Phil Spencer feels it's counter productive to lock people away from games by making them device exclusive, prefers to scale games across ecosystem

Okay...do you have ANY knowledge about technology, cloud, software or anything other than videogames?

Because if you do, you would've seen where things are headed within the tech world. You don't have to like them, you don't have to support them, but you have to acknowledge them and prepare acordingly. Otherwise you'll pass as an ignorant ludite.

1) The moment each company decided they would go the x86 route is the moment generations died altogether. The x86 architecture IS "GENERATIONLESS" and ridiculously scalable, allowing devs and enthusiasts experiment with hardware to no end. Strictly speaking, the "9th generation" isn't a generational leap, but an upgrade in specs and processing power. Nothing more, nothing less.

2) From here to 7 years forward, don't expect the "10th generation" (if it ever comes to exist) to be a huge leap, rather "minor" improvement over what we have now, simply because the x86 architecture is reaching its limits and the transistors can't be shrunk any more than what currently TSMC and Samsung have researched, because if they do, they'd have to deal with electrons jumping from one transistor to another due to small size. There's a physics limit we can't breach with silicon and they'd have to change materials.

3) Gaming as we know and love is dead. It started the decline this generation and will end within the 9th one. Instead, a new form of gaming will evolve based on ecosystems. Why? because they're profitable. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, etc... all have their own ecosystems from which they have a constant stream of revenue and will do everything in their power to keep the user locked to their ecosystem. They don't care about hardware as much (heck, even Google has its Pixel lineup) because they know that's not where the money comes from. Money comes from users and bussinesses that pay monthly fees for their services.

Why has Sony made PS+ mandatory to play online on PS4 and Nintendo charged for their online service? Because they'd be better? No, because it makes them far more money than single game sales can ever make them. They don't care about consoles sold. They care about how much active subscribers they have. A happy subscriber easily pays the price of 2 consoles over the generation lifespan by paying for the subscription and buying games in their own online stores (while taking a 30% cut from it).

Do you know now where Phil gets his acts from? The signs are there, the market has spoken and there's nothing we can do about it... except complain and bitch about it.

Finally, someone who knows what they're talking about.
 
Very little that feels next gen ever comes out in the first year of a consoles life, especially not from Sony given history. If third parties force a game to be cross-gen due to install base(like we saw with Shadow of Mordor and DA:I), that's on them not the console manufacturers.

Some of the best games ever come out at the end of a consoles life cycle, and a few games at that late stage should just go cross-gen anyways. You don't need all the power in the world to make something amazing and creative.
 
This is a typical thread. Phil Spencer says something ( anything really) and sony fans go into a frenzy about it. He's talking about the buying of Timed third-party exclusives, for the sole purpose of preventing them from appearing on opposing consoles. He is NOT talking about first party exclusives. He is NOT talking about third parties that make a game exclusive by deciding not to add other platforms. Paying for timed third party exclusives is bad for gamers. Its a dick move.

Yet the usual people are failing to see how the same thing they complained about MS doing in the past, is what sony is doing now. Attempting to shore up a weak first party line up ( that is what this really is). I'm sure sony fans will disagree because its sony.

The vitriol leading up to this gen is grosser than any I've seen before (and I've lived through all 9 generations). So much goal post moving, so much "I'm fine with this because MY team is doing it now," so much nonsense.
 
This is a typical thread. Phil Spencer says something ( anything really) and sony fans go into a frenzy about it. He's talking about the buying of Timed third-party exclusives, for the sole purpose of preventing them from appearing on opposing consoles. He is NOT talking about first party exclusives. He is NOT talking about third parties that make a game exclusive by deciding not to add other platforms. Paying for timed third party exclusives is bad for gamers. Its a dick move.

Yet the usual people are failing to see how the same thing they complained about MS doing in the past, is what sony is doing now. Attempting to shore up a weak first party line up ( that is what this really is). I'm sure sony fans will disagree because its sony.

I agree completely and timed exclusives are a dick move, but it makes much more sense for Xbox software to be immediately available on PC, not so much for Sony when they are trying to sell their own hardware.

One thing is for sure, when there's heathy competition gamers ultimately get a better product. I see exclusives as a product of the brand division and necessary—without exclusives we mine as well just have one box on offer/no competition.
 
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You need to be a serious fanboy to spin this in something negative for us gamers
 
Gaming is about making games, MS you making those? Then good well see what you making , just dont show us valhalla again..
 
Phil Spencer allowed Age of Empires IV to be a thing. For this I am eternally grateful, even if Relic might fuck it up (I trust Adam Isgreen to not fuck it up, though)
 
I don't care about the console held back by the old console etc. but Phil what the actual f*ck are you talking about? How a company is supposed to make money without exclusivity? If there are no exclusives at all (be it software or services) then why releasing different consoles. I can't understand him. Is he scared?
 
And he is right , in about 10 years (Earlier, but than it's mainstream) , it's software that you install on devices to consume gaming . A Sony app, A Xbox and Nintendo app, which lets you play their catalogue.

Dinosaurs went instinct, but some won't be able to adapt , for them you have Lockhart like consoles.
 
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1) The moment each company decided they would go the x86 route is the moment generations died altogether. The x86 architecture IS "GENERATIONLESS" and ridiculously scalable, allowing devs and enthusiasts experiment with hardware to no end.

You are seriously overselling this point... especially in an industry where another architecture is actually rising and starting to challenge x86 on the Desktop and Cloud solutions thanks to its foothold on mobile... little British tech called ARM.

Generations is an approach, it is an intentional console design approach, ISA is a factor but a small one at that (see how a small tiny selection of OG x86 Xbox titles actually were BC on the x86 Xbox One) and it ignores the ISA changes that occurred and keep occurring in x86's altogether. Console games development has generally differed from PC not because of a CPU ISA, but because of specific choice to block and stabilise your HW configuration for 5-6 years and offer dependable very low level access to it while covering only BC (if built in) with the previous generation software titles but creating an environment where your software vendors had an incentive to start fresh focused only on the new console HW.

From the software vendor point of view there was a business chance to break new ground/try new things and gather more users and get more noticed. They also have the incentive to focus on the new HW (a combination of performance improvements in several components, more memory, bigger and more versatile storage, new OS capabilities, and new gaming input peripherals... a planned eco system jump) with the safety that years long R&D targeted to that HW was going to pay off as the HW was a fixed known quantity they could rely on. Gamers benefited from the results.

On cross generation approaches or PC/mobile cross generation approaches the device:OS (and drivers) support matrix focuses you to optimise for a minimum common denominator and brute force your way up on faster HW with cosmetic changes in many cases and development, bug fixing, and optimisation (who needs that :)? Just give gamers tons of switches and settings they will do it for you ;)) become orders of magnitude more costly the more you stay close to the HW. Look for how many developers who do lots of work on the latest mobile OS and HW features and thus how much you end up buying HW for hype more and more than actual features/capabilities and you will have your answer.

Then again, will consoles and generations be a thing 30 years from now? Maybe not, who knows? Do not see the point of playing the progressive vs Luddite card if someone does not bend the back to the iterative PC like approach a PC based company like MS is trying to push everywhere and trying to convince gamers it is the best for them.
Enter the console market, embrace the rules and expectations and experience, extend it trying to morph it into the land they know and monopolise called PC, and extinguish it? Typical MS playbook... actually a term they invented to be fair. Is that your point then ;)?
 
What's with people against crossgens?

You have a beautiful PC for that approach, it is not how consoles have ever worked and nobody has really well argued how that improves things over the BC + generations based approach that defines the medium.

Why do you want consoles to become like closed / fixed specs PC's? What is the benefit if we move to generationless iterative HW like mobile phones and have devs aim to more and more generic HW even on consoles and spend more time configuring and testing on more HW variations?
 
Gamers seem to be smarter than Phil realises. At least going by Neogaf.

Umm, maybe not always but sometimes.

One thing Phil is forgetting is, gamers are gearheads a lot of time. Suffering from gear acquisition syndrome. 2-3 consoles in market keeps me looking forward to them.

Finally being able to play that Zelda or God of War or halo feels sweet.

But he is correct of all you want to play is online. In online games, bigger community is better no question.
 
I do find it somewhat ironic when a MS employee takes a dig at restrictive business models of other companies.

I mean, MS only got where it is today by being the most ruthless, restrictive, anti competitive company you can imagine, under Bill Gates.
 
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MS is just going EA/Ubi route, I don't know what/how hard is it to understand? Exclusives are good for fanboys and their console wars on the internet, nothing more, a good fun game is a good fun game regarding of it's platform, see Minecraft or Fortnite for reference, and vice versa, bad game will be bad despite being a 1st party exclusives. Enjoy games for what they are, not who makes them.
 
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if you don't understand how old hardware holds back console development, you are literally walking in the dark.

Please do some research on closed system development.

"Our teams have a pretty good skillset on architecting things so that it is scalable and putting that into the hands of players. We are so tightly connected to the hardware team and the platform team, that I don't ever worry about taking advantage of the high end."

This is the entire problem right here. Entire Dev processes are created differently in a closed system. Not having to worry about scalability and worrying SOLEY about the high end makes a far better product.
It's not going to be forever! Xbox One will be phased out!

You are walking in the dark if you think that in the first year of a consoles life you'll see a console pushed to its limit. No research or knowledge I have of game development will change my opinion on the two models I talked about.
 
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I do find it somewhat ironic when a MS employee takes a dig at restrictive business models of other companies.

I mean, MS only got where it is today by being the most ruthless, restrictive, anti competitive company you can imagine, under Bill Gates.

He's a salesman, and given the messianic standing he has amongst lots of Xbox fans, a damn good one at that. But you're right, him working for one of the very richest companies on earth gives me a little feeling that no, this guy does not have my best interests at heart in any way, shape or form...

He'd happily see the console industry implode on itself if it meant MS benefited from it, all while smiling and telling us 'this is great for us gamers'.

GTFO of here.
 
However, those are both a different story. The PS3 and PS4 had no real compatibility in code base and had substantially different hardware to the point where it would cost more money than it would be worth to bring Killzone and Infamous over to PS3.

However, the PS4 and PS5 both have the same architecture so bringing a game over (especially the two examples I laid out, which are both fundamentally based on previous gen games) should not be terribly difficult, and espescially with Spider-Man they could almost certainly just port the map over, add the story content and cutscenes with the PS4 versions of the textures and re-code any new gameplay elements.
I just like to say PS5 I/O is 100 times faster than PS4 and cpu and gpu is much better. They have to scale back a lot of things to run it on ps4.
 
Already starting the damage control, classic MS i guess, doesn't smell good for their 23/7 show eww
Lol yep, I think their show will be great but this messaging doesn't sound well for their next generation as a whole. They'll need a lot of exclusives to take on the PS5
 
By waiting for the launch of PS5, which is only 3-4 months from now.
Leaders of gaming? They beat MS in one area...exclusives. Xbox is superior in every other way from BC, gamepass, live, majority of best multiplats, more consumer friendly,etc...

It's a new Generation where XSX is the most powerful console that will be price evenly with the PS5 or even cheaper on top of having Lockhart in an economic global recession . Xbox has significantly invested in numerous 1st party studios with the possibility of acquiring WB Games division or others.

Its a new ball game. This isn't 2013 Don Mattrick era where XB1 launched a hundred dolllars more while being 50% weaker, with little 1st party studios.
All PS5 needs are good exclusives to stay on top though
 
MS is just going EA/Ubi route, I don't know what/how hard is it to understand? Exclusives are good for fanboys and their console wars on the internet, nothing more, a good fun game is a good fun game regarding of it's platform, see Minecraft or Fortnite for reference, and vice versa, bad game will be bad despite being a 1st party exclusives. Enjoy games for what they are, not who makes them.

MS going third party/multiplatform? Whoa...
 
Lol, how is what he is saying a bad thing?

Ah, you want to play games designed to be played on a Jaguar CPU? How is that a positive?

BTW, I have to admire MS's marketing team, they are so good at coming up with BS, even when they have a very good product, they can't help themselves and push BS around to hide their weaknesses. They simply don't have next gen games for the next couple of years, but I'm sure those 120 FPS games will feel great in those TVs owned by 0.003% of the player base.
 
MS is just going EA/Ubi route, I don't know what/how hard is it to understand? Exclusives are good for fanboys and their console wars on the internet, nothing more, a good fun game is a good fun game regarding of it's platform, see Minecraft or Fortnite for reference, and vice versa, bad game will be bad despite being a 1st party exclusives. Enjoy games for what they are, not who makes them.
Exclusives provide the most value to a game console. It has always been this way. If it wasn't for exclusives we might as well have one console manufacturer
 
Ah, you want to play games designed to be played on a Jaguar CPU? How is that a positive?
That argument again... Apparently game developers are idiots that don't know what they are doing even though they have developed for PC for decades
 
Is there someone who runs his mouth more than Phil Spencer? I heard countless times how he went to Japan over the years and he thought it would make a difference. Havent seen anything that suggest that.
 
That argument again... Apparently game developers are idiots that don't know what they are doing even though they have developed for PC for decades

Oh yeah, what is not to love about fighting drivers, multiple OS releases, multiple HW configurations, generations of bugs, and vast performance and features matrices while trying to realise your vision and debug the whole thing (who cares about QA-ing on that web? Oh yeah, gamers finding tons of bugs at launch do ;))... minimum common denominator says what ;)?
 
Do you know now where Phil gets his acts from? The signs are there, the market has spoken and there's nothing we can do about it... except complain and bitch about it.

I agree a lot with this, ecosystems is huge, look at Apple and Android, Xbox is just trying to do it really early and its paying off in my eyes, multiple of my friends and moved to Xbox for XCloud, GamePass and Gamepass PC.
 
What IS gaming about Phil?

Only you can tell us... Sony and Nintendo have obviously lost their way, they make too many games, too exclusive and they should stop letting people 'own' their games and instead rent games to people....letting people own stuff is 'overrated'.

Making money obviously which is the whole reason he is doing this. I wouldn't be surprised if he started making mobile games, everything scales and you want to be as 'pro-gaming' as possible, so do it. What's more pro-gaming than releasing on a device everybody owns. Anything consoles offer is nothing to write home about.
 
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I'm literally getting XSX at launch mainly because I have over 100 games for bc
So...maybe he's kind of right?
 
Close a deal with Sony and bring Halo on Ps and ND on Xbox... For now it sounds just like "fuck you poopoo I want your games so bring them... But I'm not bring mines".
 
I just go wherever the best games are. I'm platform agnostic and I love it.

I'm a videogame centrist! Take that fanboys!
 
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Well, an Xbox thread filled with Sony fanboys and MS haters. What could go wrong?

So it's only "pro consumer" for the first year, then after the first year, "fuck off consumer?"

It's giving time for people who maybe can't buy a next console early to still enjoy the new games launched.

It's not that difficult to understand if you leave your hate of the brand at the door.
 
I'm literally getting XSX at launch mainly because I have over 100 games for bc
So...maybe he's kind of right?

Glad for it to have strong BC support, but BC and generationless / cross generation releases and BC are orthogonal concepts. If you have BC, why cannot you also have exclusive titles making full optimal use of the new HW? How does it impact your older titles?
 
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Well, an Xbox thread filled with Sony fanboys and MS haters. What could go wrong?



It's giving time for people who maybe can't buy a next console early to still enjoy the new games launched.

It's not that difficult to understand if you leave your hate of the brand at the door.

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Well, an Xbox thread filled with Sony fanboys and MS haters. What could go wrong?



It's giving time for people who maybe can't buy a next console early to still enjoy the new games launched.

It's not that difficult to understand if you leave your hate of the brand at the door.

Again, our studios are not ready yet so let's see if this approach works better to hold you off in the meanwhile and see if this can be sold as a pro consumer move where they are caring for poor players in a pro consumer move only for a single year later to give those same customers the middle finger essentially then.

Is MS expecting those people to get a second job to save enough money for XSX and exclusives in that year now :LOL:?
 
Again, our studios are not ready yet so let's see if this approach works better to hold you off in the meanwhile and see if this can be sold as a pro consumer move where they are caring for poor players in a pro consumer move only for a single year later to give those same customers the middle finger essentially then.

Is MS expecting those people to get a second job to save enough money for XSX and exclusives in that year now :LOL:?

Calm down Panjev, your hate boner frenzy in this thread can actually cause you a heart attack or something.

I know you would die happy doing the thing you love the most, but still.
 
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