to learn from that mistake and do better, so we have a bit that’s in development now that we’re not talking about,” she said.

I understand their caution, and it is at least good to see them be aware of their mistakes, and working to learn from them- but it is important for me to point out, when fans and media are losing confidence in your platform because of a perceived lack of first party support, maybe it is okay to bend the rule a little, and keep fans invested over a longer term. I really hope Microsoft has some new, fresh announcements in the works.