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[EBreda]

I don't understand how MS is not pursuing acquisitions to boost their 1st party studios. Something like Sumo for instance​ would instantly boost their portfolio for (I imagine) a relatively low sum. Or WayForward.

Obviously a megaton would be something the size of Sega, with a plethora of IPs under their belt, but I don't think it's reasonable. But small competent studios which have already worked under MS Studios like the first two I mentioned should be doable.

 

[DriftingSpirit]

I don't understand how MS is not pursuing acquisitions to boost their 1st party studios. Something like Sumo for instance​ would instantly boost their portfolio for (I imagine) a relatively low sum. Or WayForward.

Obviously a megaton would be something the size of Sega, with a plethora of IPs under their belt, but I don't think it's reasonable. But small competent studios which have already worked under MS Studios like the first two I mentioned should be doable.

It depends on the studio too. They may not want to be acquired.

 

[jbug617]

MS needs to work on their relationships with XSeed, Aksys and NIS America. I think them needing publishers to make a certain amount of copies is hindering them getting Japanese games in NA.

 

[LukasTaves]

http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/gaming/768303/Nier-Automata-Xbox-One-update-release-date

That sounds more like an explanation on why it didn't come to Xbox at first, rather than why it won't come at all.

Specially considering the steam sales which isn't big in japan too, but has a nice presence globally. Still I don't think this game would do much worse than the 300k it sold on steam on xbone.

 

[LukasTaves]

That's actually interesting, didn't halo wars come out prior to this? I also listened to another podcast the other day and they mentioned this and I was like, the fuck are they talking about?

Yeah, that was posted like last week, Halo wars was a February game. I hope that's a sign of things to come (Ms leveraging Sega catalog would be a nice boost to it's library, specially if the intention is to revisit old franchises)

 

[Jaguar Victory]

I don't understand how MS is not pursuing acquisitions to boost their 1st party studios. Something like Sumo for instance​ would instantly boost their portfolio for (I imagine) a relatively low sum. Or WayForward.

Obviously a megaton would be something the size of Sega, with a plethora of IPs under their belt, but I don't think it's reasonable. But small competent studios which have already worked under MS Studios like the first two I mentioned should be doable.

It's hard to get a grip on their budget right now. It feels liked they're hard capped on investment for some reason and I'm not sure why. Maybe they have a lot invested in backwards compat or maybe there are some big budget titles we don't know about.

 

[Art Vandilay]

It's hard to get a grip on their budget right now. It feels liked they're hard capped on investment for some reason and I'm not sure why. Maybe they have a lot invested in backwards compat or maybe there are some big budget titles we don't know about.

I don't know if their budget is an issue. I mean they dropped a billion on Minecraft.

 

[DeadlyVirus]

I don't know if their budget is an issue. I mean they dropped a billion on Minecraft.

Which is a reason to reduce spending everywhere else

 

[Primethius]

That sounds more like an explanation on why it didn't come to Xbox at first, rather than why it won't come at all.

Specially considering the steam sales which isn't big in japan too, but has a nice presence globally. Still I don't think this game would do much worse than the 300k it sold on steam on xbone.

Steam number is world wide. So the XB1 version would definitely do worse.

 

[a Master Ninja]

It's hard to get a grip on their budget right now. It feels liked they're hard capped on investment for some reason and I'm not sure why. Maybe they have a lot invested in backwards compat or maybe there are some big budget titles we don't know about.

I assume that Satya Nadella still thinks the division is not key to Microsoft's future, whereas PlayStation has basically become Sony at this point.

 

[LukasTaves]

It depends on the studio too. They may not want to be acquired.

And sometimes it just doesn't work. Like look at Press Play,they did put out a great game (Max) but didn't sell, Kalimba was also great and a smaller project but apparently had low engagement even being given for free with gwg. And judging by the dates of the release the company had at least one project scrapped until they decided to ask for the community on which projects they would pursue, which apparently didn't had any meaningful engagement and also would be a game to be released in a few years.

Same for Twisted Pixel, they had a nice output on 360, but on xbone they just released one turd (lococycle) and then went radio silence for years working on a project that was never released.

Looking at MS perspective, those are acquisitions that didn't paid off in any reasonable metric. Their games didn't sell or helped attracking a bigger audience and the studios were mostly idle from years.

In both cases I think it would be better if Ms continued working with them as external contracts other than trying to purchase. Even if the cost of one individual game is higher working by contract when you have to support the studio not releasing anything for many years it's likely a bigger cost, specially when those two studios were supposed to deliver a constant stream of smaller games.

 

[Welfare]

I don't know if their budget is an issue. I mean they dropped a billion on Minecraft.

They dropped a sweet $2.5B on Minecraft because it has uses outside of the video game bubble. It's a great educational tool.

 

[Nightengale]

I don't understand how MS is not pursuing acquisitions to boost their 1st party studios. Something like Sumo for instance​ would instantly boost their portfolio for (I imagine) a relatively low sum. Or WayForward.

Obviously a megaton would be something the size of Sega, with a plethora of IPs under their belt, but I don't think it's reasonable. But small competent studios which have already worked under MS Studios like the first two I mentioned should be doable.

We don't even need to go that far.

"I don't understand how MS is not actively boosting up the ability for their existing studios to be multi-project studio by staffing up additional 50-100 people at all their first-party studios."

Short & simple answer is that they're not budgeted for it. Or even if they are budgeted for it, their preferred acquisitions are not up for sale.
You don't go and use acquisition budget on 3/4/5th choices, especially if you don't actively believe that acquisition will be worth it in the long run.

For example. Let's say MS has the budget to acquire IO/Hitman today. But if Hitman S2 flops, and they decide the investment was a mistake and shut it down, then the acquisition would be a complete failure.

 

[Vinc]

It's hard to get a grip on their budget right now. It feels liked they're hard capped on investment for some reason and I'm not sure why. Maybe they have a lot invested in backwards compat or maybe there are some big budget titles we don't know about.

Both Sony and Nintendo are run as (or are) independent companies, meaning they're free to investmoney as they please. I read on here from Matt, I believe, that the Xbox division is run as, well, a division of Microsoft. Which likely means that while they obviously don't have a "hard cap", they have to justify every expense as being invested for a direct return. That probably makes it harder to look at making investments that are meant to pay dividends well into the future.

 

[LukasTaves]

Steam number is world wide. So the XB1 version would definitely do worse.

I know it's global,but that's my point I don't think any mid to high profile release would guarantee to do less than 300k on Xbone even if Japan is a dead market for it.

I mean, it's a platform that generated 9 billion dollars last year, it even surpassed the revenue from windows the first time. How it's possible that a platform so wealthy can't support a very hyped game at around just 300k sales?

 

[Nightengale]

Both Sony and Nintendo are run as (or are) independent companies, meaning they're free to investmoney as they please. I read on here from Matt, I believe, that the Xbox division is run as, well, a division of Microsoft. Which likely means that while they obviously don't have a "hard cap", they have to justify every expense as being invested for a direct return. That probably makes it harder to look at making investments that are meant to pay dividends well into the future.

True for Nintendo, completely untrue for Sony.

Playstation is a 'division of Sony' just as much as Xbox is a 'division of MS.'

They both route their earnings and profits to Sony/MS corporate and then get annual budgets from Kaz/Nadella respectively to run their business.

 

[Montresor]

Let's dare to dream guys. The calm before the storm is because Microsoft has completely sealed up all leaks, and they're going to blow us away with huge surprises.

There are reasons to be pessimistic for sure. Lionhead studios was closed - they were the Fable dev. Press Play was closed - they made awesome games like Kalimba and Max Curse of Brotherhood. Remedy relationship is gone - they made INCREDIBLE games like Alan Wake and Quantum Break. Twisted Pixel relationship is gone - they made INCREDIBLE games like Splosion Man and Ms. Splosion Man (although their last game Lococycle was super weak). They cancelled Scalebound. And they haven't announced new games in a long time.

But fuck it - dare to dream. Here's what Microsoft's E3 will have:

*Scorpio will look just as good as Xbox One S and will cost $399.
*Original Xbox BC is announced.

*Turn10 announces Forza Motorsport 7 and it takes the crown as the best looking and best playing racing game ever made.
*Playground announces a new open world IP, exclusive to Xbox.
*343 announces a new Mass Effect style Halo RPG game, third-person shooter, similar to a blend between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2.
*The Coalition announce they've revived Shangheist and it's their next game.

*State of Decay, Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves, Cuphead, and Tacoma all have hard 2017 release dates
*Ori 2, Recore 2, Sunset Overdrive 2, and Ryse 2 sequels announced.

*Microsoft announces a new publishing company called Microsoft Third-Party Publishing Studios, an initiative where they pay for a myriad of Japanese and indie ports that skipped Xbox - they help the developer make the port, and they get a sizable cut of the profits themselves for helping finance the port. The list includes small games like The Talos Principle, 999, Virtue's Last Reward, The Silver Case, mid-tier niche games like Tales of Beseria, and huge popular games like Nier Automata, Persona 5, FFVII Remake, Shenmue 3, etc...

*Microsoft publically announces the abolishment of the indie parity clause and the 50k disc print limit - queue the flood of previously missing niche indie and Japanese games on Xbox.

*Then, before the show closes, Microsoft has these three final announcements:

**Rare announces Banjo Kazooie 3
**CD Projekt Red contracted to make Fable 4, Witcher 3 like RPG set in Fable universe
** Bethesda / MachineWorks contracted to make Perfect Dark 3, with oversight from Rare.

*And just as the curtains close, Phil Spencer says "And one more thing". The mysterious G-Man appears on-screen in the subsequent trailer, and he says "Welcome back. Welcome back.... to City 17". Cue 2-minute cinematic trailer announcing Half Life 3 is coming out, published by Microsoft, coming out to Xbox, Steam, and Win10.

 

[LukasTaves]

It's hard to get a grip on their budget right now. It feels liked they're hard capped on investment for some reason and I'm not sure why. Maybe they have a lot invested in backwards compat or maybe there are some big budget titles we don't know about.

There's definitely some big investments, They had BC, Beam/Mixer, Tons of features that cost to develop and maintain, Game pass, developed 3 new consoles at once (The S, A console refresh aimed at 2016, and Scorpio)... All this are likely in the millions if not hundreds of millions.

They are also investing in games as well, but that doesn't necessarily mean buying more studios (specially because like I said, if you acquire a studio just to have it in house there are chances it will fail).

I don't think there's a lack of budget, it's just an strategy to have a few very efficient 1st party studios that they will try to grow efficiently as well, while having tons of outsourced projects.

I assume that Satya Nadella still thinks the division is not key to Microsoft's future, whereas PlayStation has basically become Sony at this point.

On the contrary, he never believed it was a dead end, he believes it's a key business for Ms, and the results are backing him up to investors.

 

[LukasTaves]

We don't even need to go that far.

"I don't understand how MS is not actively boosting up the ability for their existing studios to be multi-project studio by staffing up additional 50-100 people at all their first-party studios."

Short & simple answer is that they're not budgeted for it. Or even if they are budgeted for it, their preferred acquisitions are not up for sale.
You don't go and use acquisition budget on 3/4/5th choices, especially if you don't actively believe that acquisition will be worth it in the long run.

For example. Let's say MS has the budget to acquire IO/Hitman today. But if Hitman S2 flops, and they decide the investment was a mistake and shut it down, then the acquisition would be a complete failure.

Because that doesn't work? Unless you are a big developer having a 2 team studio is about the same as having 2 studios, but harder to manage.

Last gen it was a trend (even for some Ms studios like Rare) to become multi team studios and they all crashed and burn and the result is now that each studio is back to being a single team only (but of course with smaller teams for incubation).

And not just at Ms, both Naughty Dog and Santa Monica had the same experience for example (There is even a post from ND on how that was very bad when they tried to become a multi team studio)

 

[Primethius]

I know it's global,but that's my point I don't think any mid to high profile release would guarantee to do less than 300k on Xbone even if Japan is a dead market for it.

I mean, it's a platform that generated 9 billion dollars last year, it even surpassed the revenue from windows the first time. How it's possible that a platform so wealthy can't support a very hyped game at around just 300k sales?

Actually, that's precisely why it would do less. Xbox is a healthy platform, just not for all types of games, such as Japanese ones.

There's a reason most JP titles are PS4/PC and now recently Switch. Those platforms are far more receptive to JP titles. So to go back to the original point, PC as a platform is more receptive to JP games, so the Nier number is more the high end that Xbox can hope to do and not something it will just match without some other factors propelling the sales up.

Will Xbox match PC in other genres and games? Sure, no question about it. For Japanese titles? Nope.

 

[a Master Ninja]

On the contrary, he never believed it was a dead end, he believes it's a key business for Ms, and the results are backing him up to investors.

Then I hope E3 2017 reflects this and they show that they are pouring money into exciting new projects.

 

[DriftingSpirit]

I don't think he means two full projects at once. He means one full production game and another game in pre-production.

 

[Nightengale]

I know. I'm just throwing random examples of cost increase in expanding first party because sometimes people make assumptions like "buy more studios" which is a far bigger expense than you'd think.

 

[LukasTaves]

I know. I'm just throwing random examples of cost increase in expanding first party because sometimes people make assumptions like "buy more studios" which is a far bigger expense than you'd think.

Oh, I really read now and you were practically making the same point as me, my bad.

Actually, that's precisely why it would do less. Xbox is a healthy platform, just not for all types of games, such as Japanese ones.

There's a reason most JP titles are PS4/PC and now recently Switch. Those platforms are far more receptive to JP titles. So to go back to the original point, PC as a platform is more receptive to JP games, so the Nier number is more the high end that Xbox can hope to do and not something it will just match without some other factors propelling the sales up.

Will Xbox match PC in other genres and games? Sure, no question about it. For Japanese titles? Nope.

It's hard to say without data either way, but for instance FFXV did much better than 300k on December in US alone. Did it do even better on PS4 of course, but so did it in nier against steam (perhaps to a even bigger margin as ps4 nier outsold steam like 4:1).

But let's lower the threshold then, how much a project like that would need to sell so the port makes money? Likely less than 100k,so why not do it and expand your audience on that console rather than just catering to the audience you already have?

That's bad decision and in my opinion one of the key reasons why Japanese developers got left behind during the ps2/Xbox to ps360 generation switch, because the west soon realized that selling to more consoles equals more sales which equals larger budgets that japanese studios couldn't keep up.

Just to add to the point, remember that when Xbox came it didn't had an audience for anything and still managed to have many best sellers because that audience was built.

 

[Vinc]

True for Nintendo, completely untrue for Sony.

Playstation is a 'division of Sony' just as much as Xbox is a 'division of MS.'

They both route their earnings and profits to Sony/MS corporate and then get annual budgets from Kaz/Nadella respectively to run their business.

I know they are, but I believe Matt said they operate independently regardless. Meaning they manage their own budget. It's definitely possible, but I guess he may have been wrong. I have no idea myself.

 

[LukasTaves]

I don't think he means two full projects at once. He means one full production game and another game in pre-production.

Even so, if you do that it means essentially having 4-6 year gap if not more between releases of the same franchise.

Why would you do that when said franchise is guaranteed to sell?

I can understand having smaller projects in the big studios so developers can vent off the pressure of one AAA release after another, but putting a new bid project in between is too long time.

That's basically why i agree that first party should be lean and efficient delivering the games in the franchise they are building while at the same time working with 3rd parties to increase your portfolio (and some of that will become factories as well, others will be one offs every once and while, and others will work multiple times in many projects) as external developers give more flexibility.

 

[blakep267]

Actually, that's precisely why it would do less. Xbox is a healthy platform, just not for all types of games, such as Japanese ones.

There's a reason most JP titles are PS4/PC and now recently Switch. Those platforms are far more receptive to JP titles. So to go back to the original point, PC as a platform is more receptive to JP games, so the Nier number is more the high end that Xbox can hope to do and not something it will just match without some other factors propelling the sales up.

Will Xbox match PC in other genres and games? Sure, no question about it. For Japanese titles? Nope.

I think it's be better to segment different types of Japanese games. I actually think Nioh, kingdom hearts, numbered FF sequels would do just fine. They all are action based games that aren't super abstract. And of course you have your resident evils and dark souls etc. something like persona I don't believe would catch on to the degree that it has on the PS4 etc. like that's a 100+ hour turn based rpg with day to day school elements

 

[Primethius]

Oh, I really read now and you were practically making the same point as me, my bad.



It's hard to say without data either way, but for instance FFXV did much better than 300k on December in US alone. Did it do even better on PS4 of course, but so did it in nier against steam (perhaps to a even bigger margin as ps4 nier outsold steam like 4:1).

But let's lower the threshold then, how much a project like that would need to sell so the port makes money? Likely less than 100k,so why not do it and expand your audience on that console rather than just catering to the audience you already have?

That's bad decision and in my opinion one of the key reasons why Japanese developers got left behind during the ps2/Xbox to ps360 generation switch, because the west soon realized that selling to more consoles equals more sales which equals larger budgets that japanese studios couldn't keep up.

Just to add to the point, remember that when Xbox came it didn't had an audience for anything and still managed to have many best sellers because that audience was built.

FFXV point: when that game releases on PC, it will sell more than the Xbox version.

100k point: Microsoft both has a minimum print requirement that is a huge limitation and the whole scuffle with Scalebound might have soured relations.

Plus, investments are a trade off. The money for a port for 100k sales world wide might be money better spent elsewhere, especially when your game has already shipped 1.5 million on two platforms. Ports require resources, manpower etc taken away from other things. And maybe those resources put towards say, extra DLC, will just end up being more profitable.

As for your last point, no I don't think that's the case at all. Selling to more consoles is certainly more profitable when you can sell enough copies. Most Japanese games don't sell enough to justify porting costs on each platform, especially a platform that's only relevant in two regions. That's why JP devs have become smarter with budget allocation and have made a resurgence this gen.

That and they stopped making dumb deals such a Namco locking Tales of Vesperia down to be 360 only in NA. Smarter business sense overall, better budgeting, and picking the platforms that will result in a profit has led to the proliferation of JP games you see this gen.

Edit: ^ I'm not saying those games wouldn't sell. They just wouldn't sell as well compared to their PC counterpart. Hence the PS4/PC focus from most JP devs.

 

[hanspampel]

I know they are, but I believe Matt said they operate independently regardless. Meaning they manage their own budget. It's definitely possible, but I guess he may have been wrong. I have no idea myself.

G&NS is a division of Sony
Xbox is a part of the MPC division of Microsoft

Playstation boss has only one boss
Xboss has a boss, who has a boss


That is the main difference

 

[RoKKeR]

Does anybody think Forza 7 will be announced before the show? I wouldn't be surprised if it was announced next Monday or something.

 

[Nutter]

Actually, that's precisely why it would do less. Xbox is a healthy platform, just not for all types of games, such as Japanese ones.

There's a reason most JP titles are PS4/PC and now recently Switch. Those platforms are far more receptive to JP titles. So to go back to the original point, PC as a platform is more receptive to JP games, so the Nier number is more the high end that Xbox can hope to do and not something it will just match without some other factors propelling the sales up.

Will Xbox match PC in other genres and games? Sure, no question about it. For Japanese titles? Nope.

How was the 360 a better platform than Xbone? The 1 million it sold in Japan wasn't the only reason. It's the same arguement people made to why FF15 was going to bomb on Xbox and yet when it still pulled respectable numbers the opinion shifted to Xbox gamers having no games to play so they bought FF15. I'm not saying it will outsell 300k but if they can pull even close to that on the platform because Xbox gamers are pretty hardcore buyers, that would still be extra money.

 

[Steelyuhas]

Because that doesn't work? Unless you are a big developer having a 2 team studio is about the same as having 2 studios, but harder to manage.

Last gen it was a trend (even for some Ms studios like Rare) to become multi team studios and they all crashed and burn and the result is now that each studio is back to being a single team only (but of course with smaller teams for incubation).

And not just at Ms, both Naughty Dog and Santa Monica had the same experience for example (There is even a post from ND on how that was very bad when they tried to become a multi team studio)

Yeah the only sort of exception to this is 343, but their second team is not a full dev team, just a core team that manages projects that are contracted out to a third party (HW2, MCC, Halo CE Anniversary, and top down shooter games).

Along with your ND example, Bungie was another example of a studio that said they were going to be working on multiple things at once: they had Marcus Lehto working with a small team on a secret project and they even started their own little mini publishing wing to help indies release games (Bungie Aerospace). Needless to say that didn't last long and they shuttered Marcus' project and Aerospace and said they needed to dedicate the entire studio to Destiny full time.

Does anybody think Forza 7 will be announced before the show? I wouldn't be surprised if it was announced next Monday or something.

Probably not, they've announced the last two (at least) Forza's at E3, right? Seems to be working for them.

 

[willbsn13]

Does anybody think Forza 7 will be announced before the show? I wouldn't be surprised if it was announced next Monday or something.

Nah. I think it'll be like FH3. Revealed in the conference, with a trailer, followed by some chat by Dan Greenawalt about E-Sports and maybe a 3-5 minute gameplay demo.

 

[NippleViking]

We don't even need to go that far.

"I don't understand how MS is not actively boosting up the ability for their existing studios to be multi-project studio by staffing up additional 50-100 people at all their first-party studios."

Short & simple answer is that they're not budgeted for it. Or even if they are budgeted for it, their preferred acquisitions are not up for sale.
You don't go and use acquisition budget on 3/4/5th choices, especially if you don't actively believe that acquisition will be worth it in the long run.

For example. Let's say MS has the budget to acquire IO/Hitman today. But if Hitman S2 flops, and they decide the investment was a mistake and shut it down, then the acquisition would be a complete failure.

Would kill to see 343i, Rare, Coalition, and Turn 10 try something extra.

343i's designs would look so great on a mech game, or something more fantastical.

Coalition could produce amazing survival horror - eldritch, or lovecraftian..

 

[Hawk269]

Does anybody think Forza 7 will be announced before the show? I wouldn't be surprised if it was announced next Monday or something.

Nope. If Scorpio did not exists, I would say it would be possible, but I think Forza 7 is going to be the poster child for Scorpio and they are going to use it to drive the point of Scorpio and what it offers to gamers as far as graphics are concerned. They would not announce it before E3 since we don't know what Scorpio's official name is as of yet. Looking forward to F7 big time though.

 

[farisr]

Does anybody think Forza 7 will be announced before the show? I wouldn't be surprised if it was announced next Monday or something.

They're likely going to be short on new first party AAA announcements as is, definitely not going to announce/reveal forza 7 before the show.

 

[-MD-]

Between Mayles and Kirkhope's tweets I'm thinking Banjo might make an appearance.

Not gonna get my hopes up but that'd be nice.

 

[Finaj]

Between Mayles and Kirkhope's tweets I'm thinking Banjo might make an appearance.

Not gonna get my hopes up but that'd be nice.

Didn't Kirkhope leave Rare though?

 

[LukasTaves]

FFXV point: when that game releases on PC, it will sell more than the Xbox version.

100k point: Microsoft both has a minimum print requirement that is a huge limitation and the whole scuffle with Scalebound might have soured relations.

Plus, investments are a trade off. The money for a port for 100k sales world wide might be money better spent elsewhere, especially when your game has already shipped 1.5 million on two platforms. Ports require resources, manpower etc taken away from other things. And maybe those resources put towards say, extra DLC, will just end up being more profitable.

As for your last point, no I don't think that's the case at all. Selling to more consoles is certainly more profitable when you can sell enough copies. Most Japanese games don't sell enough to justify porting costs on each platform, especially a platform that's only relevant in two regions. That's why JP devs have become smarter with budget allocation and have made a resurgence this gen.

That and they stopped making dumb deals such a Namco locking Tales of Vesperia down to be 360 only in NA. Smarter business sense overall, better budgeting, and picking the platforms that will result in a profit has led to the proliferation of JP games you see this gen.

Edit: ^ I'm not saying those games wouldn't sell. They just wouldn't sell as well compared to their PC counterpart. Hence the PS4/PC focus from most JP devs.

FFXV Point: The most FF ever sold on steam is VII with 1.1 million. It's not far fetched that xbone version sits around that if not more given it sold about half of that in a single month on the US alone so I wouldn't say it's a given it will sell more.

100k point: If you are letting a minimum print of physical copies hold off your release on a platform then you are not being very smart, we live in a age were digital only releases are more than viable, and in fact are becoming the delivery of choice. Specially when the minimum print is 50k apparently and Xbone is truly region free, so you can make world wide discs.

Your investment point doesn't make sense. You are comparing porting a game that is already made with porting in mind to creating a new project XD Investments are a trade off, but not like that. If it costs $100k to port a game, and you make $1million in revenue you had excellent return of investment, even though you could add that $100k to a $10million project that will give you $60 million in revenue. You talk as if we live in the Ps2 era were it was necessary to have everything in ps2 specific assembly code which indeed would be a pain to port. This is specially true for xbox since there's already a PC version already, I mean, you can literally use the same tools that you develop for Pc on xbone and even almost the exact same DX11 code, which exactly would cause the port to be so much more costly?

As for profitability, there are games that sold 28k copies on Ps4 in Japan and were said to be profitable, so why not bring that world wide? Looks like every little sales would be a nice profit if your budget is so small. If you are smart about budgets and your games needs less copies to sell to make a profit is precisely a reason to launch on more platforms since point of breaking even will be low. Not to mention that it seems that what some developers actually did was use the money they made from mobile back into console projects, like I am setsuna which was a small budget game and still ended up in the red, and yet the same team is already with another game ready.

Regarding your edit: Well, I'm sorry but nor you nor the developers can actually know without releasing games, it doesn't work like that. What we do know is that many titles that were released were successful like MGSV, DS2, FF XV. There's not much but there are more success than failure stories for japanese games this gen on xbone.

 

[rrc1594]

Between Mayles and Kirkhope's tweets I'm thinking Banjo might make an appearance.

Not gonna get my hopes up but that'd be nice.

What tweets?

 

[psyfi]

I'm finally starting to get hyped for E3, mostly Xbox and Nintendo. I'm bummed about no Halo, but I'm hoping we'll see some rad new first party games. Xbox really needs it.

 

[LukasTaves]

Yeah the only sort of exception to this is 343, but their second team is not a full dev team, just a core team that manages projects that are contracted out to a third party (HW2, MCC, Halo CE Anniversary, and top down shooter games).

Along with your ND example, Bungie was another example of a studio that said they were going to be working on multiple things at once: they had Marcus Lehto working with a small team on a secret project and they even started their own little mini publishing wing to help indies release games (Bungie Aerospace). Needless to say that didn't last long and they shuttered Marcus' project and Aerospace and said they needed to dedicate the entire studio to Destiny full time.

I can see independent studios with multiple contracts benefiting from having multi teams, it's almost a necessity even to make sure your studio doesn't get without a revenue source even for the shortest amount of time.

But for studios that belong to publishers (or in Bungie's case studios that signed a long term contract with a publisher) I don't see it working very well

 

[LukasTaves]

What tweets?

For the first time since Nuts and Bolts he tweeted about the possibility of making a new banjo, and said that if it were to happen he would design smaller more connected levels.

 

[Michael Armbrust]

Probably not, they've announced the last two (at least) Forza's at E3, right? Seems to be working for them.

Horizon is announced at E3 but not the main games. This will be the latest Motorsport announcement if it releases this year.

 

[Matt]

Xbox has had a pretty bad generation when it comes to returns on first party projects, and MS simply isn't interested in letting Xbox spend money that they don't expect a positive return on.

And $2.5 billion for Minecraft is about the best way Xbox could have spent $2.5 billion in terms of both financial upside and usefulness to the whole company.

 

[ForkNetwork]

Between Mayles and Kirkhope's tweets I'm thinking Banjo might make an appearance.

Not gonna get my hopes up but that'd be nice.

Too soon, but Mayles"s tweeting about it has sparked hope for the future.

 

[Steelyuhas]

Horizon is announced at E3 but not the main games. This will be the latest Motersport announcement if it releases this year.

Ahh, didn't know that Motorsport hadn't been announced at E3's in the past.

Xbox has had a pretty bad generation when it comes to returns on first party projects, and MS simply isn't interested in letting Xbox spend money that they don't expect a positive return on.

And $2.5 billion for Minecraft is about the best way Xbox could have spent $2.5 billion in terms of both financial upside and usefulness to the whole company.

Let's be clear, 2.5 for Minecraft was a terrific deal for MSFT.

 

[-MD-]

What tweets?

Just scroll through his tweets, he's been talking about Banjo and posting rhymes for the past couple weeks.

Didn't Kirkhope leave Rare though?

Yes but I don't think that'd stop him from doing work on a future Rare game, they brought in Chris Seavor to voice Conker in that Project Spark thing even though he left the company years ago.

 

[Heretic]

Let's dare to dream guys. The calm before the storm is because Microsoft has completely sealed up all leaks, and they're going to blow us away with huge surprises.

There are reasons to be pessimistic for sure. Lionhead studios was closed - they were the Fable dev. Press Play was closed - they made awesome games like Kalimba and Max Curse of Brotherhood. Remedy relationship is gone - they made INCREDIBLE games like Alan Wake and Quantum Break. Twisted Pixel relationship is gone - they made INCREDIBLE games like Splosion Man and Ms. Splosion Man (although their last game Lococycle was super weak). They cancelled Scalebound. And they haven't announced new games in a long time.

But fuck it - dare to dream. Here's what Microsoft's E3 will have:

*Scorpio will look just as good as Xbox One S and will cost $399.
*Original Xbox BC is announced.

*Turn10 announces Forza Motorsport 7 and it takes the crown as the best looking and best playing racing game ever made.
*Playground announces a new open world IP, exclusive to Xbox.
*343 announces a new Mass Effect style Halo RPG game, third-person shooter, similar to a blend between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2.
*The Coalition announce they've revived Shangheist and it's their next game.

*State of Decay, Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves, Cuphead, and Tacoma all have hard 2017 release dates
*Ori 2, Recore 2, Sunset Overdrive 2, and Ryse 2 sequels announced.

*Microsoft announces a new publishing company called Microsoft Third-Party Publishing Studios, an initiative where they pay for a myriad of Japanese and indie ports that skipped Xbox - they help the developer make the port, and they get a sizable cut of the profits themselves for helping finance the port. The list includes small games like The Talos Principle, 999, Virtue's Last Reward, The Silver Case, mid-tier niche games like Tales of Beseria, and huge popular games like Nier Automata, Persona 5, FFVII Remake, Shenmue 3, etc...

*Microsoft publically announces the abolishment of the indie parity clause and the 50k disc print limit - queue the flood of previously missing niche indie and Japanese games on Xbox.

*Then, before the show closes, Microsoft has these three final announcements:

**Rare announces Banjo Kazooie 3
**CD Projekt Red contracted to make Fable 4, Witcher 3 like RPG set in Fable universe
** Bethesda / MachineWorks contracted to make Perfect Dark 3, with oversight from Rare.

*And just as the curtains close, Phil Spencer says "And one more thing". The mysterious G-Man appears on-screen in the subsequent trailer, and he says "Welcome back. Welcome back.... to City 17". Cue 2-minute cinematic trailer announcing Half Life 3 is coming out, published by Microsoft, coming out to Xbox, Steam, and Win10.

#Believe

 

[eso76]

#Believe

Missing:

Morrowind Remaster
Splinter cell return to form
Ninja Gaiden Black remaster
Breakdown sequel
Crimson skies sequel
PGR 5 from the reborn Bizarre
Rallisport challenge 3
Alan Wake 2

Pretty accurate aside from that