The Botched Release of Killer Instinct

Microsoft, do you ever actually listen?


Do you ever actually pay attention?


You had been warned about your decreasing market share, your decreasing popularity, and the rise of Sony in the Console Wars. You were warned about the lack of IPs, especially the lack of IPs that isn’t a shooter. You were warned about the price tag being a bit high and needing to justify it. Killer Instinct could have been your answer.


And you blew it. Badly.

Killer Instinct is a popular franchise amongst the hardcore fighter crowd that had not seen a sequel since the N64 days. Killer Instinct is among the final old-school fighters from the 90s seeking a chance to re-enter the gaming spotlight. This was one of those rare IPs that actually belongs exclusively to Microsoft and the XBox family. Giving the third installment a nice polish, associate it with a good marketing campaign, and you could see a great launch game---potentially a vital bundle for the XBox One.


Instead, Microsoft decides to make it “free,” include only a couple characters and forcing you to buy the others, and then ultimately contain less content than any fighter out there not named Virtua Fighter. The muddled release of the fame surely confused gamers, frustrated others, and confounded the rest.

Why didn’t they just make it a complete game? I can guarantee you gamers would have invested the $60 towards a full Killer Instinct game. I can guarantee you that an upgraded installment of Killer Instinct would have sold well. The original for the Super Nintendo sold 3 million copies, and that was on a console that wasn’t known for its fighting games. Microsoft isn’t a system full of fighters either, so that could have given KI even more of a chance to succeed. You could have taken it a step even further by bundling it with your system, which is now the most expensive of the big 3 in the eighth generation.

Bundling an anticipated game with a system never fails; just ask the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Nintendo Game Boy, and Nintendo Wii. It could have eased the pain of the $500 price tag. But instead you turn Killer Instinct from a AAA potential title into a random free-to-play scam game with fewer characters than the original, less to do than most fighters, and an overall sensation of incompleteness.



Good going guys.Your current last place status is well-earned.