In a recent interview with Shane Kim, the head of Microsoft’s Game Studios, he was asked about the status of the much anticipated Marvel Universe Online MMO. He confirmed that the game had been cancelled since they didn’t see a way that it could be able to garner the kind of subscription base they wanted to be the top dog and in the end it wouldn’t have have the outcome that they had wanted for it. The Marvel Universe Online MMO was being created by Microsoft along with City of Heroes creator Cryptic Studios. The game would have been the first MMO that allowed players to interact with actual heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe such as Spiderman and Captain America.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a case of what went wrong. I don’t know that that’s the right way to put it. For us we look at our priorities and all of the things we have to do. It’s a tough space. It’s a very competitive space. And it’s a space that’s changing quite a bit. …When we first entered into the development and agreement of the development of ‘Marvel Universe Online,’ we thought we would create another subscription-based MMO. And if you really look at the data there’s basically one that’s successful and everything else wouldn’t meet our level or definition of commercial success. And then you have to look [and say]: ‘Can we change the business model for that? Is that really viable given how far we are in development? And so forth. Does Marvel want to do that?’ There’s a whole bunch of factors.