Despite Recent Success, Bandai Namco Reveals It Cancelled at Least Five In-Development Games

Bandai Namco has revealed that it cancelled at least five in-development games, and will change its internal development structure moving forward. Stricter rules will make it more difficult for future games to proceed past specific development milestones, as increasing costs make games even more expensive, risky propositions.

Word comes to us by way of the company's latest earnings report (thanks IGN), which reveals the body count: at least five in-development games have already been culled so far, with the company pointing to the poor performance of certain games as a contributing factor. IGN suggests one is likely Blue Protocol, an MMO published in partnership with Amazon Games, released in Japan last year but hasn't yet made its way to other territories.

The success of Tekken 8 is a silver lining, with Bandai Namco recently revealing it has sold more than two million copies so far, and they expect it to continue selling well over the next year. It certainly casts the recent news that Bandai Namco sold its share of the rights to the Elden Ring IP back to FromSoftware last year; perhaps the publisher has a cash flow problem.