Xbox Live Blocking Yet Another MMO

The developers of Kingdom Under Fire II revealed that their game – sort of a hybrid single-player MMO game – is currently hitting problems caused by Xbox Live policy.

“Our initial plan was we wanted to develop the console version first – the Xbox 360 version,” KUFII Game Director Sang Youn-Lee said to Eurogamer. “We actually have completed the system, but because of the policy, we felt that if we kept developing, the PC version would have come out too late.”

Policy incompatibilities have also stung Square Enix and Final Fantasy XIV. Because of this, FFXIV is only available on PC and PlayStation 3. This isn’t really an option available to KUFII, since Kingdom Under Fire is an Xbox brand, and that’s where the fans are.

“We have developed the Kingdom Under Fire series on Xbox 360 and we have a fanbase there. It’s very difficult not to develop a version of KUFII on Xbox 360. That’s why Microsoft wants to have Kingdom Under Fire II,” Sang said. “The problem is very strict [policy], and it’s not easy to change it. That’s why we are still discussing our billing policy and we’re asking for some changes from Microsoft.”

While we have yet to hear a specific breakdown of what the sticking points are between the MMO subscription model and Xbox Live, the numbers of developers stalling or outright canceling projects because of this shouldn’t be ignored. Hopefully Microsoft can work this out, because the more games the better for everyone.

[via Eurogamer]