Greg Canessa quits Microsoft

[quote name='Apossum']New sig in honor

nevermind not working.

Someone else can have the "Greg Canessa Quits XBLA!" Achievement. :)

http://achievements.schrankmonster.de/[/QUOTE]
I'll have to edit that one out of mine now.


Before we get someone in here who thinks they are going to play "the voice of reason" and defend him - no one thinks that this is ENTIRELY his fault. However, he's the head of the project and he's the person it rests on to ensure that the service is run well. He's lied numerous times and not even come close to helping fulfill XBLA's potential. Good fucking riddance to a true cancer of the video game industry.
 
[quote name='Apossum']New sig in honor

nevermind not working.

Someone else can have the "Greg Canessa Quits XBLA!" Achievement. :)

http://achievements.schrankmonster.de/[/QUOTE]
I'll have to edit that one out of mine now.


Before we get someone in here who thinks they are going to play "the voice of reason" and defend him - no one thinks that this is ENTIRELY his fault. However, he's the head of the project and he's the person it rests on to ensure that the service is run well. He has lied numerous times and not even come close to helping fulfill XBLA's potential. Good fucking riddance to a true cancer of the video game industry.
 
[quote name='KaneRobot']I'll have to edit that one out of mine now.


Before we get someone in here who thinks they are going to play "the voice of reason" and defend him - no one thinks that this is ENTIRELY his fault. However, he's the head of the project and he's the person it rests on to ensure that the service is run well. He's lied numerous times and not even come close to helping fulfill XBLA's potential. Good fucking riddance to a true cancer of the video game industry.[/QUOTE]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

Maybe now they'll abandon this whole "one shitty game a week while multiple games sit on the backburner" shit.
 
[quote name='KaneRobot']Before we get someone in here who thinks they are going to play "the voice of reason" and defend him - no one thinks that this is ENTIRELY his fault. However, he's the head of the project and he's the person it rests on to ensure that the service is run well. He's lied numerous times and not even come close to helping fulfill XBLA's potential. Good fucking riddance to a true cancer of the video game industry.[/QUOTE]

I surely hope no one defends him. He treated the fanbase like complete shit. Hell, we knew we were in trouble when developers were quicker giving us information.

I'm just so fucking excited that the rotten fish has been thrown out to the garbage can. His replacement will have much to prove, but I'm guessing we won't have any "Miss" weeks for a while. Atleast until the end of March.
 
[quote name='Weedy649']Finally!!!! Only thing that makes me sad is that he quit and wasnt fired.[/QUOTE]

I'm sure he was told to quit. After three "Miss" weeks in one month, along with all the other bullshit he's done, they probably politely asked him if he'd leave for Popcap to make the bridge between Microsoft and Popcap stronger.

Joystiq updated about his replacement

Bryan Trussel has been promoted to director of platform game services and will oversee Xbox Live Arcade in addition to other Microsoft Casual Games platforms, including MSN Games and Windows Live Messenger Games. Trussel was most recently the group manager for expanding platforms in the Microsoft Casual Games group, helping to develop and implement the original Xbox Live Arcade product.
 
I am not defending canessa, but didn't his team start out with only a couple of people, and didn't they hit there goal for the year in about a month for DL content. Yes he has fucked up and made promises that they didn't deliver on, but IMO I think that the arcade exploded onto the scene without anyone really expecting that and took msft by surprise.

I also find it hard to believe that some are saying the virtual console is blowing live out of the water, at this time they are not touching up the game and they are releasing shit that is 10 - 29 year old with the majority of the games they have launched have been avg to shitty ones at best. Yes they have released some classics, but I already own them on several machines

Yes msft has been shitty with the release schedule, and more original content would have been nice. There were a fair amount of original games, but it seemed many on these boards didn't like them. I also find it hard to put the blame on canesa or msft for a shitty port of an old arcade game. How is it msft fault, when the original companies are the ones porting it. Contra, street fighter, pac man, galaga, frogger they were all ported by there original companies that made them, how is it msft fault for the controlls to be shitty. Yes the d pad does suck, but I have the doa joystiq and the controlls in those games still are horrible. If msft didn't release it due to shitty controls, wouldn't the majority of cags been pissed that they went for awhile in mid summer without a release?

It is good canesa is gone, and I hope better things come from live arcade. The arcade is a fun distraction to play from time to time when I only have 10 - 15 min, but the majority of my gaming is spent playing full retail release games. Before I hear shit about 3 of my last 5 played games are arcade i played geometry wars for 2 rounds waiting for some friends to log in for gears...i dl ms pac man, and stormed thru getting the achievements, and re played regular pac man to try for the last achievement. Pac man/ms pac man were my favorite arcade games
 
People never blamed him about the quality of the games that came out, they blamed him for the way releases were handled, announcements were made, things like that.

Hyped games up but didnt deliver when they said they would. Even now, they announce 10 awesome games, but dont release anything the week of the announcement. The week after and you get the title that was given no hype and for damn obvious reasons. Things like that piss me off.
 
[quote name='ryanbph']I am not defending canessa, but didn't his team start out with only a couple of people, and didn't they hit there goal for the year in about a month for DL content. Yes he has fucked up and made promises that they didn't deliver on, but IMO I think that the arcade exploded onto the scene without anyone really expecting that and took msft by surprise.[/quote]

That's a bullshit excuse and you know it. This wasn't the first attempt at setting up the arcade. Microsoft knew the power it could yield if handled properly. They just set up a grossly ignorant man as the GM. I'm not sure what you mean by "didn't they hit there goal for the year in about a month for DL content." Are you refering the amount of games releases last year? Because they fell way below Moore's E3 speech.


I also find it hard to put the blame on canesa or msft for a shitty port of an old arcade game. How is it msft fault, when the original companies are the ones porting it.
Click to expand...

The original teams rarely do the port jobs. And Microsoft's arcade team certifies the releases, so it is Microsoft's fault for shit releases.


If msft didn't release it due to shitty controls, wouldn't the majority of cags been pissed that they went for awhile in mid summer without a release?
Click to expand...

If Canessa and the team had been upfront and stated that is why some titles were delayed, I'm sure we would have been cooler with the delay. However, he and his team failed to do that. All we heard was the internet rags complaining about lag. He kept his goddamn mouth shut when we were starving for information. Hell, we knew more about Roboblitz from its small team at Naked Sky than Canessa ever told us. He did nothing but shit on the fanbase by ignoring our requests for information and our complaints.
 
[quote name='Weedy649']People never blamed him about the quality of the games that came out, they blamed him for the way releases were handled, announcements were made, things like that.

Hyped games up but didnt deliver when they said they would. Even now, they announce 10 awesome games, but dont release anything the week of the announcement. The week after and you get the title that was given no hype and for damn obvious reasons. Things like that piss me off.[/QUOTE]

Exactly, at the current pace, I don't think they'd be able to release everything that has been announced before the next generation Xbox launched.

And I haven't done the math, but I think there have actually been more retail games released than XBLA games at this point. How could that even be possible?
 
[quote name='terribledeli']I'm sure he was told to quit.[/QUOTE]

I don't know if I'd say I'm "sure" of it, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit - anyone find it interesting that this comes so soon after the competition launches? Maybe someone woke up over there.

I also find it hard to believe that some are saying the virtual console is blowing live out of the water, at this time they are not touching up the game and they are releasing shit that is 10 - 29 year old with the majority of the games they have launched have been avg to shitty ones at best.
Click to expand...

VC is better than XBLA simply because MS is not DOING anything. It's insane that a company with Microsoft's resources, with a platform/service like XBLA, with millions of customers saying "I WANT TO GIVE YOU MY MONEY, PLEASE TAKE IT" has still managed to make a joke out of their Arcade service.

Arcade's games are often significantly older than the Virtual Console's, and even the stuff that isn't usually has nowhere near the shelf-life of something like Zelda or Super Mario World. SOTN is a step in a positive direction, but again, it has taken an eternity to arrive. Even now we only have a vague "upcoming" list over the next few weeks/months.

If MS opened those floodgates just a crack, it would take no time whatsoever to make the Virtual Console look mediocre by comparison.

...but they don't, and thus far have continued to stick to a broken business model. Maybe this recent development means a change is coming. We'll see.
 
[quote name='terribledeli']I'm sure he was told to quit.[/QUOTE]

I don't know if I'd say I'm "sure" of it, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit - anyone find it interesting that this comes so soon after the competition launches? Maybe someone woke up over there.

I also find it hard to believe that some are saying the virtual console is blowing live out of the water, at this time they are not touching up the game and they are releasing shit that is 10 - 29 year old with the majority of the games they have launched have been avg to shitty ones at best.
Click to expand...

VC is better than XBLA simply because MS is not DOING anything. It's insane that a company with Microsoft's resources, with a platform/service like XBLA, with millions of customers saying "I WANT TO GIVE YOU MY MONEY, PLEASE TAKE IT" has still managed to make a joke out of their Arcade service.

Arcade's games are often significantly older than the Virtual Console's, and even the stuff that isn't usually has nowhere near the shelf-life of something like Zelda or Super Mario World. SOTN is a step in a positive direction, but again, it has taken an eternity to arrive. Even now we only have a vague "upcoming" list over the next few weeks/months.

If MS opened those floodgates just a crack, it would take no time whatsoever to make the Virtual Console look mediocre by comparison.

...but they don't, and thus far have continued to stick to a broken business model. Maybe this recent development means a change is coming. We'll see.
 
[quote name='terribledeli']That's a bullshit excuse and you know it. This wasn't the first attempt at setting up the arcade. Microsoft knew the power it could yield if handled properly. "didn't they hit there goal for the year in about a month for DL content." Are you refering the amount of games releases last year? Because they fell way below Moore's E3 speech.


The original teams rarely do the port jobs. And Microsoft's arcade team certifies the releases, so it is Microsoft's fault for shit releases.


If Canessa and the team had been upfront and stated that is why some titles were delayed, I'm sure we would have been cooler with the delay. However, he and his team failed to do that..[/quote]

They had stated last year that by the end of january they had DL as much as they had planned for...the first arcade didn't do all that great, why the fuck would they think it would explode. Looking back at it yes they fucked up. But if you go back a year ago media people were dogging the arcade saying the only reason to have a 360 was geometry war and that was an arcade game...they weren't expecting it to be huge, and nor should they

as for rootbeer tapper, it was on a list of soon to be released games sometime around oct or so, so it should be no shock that we finally got it

as for kane robot comments about the broken business model, I totally agree. IMO, msft should take off a few months and only release original content. Take a group of classics, including those on that recent released list and release a good 10/20/30 or more games all the same week, and try to get it so that the arcade becomes more like itunes. They should have started off with a good 100 games read to be dl at launch but they didn't

I would assume that the original team of pac man didn't port it, but that was still namco job. Maybe I am wrong about the certification process, but I don't think it is to test how good the game is. I am pretty sure it is to see if the code written will crash the xbox live setup or ruin someones hard drive etc...I could be wrong, but it the process isn't call quality control, nor have I ever heard anyone say they are testing the game to see if it good.

and you last statement is bullshit...texas hold em was delayed about 7 months. It was know they were having legal problems with the sponsor and couldn't release it due to legal problems. It was know that street fighter was running into problems with online play several months b4 it was released. And finally the prey demo, it was supposed to launch side by side with the pc version, and that ran into problems and the xbox 360 fanboys were in an uproar about how useless msft was and how the certificaition process sucked

Yes it would have been nice for them to be a hell of a lot more upfront about the status of things and why things were delayed. I don't know why they weren't, but as for things not clearing certification would you want msft to come out and say hey xxx company gave us a product that didn't work and they got to fix it? Do you really think they want to throw some 3rd party under the bus like that?
 
[quote name='KaneRobot']
Arcade's games are often significantly older than the Virtual Console's, and even the stuff that isn't usually has nowhere near the shelf-life of something like Zelda or Super Mario World. SOTN is a step in a positive direction, but again, it has taken an eternity to arrive. Even now we only have a vague "upcoming" list over the next few weeks/months.
[/QUOTE]

This is my problem. Most XBLA games are garbage a week or two after you buy them and beat them.

I will never play Cloning Clyde again, whereas I know for a fact I'l play LttP over and over. They both cost the same in terms of points, so it's a no brainer.

I look at games like Small Arms, Roboblitz, whatever else is out and I know I'll never touch those games a week after I buy them. I've said it before, but if MS had some sort of incentive where you could trade in games you were done with for points BACK, even just a small amount, I'd buy more games.
 
Ah...

I didn't know who he was before I read this thread. Never heard of him before, I guess never owning an XBox contributed to my lack of his awareness.

But he sure sounds like a clot when it came to releasing XBLA games.
 
He's probably not the main cause of XBLA's recent (read: past...year?) lack of titles, but seeing him go is only good because it means that things might change.

If some store was run like shit, then went under new ownership, you'd think that the new guy would fix the previous problems, eh?
 
:D[quote name='Apossum']He's probably not the main cause of XBLA's recent (read: past...year?) lack of titles, but seeing him go is only good because it means that things might change.

If some store was run like shit, then went under new ownership, you'd think that the new guy would fix the previous problems, eh?[/quote]

depends if the new guy was qualified or not, it could still get worse.:cry: :cry:

but it could get a lot better:lol: :lol:
 
[quote name='ryanbph']:D

depends if the new guy was qualified or not, it could still get worse.:cry: :cry:

but it could get a lot better:lol: :lol:[/QUOTE]

the only way it could get worse is if they announce "From now on, no new IP, it's all retro, all the time." or "the XBLA's closed, due to aids."
 
I doubt he quit. I'm sure MS cohoarsed him into submitting his resignation papers.

Best news I've heard in a while. I'm sure anyone else can do his job better than he was, hell even a monkey in a diaper could.
 
I'm kind of new, but I only just paid attention to his name via an X06 video last night as I just became a fan of Live Arcade.

Wow, you guys are really pissed at him, but I wouldnt mind seeing more background about his screwups in the past. Do you guys have links etc on where he's neglected the community?

Frankly I've never even heard of this guy up until last night and today's next-gen news. I'm also new to the Xbox community but he must have really been incompetent for a long time for you guys to be this angry.
 
he wasn't great, but he isn't as bad as they made him out to be...his biggest mistakes was overpromosing and not delivering & then not saying why they didn't deliver. You know sorta like any guy for any game console maker/or game developer/publisher talking about there product. I personally can't fault him for that, or "hate" him for that. Reggie, phil harrison, cliffy b, peter moore, peter molyneaux all do that. Very few of them are held accountable for it. Peter molyneaux has been held accountable, and recently sony has. No one was bitching about the lack of delivered promises of the ps2. IMO the nerdy guys have been the ones held accountable, while the more aggressive not so nerdy looking/sounding guys are given a pass. Thats not to say that some haven't been turned on by a small minority, but there is an all out hate for molyneaux and canesa.

His biggest fault, if it was even him or someone else above him at msft, is the poor release schedule. The other knock I have on him is that it appears they limit the amount of games to be released. As in they don't want to flood the arcade with fighting games, so only 1 mortal kombat will be released, 1 street fighter etc...
 
I wonder my Major Nelson isn't talking about this ?

Maybe it's his buddy , or he doesn't want people slamming him in the blog comments .
 
Major Nelson will celebrate this by announcing a leaderboard fix to Hardwood Spades as next Wednesdays download.
 
[quote name='TC']Major Nelson will celebrate this by announcing a leaderboard fix to Hardwood Spades as next Wednesdays download.[/QUOTE]

They need to fix the in game Gauntlet leaderboards it's now impossible to get the individual character achievements .

I still need 2 of them !
 
[quote name='Richlough']Maybe it's his buddy , or he doesn't want people slamming him in the blog comments .[/QUOTE]

Too late :lol:



Just for S&G, anyone know what game has been advertised for the longest time without actually arriving? I know Paperboy is at about the 1 year mark, what about Sonic The Hedgehog? I would have thought that would be out with the new standalone game...maybe it was shitcanned.
 
[quote name='KaneRobot']Too late :lol:



Just for S&G, anyone know what game has been advertised for the longest time without actually arriving? I know Paperboy is at about the 1 year mark, what about Sonic The Hedgehog? I would have thought that would be out with the new standalone game...maybe it was shitcanned.[/QUOTE]


not sure...there were some that were announced at E3 that definitely haven't made it out. Fatal Fury Special is one. Pretty sure metal slug was announced as well.
 
Root Beer Tapper made him go insane. Thank god. hopefully well start getting weekly releases again, and something better then Root Beer Tapper.
 
[quote name='CitizenB']Root Beer Tapper made him go insane. Thank god. hopefully well start getting weekly releases again, and something better then Root Beer Tapper.[/QUOTE]


Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: Greg Canessa Is a Miserable Little Pile of Secrets Edition?
 
This is fantastic news! I hope you guys know that this guys resignation/quitting of Microsoft is actually apart of their quit "underground" restructuring of the company. Since Gates is going out and Balmer is coming in, Balmer is a much more management-centric person compared to Gates (though both are good). They've also gotten rid of the guy that developed the Zune (see a trend). The Zune, though a great product, is steeply underperforming regardless of the brand recognition that Apple has with the Ipod. It also had a faulty launch (IMO) where they only had one 30GB model and did not even have an upper echelon model to contend with other competitors (i.e. 60+ GB model). With the Zune manager, their was simply no ifs, ands or buts about it and there was no second chance given to him. On the other hand, the guy that came up with the Xbox had a vision and understood that they were going into a steeply competitive market with two industry stalwarts that had cemented themselves in the public's consciousness (sp) so they gave him another chance and he pulled through with Xbox Live, etc. and he is now the head of that department (actually I think he's been moving up the ranks recently.).

Again, this is huge news for Microsoft which after the new guy is set into place should see an improvement to XBLA. After how much of a disappointment Live Arcade has been viewed as, this guy should have no problem doing as Jim Cramer puts it UPOD (under performing to over delivering).
 
[quote name='ryanbph']His biggest fault, if it was even him or someone else above him at msft, is the poor release schedule. The other knock I have on him is that it appears they limit the amount of games to be released. As in they don't want to flood the arcade with fighting games, so only 1 mortal kombat will be released, 1 street fighter etc...[/quote]

Agreed, I wish I knew who's bullshit judgement that was. And another question is why haven't they tapped into their allegiances/alliances with developers who have felt backstabbed from Sony because they develop 2d games. I'm talking about the SNKs of the world. I'm sure that given the chance, SNK would go ballistic for XBLA and I would to. Think about it, a new Samurai Showdown which I could actually play against real people again:drool::drool::drool::drool::drool::drool::drool::D They could even get Atlus or NIS and that would be huge for them.
 
In the business world we're currently in the relationship era. Canessa definitely didn't bring a relationship to the consumers with the way he ran XBLA. Good riddens you turd.
 
[quote name='hiccupleftovers']Agreed, I wish I knew who's bullshit judgement that was. And another question is why haven't they tapped into their allegiances/alliances with developers who have felt backstabbed from Sony because they develop 2d games. I'm talking about the SNKs of the world. I'm sure that given the chance, SNK would go ballistic for XBLA and I would to. Think about it, a new Samurai Showdown which I could actually play against real people again:drool::drool::drool::drool::drool::drool::drool::D They could even get Atlus or NIS and that would be huge for them.[/QUOTE]

SNK already has their games online for the PS2 in Japan... I'm pretty sure they aren't chomping at the bit to go through all the hoops to make something exclusive for the 360 when most Japanese are still very lukewarm on it.

SNK knows who butters their bread... and in Japan it's Sony. SNK was only "backstabbed" by Sony of America and well, SNK just dosen't port their games to the US anymore for the most part. Sony of Japan hasn't "backstabbed" anyone.

We should be lucky they decided to throw us Fatal Fury Special with online play. They sure as hell aren't going to make a new version for any of their franchises and make it exclusive for the 360.
 
Good riddance...I won't shed a tear over this worthless windbag.

I'd like to think that maybe Nintendo's VC might have had something to do with this...this is where competition benefits us by showing how something "should" be done (from a release schedule standpoint).
 
In related news, tonight, for the first time ever, an advertisement promoting XBLA games showed up in my mailbox (released titles only, alas - no new information/release schedule).
 
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