Nice job. Is that really all of MS first party studios?
This is the kind of keynote MS would need to make me believe in them:
- Open big with a huge brand new IP from a brand new internal Microsoft studio, or from a great second-party partner; AAA, strong single player component, has to look incredible.
- Announce and show a completely reworked, dedicated PC Storefront that rivals Steam.
- Announce Halo MCC, 5, Sunset, FH2 and RR on PC; Two of which should be "available now".
- Announce digital BC on PC with all compatible games being sold on their store eventually.
- Announce Playground's new game with a trailer, concept looks great, fully Xbox/Win10 exclusive, no date.
- Crackdown shown in a lenghy demo that looks like an awesome thing that was never done before.
- Forza 7 annouce and trailer.
- Announce a new AA IP in a smaller second-party parnership, 40 dollar game, same vein of Recore.
- Third-party multiplat stuff, kept to a minimum
- Gears 4 standalone DLC
- Announce at least one nostalgia project, smartly-budget and reasonably priced; It could be Battletoads done by a competent developer like WayForward, 2D, beat 'em up in the vein of MRB, or a new Lost Odyssey or a new Rise of Nations.
- Announce plans to remaster the best Og Xbox games, starting with 3 high caliber ones like Panzer Orta, Crimson Skies and Rallisport Challenge, all shown in a single trailer.
- Ashen new trailer (Hopefully Cuphead will be out by now)
- Brand new promising ID@Xbox exclusive game.
- ID@Xbox montage
- Ori and the WotW announced, trailer.
- State of Decay 2 demo/trailer
- Scalebound demo that looks good for once.
- Sea of Thieves; I don't care what they do here, they need to concisely show what the game is about and get the audience hyped as fuck.
- Closing, blahblahblah, I'm so proud, look at my shirt.
- One more thing and it's either a new Banjo shown in an awesome gameplay trailer or KOTOR 3 by Obsidian (this one could be just a teaser).
- Don't fucking tease Halo 6, even if it's coming out in 2018. Let the name Halo breath for a while.
You're welcome Phil. Keep Perfect Dark 2, Crimson Skies 2, KI4, Fable 4, a Zelda-killer new IP from Rare and Halo 6: Rise of the Mega Bloks for next year.
Yooka Laylee leads us to believe the market is thereThis makes me wonder...how would a new banjo do comercially nowadays? I would buy it immediately if its still a 3d plattformer, but I dont know about everyone else
Yooka Laylee leads us to believe the market is there
This makes me wonder...how would a new banjo do comercially nowadays? I would buy it immediately if its still a 3d plattformer, but I dont know about everyone else
Man I would love to see MS let 343i and The Coalition just go wild like ND went with TLOU. I bet for the people there who have been working on the same series over and over and over again, the passion they'd have to work on something completely creatively new would be immense.
The two full team approach sounds amazing on paper but is difficult to pull off in practice. As amazing as it would be for 343 and The Coalition to crank out Halo/Gears and new IP, it would be extremely unlikely. Best-case scenario would be the type of approach Guerrilla Games took with Killzone and Horizon. Have a small team conducting pre-production and prototyping while the bulk of the studio handles another game. Two full productions at one time would be quite a feat.
Man I would love to see MS let 343i and The Coalition just go wild like ND went with TLOU. I bet for the people there who have been working on the same series over and over and over again, the passion they'd have to work on something completely creatively new would be immense.
Unfortunately that goes directly against MS's philosophy, which is what separates them from someone like Sony in terms of giving their developers space.
343 and Coalition were created specifically because MS tried to force Bungie and Epic to continue making the same franchise for them over and over again.
Epic and Bungie both got tired. MS's brilliant idea was to just create two studios instead and make them do it
Also, The Coalition was never built to be a Gears factory, it was made into one so that Microsoft had a studio that could handle the IP and its lore, much like 343 is the bastion for all things Halo.
This is true, which makes eve worse IMO. They were a new studio, working on a new IP and Microsoft shifted them into Gears, even changin the studio's name in the proccess.
At least Gears4 was good, but still..
I think GAF give too much credit to new IP because of the unknown and possibility.
Shangheist could be toaster strudel and get shutdown and we will say "please bring back Gears." instead.
They were asked if they wanted to. It wasn't forced, only encouraged.
"Would you kindly"
jk
While it may seem obvious folks would want to work on New and exciting IPs, these are jobs we're talking about. Being a factory for a major 1st party IP means a hell of a lot of job security, more than your typical studio.
I think GAF give too much credit to new IP because of the unknown and possibility.
Shangheist could be toaster strudel and get shutdown and we will say "please bring back Gears." instead.
Seas of Thieves full release will be 2018 probably, but I fully expect an early access version this year (or very large beta).
Asking 343i to work on a new IP is like asking The Pokémon Company do the same. After all these years I don't get how people don't understand that. They will never do anything other than Halo since that's literally why they exist. They're MS's permanent Halo team, and this includes not just internally developed games, but publishing and overseeing external games, licensing/branding, and all non-game media (such as movies, TV shows, web shows, books, comics, everything). You get a job at 343i to work on Halo because that's the entire purpose of the studio, they're not some random studio that got "stuck". Hell, they're even named after a prominent Halo character.
As for The Coalition, while they weren't founded with the express purpose of being the stewards of the Gears franchise like 343i was for Halo, they did elect to become just that. While it may seem obvious folks would want to work on New and Exciting IPs, these are jobs we're talking about. Being a factory for a major 1st party IP means a hell of a lot of job security, more than your typical studio. Being the Gears team means that they're much less likely to get downsized, sold off, or shut down, which means everyone feels safer in their position. A new IP could be canceled at any moment - Gears 5 is guaranteed to be released.
Same here. The only exclusives I really feel like I'm missing out on is Scalebound and Forza Horizon. Just never played my Bone enough to justify keeping it.Yep. I sold my Xbox One after last E3. I bought pretty much all the multiplats on PS4 anyway so I lost basically nothing
Asking 343i to work on a new IP is like asking The Pokémon Company do the same. After all these years I don't get how people don't understand that. They will never do anything other than Halo since that's literally why they exist. They're MS's permanent Halo team, and this includes not just internally developed games, but publishing and overseeing external games, licensing/branding, and all non-game media (such as movies, TV shows, web shows, books, comics, everything). You get a job at 343i to work on Halo because that's the entire purpose of the studio, they're not some random studio that got "stuck". Hell, they're even named after a prominent Halo character.
As for The Coalition, while they weren't founded with the express purpose of being the stewards of the Gears franchise like 343i was for Halo, they did elect to become just that. While it may seem obvious folks would want to work on New and Exciting™ IPs, these are jobs we're talking about. Being a factory for a major 1st party IP means a hell of a lot of job security, more than your typical studio. Being the Gears team means that they're much less likely to get downsized, sold off, or shut down, which means everyone feels safer in their position. A new IP could be canceled at any moment - Gears 5 is guaranteed to be released.
Asking 343i to work on a new IP is like asking The Pokémon Company do the same. After all these years I don't get how people don't understand that. They will never do anything other than Halo since that's literally why they exist. They're MS's permanent Halo team, and this includes not just internally developed games, but publishing and overseeing external games, licensing/branding, and all non-game media (such as movies, TV shows, web shows, books, comics, everything). You get a job at 343i to work on Halo because that's the entire purpose of the studio, they're not some random studio that got "stuck". Hell, they're even named after a prominent Halo character.
As for The Coalition, while they weren't founded with the express purpose of being the stewards of the Gears franchise like 343i was for Halo, they did elect to become just that. While it may seem obvious folks would want to work on New and Exciting IPs, these are jobs we're talking about. Being a factory for a major 1st party IP means a hell of a lot of job security, more than your typical studio. Being the Gears team means that they're much less likely to get downsized, sold off, or shut down, which means everyone feels safer in their position. A new IP could be canceled at any moment - Gears 5 is guaranteed to be released.
Source on this? I've never seen that anywhere.Coalition formerly Black Tusk was asked do you want to work on Gears with Rod, who would turn down that offer. A large budget, a highly experienced studio head and a established ip. Remember they were having issues internally with Shangheist, which was nothing more than CGI. It was the best thing to happen to the studio. Who's to say elements of Shangheist aren't incorporated in to gears??? I know it's almost as if it's a skin.
I don't know about issues but I'm pretty sure that Phil said Shangheist wasn't even really a game at the time. Just a concept. CBOAT was the one who said it was this great ip that was amazing etc. so who do you wanna go bySource on this? I've never seen that anywhere.
That is nice from MS' POV but it is obvious why that isn't appealing to some people like us. Indefinitely pumping out Halo and Gears may be good for their business but it isn't enticing me to jump into their ecosystem.Asking 343i to work on a new IP is like asking The Pokémon Company do the same. After all these years I don't get how people don't understand that. They will never do anything other than Halo since that's literally why they exist. They're MS's permanent Halo team, and this includes not just internally developed games, but publishing and overseeing external games, licensing/branding, and all non-game media (such as movies, TV shows, web shows, books, comics, everything). You get a job at 343i to work on Halo because that's the entire purpose of the studio, they're not some random studio that got "stuck". Hell, they're even named after a prominent Halo character.
As for The Coalition, while they weren't founded with the express purpose of being the stewards of the Gears franchise like 343i was for Halo, they did elect to become just that. While it may seem obvious folks would want to work on New and Exciting IPs, these are jobs we're talking about. Being a factory for a major 1st party IP means a hell of a lot of job security, more than your typical studio. Being the Gears team means that they're much less likely to get downsized, sold off, or shut down, which means everyone feels safer in their position. A new IP could be canceled at any moment - Gears 5 is guaranteed to be released.
I think GAF give too much credit to new IP because of the unknown and possibility.
Shangheist could be toaster strudel and get shutdown and we will say "please bring back Gears." instead.
Well that completely contradicts what Phil said about it at E3 2013. He was claiming it would be the next Gears/Halo-level franchise.I don't know about issues but I'm pretty sure that Phil said Shangheist wasn't even really a game at the time. Just a concept. CBOAT was the one who said it was this great ip that was amazing etc. so who do you wanna go by
Well that completely contradicts what Phil said about it at E3 2013. He was claiming it would be the next Gears/Halo-level franchise.
Well that completely contradicts what Phil said about it at E3 2013. He was claiming it would be the next Gears/Halo-level franchise.
He also said this:CBOAT made comment that the game was 6 months behind development schedule only shortly before it was revealed at E3. Even then the game was mostly CGI.
CBOAT was the one who said it was this great ip that was amazing etc. so who do you wanna go by
Agreed.The problem with being a single IP factory isn't that new IPs are necessarily going to be big or even be successful.
It's that given MS's current first party situation, it's a limiting situation. You can sort of see that when 343 and Coalition became a 1 IP studio, it was during a time when Halo and Gears were expected to be massive IPs. But that's no longer the case. So now, you have two studios essentially limited to one IP each, in hopes that they can revitalize those sales figures to warrant being a 1 IP studio in the first place.
But maybe if 343/Coalition worked on a new IP, it might prove to be more successful in the current marketplace. There's no guarantee of course, but the chance is there given a proper marketing push. On the other hand, the chances of Halo and Gears reclaiming glory days sales wise is fairly low (the latter even more so).
And maybe a break in between that for a game like Halo or Gears would help give it the "it's been a long time" factor to get some more sales or a bigger push.
From a polygon article
"The thing we showed at E3 last year, it was something that was done in Unreal and more of a concept piece," Spencer said, calling it "an asset" created by the team to get their creative juices flowing, not necessarily an in-development game.
"The studio has really been incubating different ideas over the past six to nine months on what they might work on," he said, "but the discussion with Epic obviously didn't start yesterday. We've been in this discussion for a while. The leadership team there has known for a while."
He was hyping it up. He also hyped up Recore in 2015 as the next game to join the trinity. Look how that turned out
That is nice from MS' POV but it is obvious why that isn't appealing to some people like us. Indefinitely pumping out Halo and Gears may be good for their business but it isn't enticing me to jump into their ecosystem.
Yeah, there is obviously risk involved in making new IP but that is what I want from first party studios. That is the point in joining a big pub. You'll obviously have your key franchises that stand the test of time but it should also encourage creative and risky ideas.
That is what second party studios are for. Some of you really don't get it, it doesn't matter if they own the studio or not it matters if they own the ip. This weird bias people have towards first party studios over second party is dumbfounding. I thinks it's because people don't like not knowing or the unpredictability of it all or if I want to be cynical it's because it allows for a point of argument on Neogaf.
I know 343 won't do non Halo stuff but with 450 developers they should be doing more than just 1 mainline Halo every 3 years. I'm not saying they should go and make a new IP because that's not happening, but why not something else in the Halo franchise? Halo Kart? Halo MMO-lite like destiny?
1 mainline Halo game every 3 years from a dev team of 450 is a joke. Sledgehammer has 225 and they put out a CoD every 3 years, and that'll be including non devs too.
Or take like 150 of them, build a new studio for them and have them put out a new IP. That gives MS another studio and another new IP to add to their portfolio. Hell it wouldn't even cost that much more cause they're already paying their salary anyway.
343 is not just a game development studio. They oversee the entire Halo franchise, from books to videogames to movie deals.
They're effectively working on everything that has the Halo brand.
Just checked my issue.
That is what second party studios are for. Some of you really don't get it, it doesn't matter if they own the studio or not it matters if they own the ip. This weird bias people have towards first party studios over second party is dumbfounding. I thinks it's because people don't like not knowing or the unpredictability of it all or if I want to be cynical it's because it allows for a point of argument on Neogaf.
The staff does work on other stuff besides mainline games. Like they just did forge for the PC as well as helping out creative assembly with Halo wars 2. So continuing support of Halo 5, halo forge on PC, halo wars 2 support, also development on Halo 6. They aren't just sitting aroundI know 343 won't do non Halo stuff but with 450 developers they should be doing more than just 1 mainline Halo every 3 years. I'm not saying they should go and make a new IP because that's not happening, but why not something else in the Halo franchise? Halo Kart? Halo MMO-lite like destiny?
1 mainline Halo game every 3 years from a dev team of 450 is a joke. Sledgehammer has 225 and they put out a CoD every 3 years, and that'll be including non devs too.
Or take like 150 of them, build a new studio for them and have them put out a new IP. That gives MS another studio and another new IP to add to their portfolio. Hell it wouldn't even cost that much more cause they're already paying their salary anyway.