well, maybe, but don't forget there is the SCP, and the devs behind B5 IFH, commercial viability is the one stumbling block, and also kiddies, EA did have a space/combat/exploration/rpg/chimera/thingamebob, earth and beyond, remember that?.. it was shut down by EA after it enveloped westwood, while i agree that microsoft's business practices may leave something to be desired, it still let the comanies keep their names, instead, with ea, it's under their global electronic arts label.
but enough about EA,
Freelancer was poorly executed, yes, but there's plenty of universe in it to expand upon, so a potential sequel to freelancer, or even starlancer may be in there somewheres, anyway, i'm not talking about how well the game did, etc, i'm talking more of the francise of the game, if you look on the lancersreactor forums, there's still many a faithful freelancer fan on there, why?.. because the game could be modded to an extent where total conversions, new levels, etc were available to create, the only thing not available, was the ability to create a whole new story with tools, etc. a brilliant comparison would be the two games of freelancer and starlancer, the latter being very dead community wise.
moddability adds a lot of life to a game, and allows the players of the game the chance to "write their own story" so to speak, i think, in future, if devs, and publishers want to keep their games economically viable for some time afterwards, they had better not forget to add the mod tools in order to play them, or make the mod tools available later on, such as the relic developers kit for example. or a better example: Fred.
while i think freespace would be prime for a sequel, given the relative drought of simular genre games, and x3's notorious complexity (haven't even played it yet, but i've played x2), a good time for a mere announcement of the game would be sometime in the near future. but of course, that's purely up to the developers, and the publishers, as well, the pure and simple thing is, it's all the bottom line that decides whether or not a game gets the greenlight to go ahead with development.
hell, if you notice these days, most of the games you do see in development have some kinda pure multiplayer component, or face paced action, or some kinda world war 2 theme, etc, etc, there's hardly any science fiction, role playing, space combat, or anything of that like anywhere on the game shelves these days, oblivion's coming out, sure, but how many other titles do you see making an arrival any time soon?
the problem is, that publishers tend to follow a trend like sheep off a cliff, Ea does it, activision does it, and so on, and so forth, for example, how many totally original titles have we seen from EA? none, activision?.. none, Microsoft Game studios?.. ergh.. none, and the list goes on. Half life 2 is also the same, as it only raised the bar in quality in presentation, not gameplay, not in story, etc. at its core, it's still a simple 'shoot first, shoot some more, and when everybody's dead, hurl a paintcan at them' while the gravity gun is a nice novelty, that's just it, it's a novelty, it doesn't change its core gameplay one bit, it's the same with a lot of things i guess.
they all lack that 'epic' feel that makes you sit back and go.... 'woah' Freespace came close, Freespace 2, even closer, if any space sim wants to survive in this day and age it's gotta do something special, like make you sit back, speachless, and almost brought to the brink of tears (or beyond) because of its sheer scale or beauty, and with a tight story, it could be one of the greatest things ever. and i'm not talking about eyecandy here, cuz god knows a game is capable of that, i mean just the sheer awe-inspiring mass of it.
