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[VAVA Mk2]

How is it possible that every Xbox game hits "roadbumps," even when developed by an outside studio? What is the common denominator for these issues?

 

[Mibu no ookami]

This game is co-developed by Microsoft and Crystal Dynamics was never a studio that had the bandwidth to work on two games at once.

You have a studio in the Initiative that has never made a game before and already has gone through one game director and a design director.

Microsoft has limited success standing up studios and this is the same pattern they've always had. It's a really small team, that keeps getting smaller, and yet they're trying as their first game a AAA game.

You look at Housemarque and their AAA-lite game came after 25 years in the business... Bluepoint has been around for 17 years. They're just doing their first original content now aside from their first game in 2006.

 

[Heisenberg007]

While the first parts of your post are completely correct and I 100% agree with you....To act like Naughty Dog hasn't been in the press more times than most others for Incompetent management, Terrible working environment, horrible work culture, bleeding staff, huge staff turnover, Crunch literally rinsing out nearly all staff in the Santa Monica area is completely un true but I guess you just choose to ignore or not know that stuff. Their own staff have literally said that the only reason they ship games is they have unlimited budget from Sony and literally preferential treatment where they can pretty much get away with anything.

Theyve literally had to hire staff straight out of colledge and hollywood because they'd burnt through every single other available professional in the area.

There were crunch issues at ND, but none of the other things you mentioned. And crunch is an industry-wide problem. More importantly, that did not prevent Naughty Dog from delivering games consistently and of the highest quality.

• TLOU (2013)
• TLOU Remastered (2014)
• Uncharted 4 (2016)
• Uncharted Lost Legacy (2017)
• TLOU 2 (2020)
• Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Remastered Collection (2022)
• TLOU Part 1 Remake (2022)
• TLOU Online (due to be released in 2023 or 2024)

8 products in 10 years. 4 new games in 10 years. 3 out of 4 of these new games were GOTYs.

This is not the output of a studio that has "incompetent management."

 

[Banjo64]

While the first parts of your post are completely correct and I 100% agree with you....To act like Naughty Dog hasn't been in the press more times than most others for Incompetent management, Terrible working environment, horrible work culture, bleeding staff, huge staff turnover, Crunch literally rinsing out nearly all staff in the Santa Monica area is completely un true but I guess you just choose to ignore or not know that stuff. Their own staff have literally said that the only reason they ship games is they have unlimited budget from Sony and literally preferential treatment where they can pretty much get away with anything.

Theyve literally had to hire staff straight out of colledge and hollywood because they'd burnt through every single other available professional in the area.

End result matters though and ND don’t disappoint their core fan base but a lot of Xbox Studios have.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

You need games.
While gamepass is the vocal point for the brand, you still need studios to turn those games.

With Bethesda, Xbox can finally solve their draught games.

I don't think Bethesda is enough to carry a console. Their games sell well with userbases established, they're not really system sellers nor do they produce enough content to bring people in year after year.

You really need a combination of system sellers to really push games. Back in the day, you're looking at Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Mario, Pokemon, Halo, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, Animal Crossing, and God of War.

There are games that sell in high numbers that aren't really system sellers though and that's mainly Elder Scrolls games. It's yet to be seen how well that will sell on JUST Xbox especially if it is available on GamePass Day 1 and that's what we're going to see with Starfield, whether it moves significant units or not.

I think Microsoft's day 1 strategy hurts them in the long run where people can think, hey, I can get EVERY single one of these Xbox games on PC, have them play at a higher resolution and frame rate, AND I can play exclusives that come from PlayStation, why would I buy an Xbox? What advantage does the Xbox have over PC? Price?

 

[Heisenberg007]

We don't know what they were playing was, was it even Perfect Dark. The studio started in 2018, from scratch. Then staffing up etc so maybe a small part on an engine that it wasn't going to ship on was playable. That's a long way from a fully scripted fleshed out game. The Initiative would have know they would have to grow massively to ship an AAA game, that's obviously when they decided to bring in Crystal Dynamics and some people left as they probably thought they should staff themselves which would have actually took longer.
Also since it's an UE5 project they would have known it couldn't ship as they would have had a timeline when the engine was ready which was 2022. So in all reality nobody could have thought this game could ship before 2024 and we haven't mentioned COVID.

So it's going to be 2024/2025 and probably was always going to be. The timescale they mention is in relation to Tomb Raider which we also don't have a date for, but 2024 looks likely.

None of this will matter if the game is good.

What? What else would they be playing? Of course, it was Perfect Dark.

• Drew Murray was working on the game
• He says The Initiative's Xbox game
• The Initiative was only working on 1 game

And the girl played for "an hour" which means it was a significant chunk of the game, available to play in a relatively polished state for a kid to enjoy.

Every evidence suggests that the game was being developed at an okay pace until 50% of the staff left The Initiative, and the game was assigned to Crystal Dynamics. It was most likely to rebooted. Otherwise, The Initiative started the game development in 2018. It'd be worse if the plan was to release the game 7 years later.

 

[DenchDeckard]

There were crunch issues at ND, but none of the other things you mentioned. And crunch is an industry-wide problem. More importantly, that did not prevent Naughty Dog from delivering games consistently and of the highest quality.

• TLOU (2013)
• TLOU Remastered (2014)
• Uncharted 4 (2016)
• Uncharted Lost Legacy (2017)
• TLOU 2 (2020)
• Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Remastered Collection (2022)
• TLOU Part 1 Remake (2022)
• TLOU Online (due to be released in 2023 or 2024)

8 products in 10 years. 4 new games in 10 years. 3 out of 4 of these new games were GOTYs.

This is not the output of a studio that has "incompetent management."

You must have ignored any news on Naughty dog and not heard any of the pretty much proven rumours about the studio. I remember loads of stuff coming out but as anything time likes to forget. A quick google search pointed me to this.

 

[Gudji]

What a shit show.

 

[Spyxos]

I like my Xsx, but after 2 years now, i would like to play some big Xbox exklusive games....

 

[DenchDeckard]

End result matters though and ND don’t disappoint their core fan base but a lot of Xbox Studios have.

Totally true, no denying that. I was just trying to point a counter point to highlight that a lot of studios have issues.

But yes, Naughty dog deliver and thats a massive difference.

 

[Heisenberg007]

You must have ignored any news on Naughty dog and not heard any of the pretty much proven rumours about the studio. I remember loads of stuff coming out but as anything time likes to forget. A quick google search pointed me to this.

This is a very subjective post that says "I don't want to work in ND because I don't feel they're the best anymore." which is fair game, more power to him, but very subjective. Similarly, there are people there at ND who continues to work there because they feel it's the best place. Again, very subjective.

I like his empirical data for hours per week, which shows that crunch was there but nowhere as bad as some had us believe.

As for your last point, if nobody wants to work at Naughty Dog, and they couldn't hire anyone, how have they grown from 300 employees to 761 employees now in just 18 months?

And how could they hire more than 70 people in just 6 months?

This just proves that the stories are exaggerated. Another proof is the output I shared above. As I said, I studio with "incompetent management" and "huge turnover" could not have that kind of output (8 games in 10 years) and of that level of quality (3/4 GOTYs). That studio also can't grow by 200% in 18 months if people keep leaving all the time.

 

[Rykan]

I would lower my expectations to the earth's core.

The way they revealed the game with someone talking about how it's not just about shooting and it's going to be an eco-sci-fi, from an ecological angle, I knew it was toast. Perfect Dark was all about shooting, it was a sequel to the greatest shooter of that era with a very silly story. That's the problem with some modern Western developers that focus on story instead of gameplay.

They should have revealed it with gunplay that's balls to the wall.

You certainly had some very strange expectations if you thought that a FPS in 2023 (2025?) would follow the exact design of a game released in 2020. Just walk around, fire gun hasn't been enough for decades now, especially considering current development environment.

 

[feynoob]

I don't think Bethesda is enough to carry a console. Their games sell well with userbases established, they're not really system sellers nor do they produce enough content to bring people in year after year.

You really need a combination of system sellers to really push games. Back in the day, you're looking at Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Mario, Pokemon, Halo, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros, Animal Crossing, and God of War.

There are games that sell in high numbers that aren't really system sellers though and that's mainly Elder Scrolls games. It's yet to be seen how well that will sell on JUST Xbox especially if it is available on GamePass Day 1 and that's what we're going to see with Starfield, whether it moves significant units or not.

I think Microsoft's day 1 strategy hurts them in the long run where people can think, hey, I can get EVERY single one of these Xbox games on PC, have them play at a higher resolution and frame rate, AND I can play exclusives that come from PlayStation, why would I buy an Xbox? What advantage does the Xbox have over PC? Price?

Exclusives are like 20% of the console base. Only Nintendo is the outliner.

Bethesda here covers Xbox draught. Nothing more nothing less.

Without Bethesda, Xbox series would have been another Xbox one.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Exclusives are like 20% of the console base. Only Nintendo is the outliner.

Bethesda here covers Xbox draught. Nothing more nothing less.

Without Bethesda, Xbox series would have been another Xbox one.

I just don't know how important they are. How many games do they put out in a generation? I expect like 3-4 tops here.

 

[MasterCornholio]

This is a very subjective post that says "I don't want to work in ND because I don't feel they're the best anymore." which is fair game, more power to him, but very subjective. Similarly, there are people there at ND who continues to work there because they feel it's the best place. Again, very subjective.

I like his empirical data for hours per week, which shows that crunch was there but nowhere as bad as some had us believe.

As for your last point, if nobody wants to work at Naughty Dog, and they couldn't hire anyone, how have they grown from 300 employees to 761 employees now in just 18 months?

And how could they hire more than 70 people in just 6 months?

This just proves that the stories are exaggerated. Another proof is the output I shared above. As I said, I studio with "incompetent management" and "huge turnover" could not have that kind of output (8 games in 10 years) and of that level of quality (3/4 GOTYs). That studio also can't grow by 200% in 18 months if people keep leaving all the time.

I think in the end what matters to gamers the most are the games. NaughtyDog doesn't seem to have that problem.

There's no way that people can argue that they are horribly managed and produced bad quality games.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I just don't know how important they are. How many games do they put out in a generation? I expect like 3-4 tops here.

Bethesda would matter more when they release games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls, which are not releasing before next-generation at this point.

Games like Redfall, Doom, Ghostwire Tokyo, Deathloop, etc. wouldn't make as big of an impact in terms of shifting userbase.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I think in the end what matters to gamers the most are the games. NaughtyDog doesn't seem to have that problem.

There's no way that people can argue that they are horribly managed and produced bad quality games.

Exactly, that's my point.

You can say a studio has so many problems, but all those rumors and reports would be considered false if the studio is churning GOTY after GOTY at a rapid pace. 4 big AAA games in 10 years is no joke, in addition to 4 other remasters/remake projects.

If they could push all that output, that's evidence that ND didn't have management problems that affected their games.

 

[feynoob]

I just don't know how important they are. How many games do they put out in a generation? I expect like 3-4 tops here.

Bethesda plus these studios.

• ZeniMax Online Studios. ...
• id Software. ...
• Arkane Studios. ...
• Machine Games. ...
• Tango Gameworks. ...
• Alpha Dog Games. ...
• Roundhouse Studios.

That is enough output for Xbox.

It's why zenimax/deal was a good get for them, considering the current state with their studios.

 

[feynoob]

Bethesda would matter more when they release games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls, which are not releasing before next-generation at this point.

Games like Redfall, Doom, Ghostwire Tokyo, Deathloop, etc. wouldn't make as big of an impact in terms of shifting userbase.

Shifting userbase depends on the console owner output, which Xbox lacked severely during Xbox one.
At least gamepass is there for that (those who aren't interested in console exclusive games).

Zenimax studios/Bethesda have a huge void to fill.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Exactly, that's my point.

You can say a studio has so many problems, but all those rumors and reports would be considered false if the studio is churning GOTY after GOTY at a rapid pace. 4 big AAA games in 10 years is no joke, in addition to 4 other remasters/remake projects.

If they could push all that output, that's evidence that ND didn't have management problems that affected their games.

Of course it's more like some individuals are hoping that Naughty Dog are failures when all the evidence points to the opposite being true.

 

[EverydayBeast]

I can live without both of those games.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Bethesda plus these studios.

• ZeniMax Online Studios. ...
• id Software. ...
• Arkane Studios. ...
• Machine Games. ...
• Tango Gameworks. ...
• Alpha Dog Games. ...
• Roundhouse Studios.

That is enough output for Xbox.

It's why zenimax/deal was a good get for them, considering the current state with their studios.

I think what we're not on the same page on is that it's not just about volume of content but the specific draw of the content.

People literally buy consoles for Final Fantasy. They don't really buy consoles because of Deathloop.

There are games that sell well because they are draws and games that sell well because there are a requisite number of units available to sell to and the attach rate hits right.

Look at Demon's Souls remake. It has a 92 on metacritic, yet didn't really sell well. The timing and marketing was probably all wrong. It's not a system seller.

Look at TLOUP1. It's not a system seller either, but due to the popularity of the show, it might sell extremely well. That comes down to timing and circumstance.

Really don't think any LOU game has been an outright system seller other than TLOU:R. Uncharted on the other hand has moved units.

I think we'll see a tremendous decline in sales for Zenimax as long as their games are console exclusive to XSX/S. We've seen the same story play out with Resident Evil and Tomb Raider.

 

[Bonsaibäumchen]

Xbox are on a journey to be that strong across all areas but it’ll take time. We’ve seen multiple 3rd party/independent teams brought into not only support, but develop/lead main parts of games. While co-development or support studios are not uncommon, the configuration for Perfect Dark, Halo and other games suggests the internal pipelines are not great.

The first Xbox released at the end of 2001.
They've had over 20 years of time to set up a good environment for their first party titles.
What have they done in that time?
How much more time are people willing to give MS to figure stuff out? They have all the money in the world at their disposal.
Way more then Sony.
Yet they can't figure out how to do it.

While the first parts of your post are completely correct and I 100% agree with you....To act like Naughty Dog hasn't been in the press more times than most others for Incompetent management, Terrible working environment, horrible work culture, bleeding staff, huge staff turnover, Crunch literally rinsing out nearly all staff in the Santa Monica area is completely un true but I guess you just choose to ignore or not know that stuff. Their own staff have literally said that the only reason they ship games is they have unlimited budget from Sony and literally preferential treatment where they can pretty much get away with anything.

Theyve literally had to hire staff straight out of colledge and hollywood because they'd burnt through every single other available professional in the area.

As some have already stated, in the End they delivered good games. Or at least games that sold well.

 

[Hendrick's]

Troubled path for MSFT and some of their games.

 

[feynoob]

People literally buy consoles for Final Fantasy. They don't really buy consoles because of Deathloop.

That is for forum people. People buy the console for all wide reason. Not just those specific games.

The only to do that, is when you make it exclusive and have no other choice but to play on that specific device.

My point still stands. Zenimax is there to cover the patch which was clear during Xbox one.

 

[SLB1904]

Ninja theory right now

 

[feynoob]

Ninja theory right now

Those guys have games released already.
Hope they don't get infected by this virus.

 

[ADiTAR]

You certainly had some very strange expectations if you thought that a FPS in 2023 (2025?) would follow the exact design of a game released in 2020. Just walk around, fire gun hasn't been enough for decades now, especially considering current development environment.

I had zero expectations actually. Doom 2016 was able to reinvent the wheel with a vintage formula, when they showed it they didn't speak about economical corporations and shit because it didn't fucking matter. Look at how they unveil it how they understood what the core game is:


Showing us PD without exciting gunplay, gadgets (besides the machine gun briefcase), etc just shows that they don't get PD. Yes there was dataDyne, but again, the main game is about Joanna the agent and what she's capable of. There's nothing like it in FPS today and they should have talked about how they modernized that formula.

 

[Salz01]

It sounds like other than Forza, which just iterates on the existing blueprint, every other game by the core Microsoft studios is in some sort of development hell, has issues, or is just years away…. So disappointing.

 

[ÆMNE22A!C]

Who couldn't evade a bump in perfect darkness..

 

[Mibu no ookami]

This is a very subjective post that says "I don't want to work in ND because I don't feel they're the best anymore." which is fair game, more power to him, but very subjective. Similarly, there are people there at ND who continues to work there because they feel it's the best place. Again, very subjective.

I like his empirical data for hours per week, which shows that crunch was there but nowhere as bad as some had us believe.

As for your last point, if nobody wants to work at Naughty Dog, and they couldn't hire anyone, how have they grown from 300 employees to 761 employees now in just 18 months?

And how could they hire more than 70 people in just 6 months?

This just proves that the stories are exaggerated. Another proof is the output I shared above. As I said, I studio with "incompetent management" and "huge turnover" could not have that kind of output (8 games in 10 years) and of that level of quality (3/4 GOTYs). That studio also can't grow by 200% in 18 months if people keep leaving all the time.

There are multiple sides to every story.

And disgruntled employees and their stories should largely be taken with a grain of salt, especially when they don't match up with what can be seen and verified.

Sometimes management is bad and sometimes employees are bad. It's hard to tell, but there is no denying that TLOU, TLOU2, and Uncharted 4 were all GOTY candidates. There is no arguing that TLOU:R, and TLOUP1 are both extremely high-selling games and financial success.

Naughty Dog is a multibillion-dollar studio the idea that this guy who now does animation for Apple is working with the best is hilarious. Apple doesn't do animation for video games OR tv OR movies at a rate anyone would call them the best.

I honestly can't imagine anyone arguing that Naughty Dog isn't at the top of the industry and if they're able to work on multiple projects at once and do so without crunch going forward, they'll probably be able to retain talent more and put out high revenue projects. It can't be overstated what a success they've had with this HBO series and how this is going to fast-track their studio's growth even more. That they're making a Jak and Daxter movie suggests just how much Sony is going to double down on them. Three active franchises that will probably all receive new content, and a rumored new IP as well... What other studio can say this?

 

[Mibu no ookami]

That is for forum people. People buy the console for all wide reason. Not just those specific games.

The only to do that, is when you make it exclusive and have no other choice but to play on that specific device.

My point still stands. Zenimax is there to cover the patch which was clear during Xbox one.

I'm talking about in the millions of units, not the individual consumer. That has always been the difference maker in this industry.

My point still stands that Zenimax isn't capable of covering the gap.

 

[feynoob]

I'm talking about in the millions of units, not the individual consumer. That has always been the difference maker in this industry.

My point still stands that Zenimax isn't capable of covering the gap.

Sales matters nothing. You have games that sell big in first sales, and disappear. While other games sell normal first year, but sell insane numbers later stages.

What matters is if that game can bring userbase in the longer run, not just day1. So games like redfall, ghost wire Tokyo and death loop are like long term games which is a good fit for gamepass.

Zenimax fits Xbox future long term. We know their quality.

 

[Ronin_7]

Are there any Xbox games not in development hell right now? I was one of the first few thousand people to sign up for Xbox live when it first launched and have had a subscription NON STOP ever since. But my word, this generation is a colossal disappointment so far.

Let's hope they can turn things around with Starfield, etc.

Theresa like 3/4 games which development is going well:

Forza Motorsport
Forza Horizon 6
Forza Motorsport 2
Forza Horizon Reboot

 

[Sorcerer]

Especially with a gazillion FPS devs internally.
I always hoped it would be third person though, still hope they’ll do it if only as a bonus choice. But they wouldn’t dare to do Joanna justice from that perspective with how much MS care about modern audience Twitter noise.

"Especially with a gazillion FPS devs internally"
I'm guessing this may the problem. Microsoft has so much riding on this that they are bringing in people on all those FPS teams to give feedback and they scrap the game and start over on a continual basis when someone comes in with a new suggestion. Too many cooks in the kitchen perhaps. If the game has no focus, it will just be a mess anyway. The game being built by committee and to hit bullet points rather than any real artistic intention. Just let it die for now. (As much as I anticipate a new game in the series).

 

[Topher]

i mean, the shit that happened at naughty dog with last of us 2 would make this stuff look like nothing but people choose to ignore that and literally call them naughty gods. A studio that burnt out around 60 to 70 percent of its creative leads before release by scrapping so much content and re jigging it to where they had to hire Hollywood special effects professionals because they'd burnt our all game developers in the area and we're short staffed.

That's bullshit. That "70 percent" nonsense came from Jason Schrierer's Kotaku article. 14 out of 19 non-lead designers left Naughty Dog sometime between Uncharted 4's completion and TLOU 2's release. There was no indication of the reasons. No idea where the rest of that is coming from but it sounds entirely made up.

Why are you making this about Sony anyway?

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

Are there any Xbox games not in development hell right now? I was one of the first few thousand people to sign up for Xbox live when it first launched and have had a subscription NON STOP ever since. But my word, this generation is a colossal disappointment so far.

Let's hope they can turn things around with Starfield, etc.

Avowed, hellblade, fable, State of decay 3 , contraband seem to be going well. No news of poor development.

 

[Punished Miku]

Are there any Xbox games not in development hell right now?

Age of Empires 2 comes out in like a week.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

The first Xbox released at the end of 2001.
They've had over 20 years of time to set up a good environment for their first party titles.
What have they done in that time?
How much more time are people willing to give MS to figure stuff out? They have all the money in the world at their disposal.
Way more then Sony.
Yet they can't figure out how to do it.




As some have already stated, in the End they delivered good games. Or at least games that sold well.

I've said similar but I think we need to tell the whole story.

Back during the Xbox PS2 days, Microsoft's focus was on Xbox Live, multiplayer, and Halo. At the time Halo was bigger than pretty much anything Sony had other than Gran Turismo.

At this time, Microsoft was focused on getting 3rd party support with little 1st party support. Sony was in a similar situation, where they didn't really focus on 1st party gaming much. They did buy Bungie and Rare though. They also established Turn 10 and bought lionhead in 2006.

The deal with Peter Molyneux which worked until it didn't. He was more of a visionary than someone who executes. During the 360 a partnership with Epic resulted in Gears of War, which was wildly successful.

Overall, Microsoft thought they were doing really well.

In the meantime, Sony upped their first-party offerings because they kind of had to and played a lot of catch-up on PlayStation Network and the PS4 ended up being a better option than the Xbox One. Cheaper AND more powerful. This was a terrible mistake for Microsoft. Meanwhile, their internal development broke down. Bungie left, Rare had been mismanaged, and Epic also would separate from continuing their 2nd party relationship.

It's really hard to manage a multitude of studios and it's hard to make great games. Look at Ubi Soft, Midway, and Acclaim... many big companies in this industry have or will go under because they weren't able to produce. Look at where EA is right now compared to where they were 15 years ago. Look at most AAA Japanese studios. This shit is hard. Some rise to the top and others don't.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Sales matters nothing. You have games that sell big in first sales, and disappear. While other games sell normal first year, but sell insane numbers later stages.

What matters is if that game can bring userbase in the longer run, not just day1. So games like redfall, ghost wire Tokyo and death loop are like long term games which is a good fit for gamepass.

Zenimax fits Xbox future long term. We know their quality.

Who said anything about day 1? What a strange strawman that was.

 

[feynoob]

Who said anything about day 1? What a strange strawman that was.

You were talking about sales. Not all sales are the same.

Anyway, zenimax studios is there to patch Xbox hole for 1st party studios. And that is their job. They don't need a must system seller games.

That would come later, when they settle down, and expand their numbers.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

You were talking about sales. Not all sales are the same.

Anyway, zenimax studios is there to patch Xbox hole for 1st party studios. And that is their job. They don't need a must system seller games.

That would come later, when they settle down, and expand their numbers.

Maybe we just think differently about the dire situation Microsoft is in right now.

They just had a year without a killer app and this year doesn't look like it's going to be amazing for them either. Once you fall too far behind the market has changed. N64 got some bangers towards the end, but it was too late, people weren't buying it.

Spider-Man 2 is going to be the biggest exclusive of the year, last year was God of War Ragnarok, followed by Gran Turismo, followed by Horizon Forbidden West... You can't sustain that without responding and I don't think Zenimax is enough. As I said, we'll see how Starfield does.

Elder Scrolls V was a much bigger hit on 360 than it was on PS3. That was due to the userbase of the Xbox, iirc ESV played much better on 360 as well. It was the go to console to buy it on. XSX/S just isn't in the same position here and GamePass is going to reduce the overall sales of Starfield as well since so many will play it via the sub. What Microsoft is hoping is that millions sub to GamePass to play it and keep it. That's a risky proposition for such an expensive game to make. What they need is for it to be a cultural phenomenon more so than Skyrim itself, so people are pushing to buy XSX/S in order to play it, so that even if they don't keep GamePass, they still have the console.

All this while people are talking about Spider-Man 2.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Why are you making this about Sony anyway?

Because he wants to apply the me too effect which we know doesn't work here.

In the end this topic is about Microsoft and not Sony. That's the reality.

 

[Topher]

Because he wants to apply the mee too effect which we know doesn't work here.

In the end this topic is about Microsoft and not Sony. That's the reality.

Typical console warrior defense mechanism, I guess.

 

[Sanepar]

Why besides FH, microsoft can't delivery any game in a reasonable schedule?

 

[Riky]

What? What else would they be playing? Of course, it was Perfect Dark.

• Drew Murray was working on the game
• He says The Initiative's Xbox game
• The Initiative was only working on 1 game

And the girl played for "an hour" which means it was a significant chunk of the game, available to play in a relatively polished state for a kid to enjoy.

Every evidence suggests that the game was being developed at an okay pace until 50% of the staff left The Initiative, and the game was assigned to Crystal Dynamics. It was most likely to rebooted. Otherwise, The Initiative started the game development in 2018. It'd be worse if the plan was to release the game 7 years later.

Things like a "relatively" polished state are just a creation by you. A young child played for all we know was a concept demo only a couple of years after a small studio was formed from scratch, we don't even know if that will be in the game.
Just the timeline of forming a studio and making an AAA game makes me think that any earlier than 2024 was a stretch to begin with.

 

[feynoob]

Maybe we just think differently about the dire situation Microsoft is in right now.

They just had a year without a killer app and this year doesn't look like it's going to be amazing for them either. Once you fall too far behind the market has changed. N64 got some bangers towards the end, but it was too late, people weren't buying it.

Spider-Man 2 is going to be the biggest exclusive of the year, last year was God of War Ragnarok, followed by Gran Turismo, followed by Horizon Forbidden West... You can't sustain that without responding and I don't think Zenimax is enough. As I said, we'll see how Starfield does.

Elder Scrolls V was a much bigger hit on 360 than it was on PS3. That was due to the userbase of the Xbox, iirc ESV played much better on 360 as well. It was the go to console to buy it on. XSX/S just isn't in the same position here and GamePass is going to reduce the overall sales of Starfield as well since so many will play it via the sub. What Microsoft is hoping is that millions sub to GamePass to play it and keep it. That's a risky proposition for such an expensive game to make. What they need is for it to be a cultural phenomenon more so than Skyrim itself, so people are pushing to buy XSX/S in order to play it, so that even if they don't keep GamePass, they still have the console.

All this while people are talking about Spider-Man 2.

Spiderman 2 is going to be big, because it's spiderman. Everyone likes that spider guy.

You are underestimating zenimax here, and how massive their IPs is.

We will see their impact in the future, and how much will they change Xbox.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Spiderman 2 is going to be big, because it's spiderman. Everyone likes that spider guy.

You are underestimating zenimax here, and how massive their IPs is.

We will see their impact in the future, and how much will they change Xbox.

I might be, but I think you have to keep in mind that

1) this is an original IP
2) it's available on PC and Xbox
3) it's available on GamePass

These are difficult factors to overcome for it to be specifically a system seller for XSX/S

Spider-Man 2 conversely is an established IP, only available on PS5 day 1, and can't be purchased via a sub-model.

Skyrim is their most successful game and it sold 30 million copies across like 6 platforms over the course of like 5 years.

Spider-Man by itself sold 20 million copies on PS4 alone.

But I could certainly be wrong about how it plays out. It's going to be an interesting year.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Typical console warrior defense mechanism, I guess.

In no way im saying Naughty Dog is perfect. But we have games from them and we know the quality of them.

When it comes to Naughty Dog I hope we see factions soon. I'm not really into multiplayer games but I hope it's good.

 

[bentanchorbolt]

So it was Microsoft's plan from the beginning to assemble the A-Team -- by hiring top-talent from Rockstar, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica -- start Perfect Dark production (the first AAAA game), let go of 50% of that A-Team, disband the core group of people, bring in Crystal Dynamics to complete the game, pause Perfect Dark, and have CD first release Tomb Raider instead?

Was it also MS's plan to announce the game in 2020 and then release it around 2026?

The logical point is that none of this was part of some grand genius plan. Things just fell through and didn't go as expected.

There is no grand conspiracy against Microsoft and Xbox. They are in the negative news because several of their studios have development and management problems. The proof is in the pudding: none of the big games they showed in 2020 has released:

• Avowed
• Fable
• Perfect Dark
• Hellblade
• State of Decay 3
• Everwild, etc.

No Sony studio has struggled like this, however. That's why we don't hear negative stuff about that. When there were issues with Japan Studio and Bend Studio, we all heard about them and criticized PlayStation until they fixed the problem.

The problem with Santa Monica wasn't that they couldn't complete God of War and had to outsource the primary development to another AAA studio. The problem with Santa Monica was that they were working on another project they had to cancel after 36 months.

Once they started developing God of War, they finished it in ~3 years and shipped a polished Game of the Year.

I didn’t change my views despite these posts.