XBox Admits Announcing Crackdown 3 Too Early Was ‘a mistake’

XBox is admitting it made a major mistake when it prematurely announced Crackdown 3 at E3 2014, four years before the game would launch.

Shannon Loftis, general manager for Microsoft Studios Publishing, regrets that terrible decision.

“I think we probably announced Crackdown too early,” Loftis told Polygon in an interview this week.

The team underestimated the time that would be needed to fine-tune the game, with a lot of time being dedicated to the three distinct game modes.

Crackdown 3 is due out next year for Xbox One and Windows PC.

Reagent Games, Sumo Digital and Cloudgine all contributed to the development, but XBox later came to the realization that the game needed to be a better experience, which took a priority over ensuring they released the game on time.

“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,” Loftis said.

“So we had to take the extra time, [and] make sure that we’re delivering the game the Crackdown fans want. It was a super hard decision to do that, and it was made harder because we announced the game.”

Loftis says the team is learning from their mistakes as they develop a handful of new exclusives.

“I think in the past we have made the mistake of announcing some exclusives a little bit too early,” Loftis explained.

“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. We’re in this for the long haul, and we wanna make sure that not just in the spring of 2018, but in the summer, and in the fall, and the spring of 2019 that we’ll have great, unique, fun experiences for Xbox gamers.”