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Microsoft Studios (& Partners) Current and Future Landscape
- Thread starter Banjo-Kazooie
- Start date
I'd be shocked if they don't, but I thought PG said it wouldnt be exclusive.
I don't think PG stated anything but insiders have chimed in on that and said it wasn't exclusive.
Steverulez
Member
Also that phil specifically passed on it
Nightengale
Member
Either way, it's too early to tell.
Game presumably just barely got off the ground and is still in pre-production, since they're currently in the midst of building the second studio.
Game presumably just barely got off the ground and is still in pre-production, since they're currently in the midst of building the second studio.
Yeah, I don't believe that for a second.
2019 is about right. That also seems to be for the better, because this came up during a conversation with Dario Casali (Level designer at Valve):
MosquitoSmasher
Member
Sounds very farfetched. The guy knows full well how badly Xbox needs more first party games. Of course we have no idea what kind of game it is and if they did pass on it, what the reason for it is. Who are these insiders?
Unless this time around they just want to announce it at next E3, only a few months before release because Halo sells itself really.
Or not and they see Anthem as the big Holiday releases, even though it's not exclusive.
I disagree. If anything, next holiday looks to be a repeat of 2016, fairly light. Plus Halos sales weren't negatively impacted by launching in October 2015. The game wasn't going to sell halo 3 numbers regardless of when it launched. It did almost a mill in a month NPD and shipped 5 mill in 3 months
Plus you're gonna need Horizon 4 and Halo 6 to further drive X sales. Sony has deals with Destiny and COD so they're going to have games to bundle. MS doesn't have that so they need to have software during the holiday period
Nightengale
Member
Every publisher "almost" always have a big holiday exclusive "planned"
Whether or not they hit their release window... that's a different story.
Bits N Pieces
Member
Halo 6 is next year, to think it's not is just nonsense.
Also wouldn't surprise me if Phil did pass on the PG game.
Also wouldn't surprise me if Phil did pass on the PG game.
Really? You think 2018 for sure? I hope so!
MS will have Anthem if they need bundles and that will be the big game at the end of next year.
Halo 6 will need time to breath and early 2019 seems like a good time for that to happen. Plus it gives gamers on Xbox something exclusive to play at the beginning of the year, something MS has had trouble with due to them usually dumping their big hitters at the crowded end of the year.
Yearsoflurking
Member
If they're trying to reinvent the series single player why would it be nonsense? Besides it'll make more sense releasing it spring 2019 then with battlefield/cod etc. I believe this halo will be more ambitious then the last 2
A few months difference isn't going to change what the game is. Releasing in March 2019 vs October 2018 doesn't mean it's less innovative
Yearsoflurking
Member
5 months is a long time in game development, especially for a 3+ year dev cycle. I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The game could release in april and may as well.
DwightSchruting
Member
The fact they haven't bought 2-3 promising studios yesterday, is a sign of stupidity.
Or a sign that it isn't in the budget.
I mean, I'd love to see that as well, but business realities are a bitch.
Buying a studio isn't worth it at all and ultimately would be a giant waste of money (sign of stupidity), and the worst case scenario is the studio becomes a shell. The best thing they can do is build new studios like they successfully did with the coalition, or they expand their current teams to work on multiple projects like Rare. Aaron has insinuated that 343 and coalition are going down the same path as Rare, but it is Aaron so we will see what he means by that at least in the conversation he specifies games and not movies, comics etc so thats good. I could see Coalition working on another IP alongside gears, but in the case of 343 I would think it would stay within the Halo universe.
Halo 5 will come out next year. Delaying Halo 5 means also delaying Gears 5. That's not going to happen.
That article literally points to HW2 DLC as other stuff 343 is doing, we know 343 has a hand in all things Halo.
TC will be something dumb gears related, too. Hell, Gears of War 2 remaster is probably it. People expecting them to make a new IP is only setting themselves up for disappointment
That article literally points to HW2 DLC as other stuff 343 is doing, we know 343 has a hand in all things Halo.
TC will be something dumb gears related, too. Hell, Gears of War 2 remaster is probably it. People expecting them to make a new IP is only setting themselves up for disappointment
Gears as a IP does not have the brand power or sales to justify a spin-off like Halo does, and those teams handle their own second party projects so it wouldn't be developed by them in all likelihood.
EDIT: saw you added a remaster. Also the gears remaster was made with the intention of the team learning how to make a gears game and to understand the hardware, it was Rods test and a way to educate the team on their design thinking at the time. A remaster would only further water down the gears brand.
I just edited my post
Gears of war 2 remaster, late 2018 for the 10th anniversary
there's your other projects
Jesus, you remind me of those guys that said than Nintendo was super stupid for not buying all Sega. Buying an studio is a big money cost that must justifies the returns. Microsoft spend a shit ton of money on mohjang and it was worthy. I don't know if buying the coalition was worthy unless it was thought as a long time investment.
MosquitoSmasher
Member
Why is that?
The budget for a game like Horizon is pretty high, much higher than for a game like Recore, Ori, or Super Lucky's Tale.
Was Recore or Sunset Overdrive money losses? or the budget of those games was low enough to make a profit?
YEah. Buying a studio is the wrong way to go about things. If a big budget game fails, thats the death of the studio ex Lionhead. Why buy a studio and gamble hundreds of millions of dollars. It's more reasonable as you said to expand existing studios or do third party studio like undead labs or Insomniac. If the game bombs, you aren't on the hook for the rest of the studio
Susnet wasn't a small budget so likely there was a loss. Recore was probably much much lower budget regardless of Greenberg calling it AAA so I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't actually lose anything with it
How do they expect to grow their market share with out new AAA IP in genres they don't typically have now. Sony and Nintendo seem to balance a good variety of AA to AAA games in their line ups.
D
Deleted member 471617
Unconfirmed Member
Here's how I see 2018, Halo 6 and Gears of War 5 going -
March 2018 - State of Decay 2
Late June 2018 (after E3) - Sea of Thieves
September 2018 - Forza Horizon 4
October/November 2018 - Crackdown 3
March 2019 - Ori and the Will of the Wisps
September 2019 - Forza Motorsport 8
E3 2018 - Halo 6 trailer
E3 2019 - Halo 6 trailer and gameplay video
October 2019 - Halo 6
E3 2019 - Gears of War 5 trailer
E3 2020 - Gears of War 5 trailer and gameplay video
October 2020 - Gears of War 5
That's how I see their current games lineup and setup going. I easily see Crackdown 3 being delayed to the end of 2018 to give it more than an extra year to solve the problems. Ori 2 gets delayed to March 2019. State of Decay 2 being in March is a good bet as April/May is going to be RDR2 time and this game needs to stay as far away as possible simply because good or not, RDR2 is going to crush everything around it. Plus, I think March is a good spot for an open world zombie game. Sea of Thieves gets slightly delayed again to right after E3 2018 simply because again, has to stay away from April/May as well as State of Decay 2 because you don't want to have two of your own games competing with each other plus I think that it's a perfect summer game.
Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Motorsport 8 in their respective years are pretty much a given. I don't see Halo 6 and Gears of War 5 being released three years after the previous entry. No way. If that happens, both games will be a rushed buggy and glitch mess. Not the smartest thing to do when both franchises have been declining and need strong releases/launches. Rushing either of them isn't the best way to go about that.
Summary -
2018 - State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 4 and Crackdown 3.
2019 - Ori 2, Forza Motorsport 8 and Halo 6.
2020 - Forza Horizon 5 and Gears of War 5.
On paper, just in terms of sheer quality, all three years are already better than 2017. This of course doesn't include other downloadable games like Below (seriously, WTF is this game???) unannounced games which won't happen until E3 2018 at the earliest and third party marketing deals such as EA's Anthem.
Future wise, the lineup isn't bad at all. Just need to get to 2018. LOL. 2017 could have looked better if ReCore was delayed a year and being released for the first time this Tuesday. I'm pretty sure they knew that they were going to be developing a Definitive Edition so why not just delay the game a year? ReCore truly wasn't needed a year ago and would have at the very least softened the blow of a weak 2017 while giving gamers a new IP and game to play before the Fall/Holiday season. I'll never understand why they simply didn't delay ReCore knowing that they had Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4 around the corner but whatever.
I wouldn't be surprised if Phil Spencer passes on PlayGround Games new open world IP but at the same time, he should be trying to acquire the studio itself if possible. Forza Horizon franchise would make up for the cost of purchasing the studio and have a new exclusive open world IP is a bonus. If not, he should at least try to get the game as a full console/PC exclusive.
Just have to wait and see what happens but those are my predictions/opinions.
March 2018 - State of Decay 2
Late June 2018 (after E3) - Sea of Thieves
September 2018 - Forza Horizon 4
October/November 2018 - Crackdown 3
March 2019 - Ori and the Will of the Wisps
September 2019 - Forza Motorsport 8
E3 2018 - Halo 6 trailer
E3 2019 - Halo 6 trailer and gameplay video
October 2019 - Halo 6
E3 2019 - Gears of War 5 trailer
E3 2020 - Gears of War 5 trailer and gameplay video
October 2020 - Gears of War 5
That's how I see their current games lineup and setup going. I easily see Crackdown 3 being delayed to the end of 2018 to give it more than an extra year to solve the problems. Ori 2 gets delayed to March 2019. State of Decay 2 being in March is a good bet as April/May is going to be RDR2 time and this game needs to stay as far away as possible simply because good or not, RDR2 is going to crush everything around it. Plus, I think March is a good spot for an open world zombie game. Sea of Thieves gets slightly delayed again to right after E3 2018 simply because again, has to stay away from April/May as well as State of Decay 2 because you don't want to have two of your own games competing with each other plus I think that it's a perfect summer game.
Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Motorsport 8 in their respective years are pretty much a given. I don't see Halo 6 and Gears of War 5 being released three years after the previous entry. No way. If that happens, both games will be a rushed buggy and glitch mess. Not the smartest thing to do when both franchises have been declining and need strong releases/launches. Rushing either of them isn't the best way to go about that.
Summary -
2018 - State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 4 and Crackdown 3.
2019 - Ori 2, Forza Motorsport 8 and Halo 6.
2020 - Forza Horizon 5 and Gears of War 5.
On paper, just in terms of sheer quality, all three years are already better than 2017. This of course doesn't include other downloadable games like Below (seriously, WTF is this game???) unannounced games which won't happen until E3 2018 at the earliest and third party marketing deals such as EA's Anthem.
Future wise, the lineup isn't bad at all. Just need to get to 2018. LOL. 2017 could have looked better if ReCore was delayed a year and being released for the first time this Tuesday. I'm pretty sure they knew that they were going to be developing a Definitive Edition so why not just delay the game a year? ReCore truly wasn't needed a year ago and would have at the very least softened the blow of a weak 2017 while giving gamers a new IP and game to play before the Fall/Holiday season. I'll never understand why they simply didn't delay ReCore knowing that they had Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4 around the corner but whatever.
I wouldn't be surprised if Phil Spencer passes on PlayGround Games new open world IP but at the same time, he should be trying to acquire the studio itself if possible. Forza Horizon franchise would make up for the cost of purchasing the studio and have a new exclusive open world IP is a bonus. If not, he should at least try to get the game as a full console/PC exclusive.
Just have to wait and see what happens but those are my predictions/opinions.
VanCityGamer
Member
^^^
That lineup for 2018 would be pretty bad IMO. None of those games looks particularly great or is getting much buzz. Better than 2017, but that's not saying much. Sony's projected 2018 (God of War, Spider-Man, etc.) slays it IMO.
Forza Horizon 4 would be amazing, of course.
That lineup for 2018 would be pretty bad IMO. None of those games looks particularly great or is getting much buzz. Better than 2017, but that's not saying much. Sony's projected 2018 (God of War, Spider-Man, etc.) slays it IMO.
Forza Horizon 4 would be amazing, of course.
To be fair:
I actually believe that in 2016 (or by the time they released ReCore) they expected State of Decay 2, Crackdown 3 and Sea of Thieves to be 2017 games.
That would be terrible. If your banking 2018 sales on only Anthem and Horizon 4, that's not good. As Anthem can likely delay at any point. And I can't see MS giving either Gears or Halo a 4 year hiatus. That goes against everything they've ever done. 4 years is a long time for a studio the size of 343 or coalition. Neither of the previous games were buggy messes either
Also 4 years for an ori seque? Also unrealistic
Well they haven't abandoned the IP like they have for other stuff. Ryse, sunset etc never got the same amount of attention post release that recore has. It's a good candidate for a new release into games pass
More likely than a sequel to Ryse, Sunset or Quantum Break that's for sure. If nothing else I can see Microsoft continuing to partner with the devs, Armature, into the future.
That's good on itching to start over and give it a go on Tuesday. Would love to see an expanded sequel to it.
PanicFreak
Member
This is how I think it will go for the most part. Halo 5 was great but I don't think they will have the time to make an amazing campaign without 4 or more years of development time. 343 needs to deliver on the campaign for Halo 6.
Steelyuhas
Member
Neither comes out in 2018 imo
D
Deleted member 471617
Unconfirmed Member
VanCityGamer said:
I agree in regards to Sony's projected lineup slaying it but at the same time, it's far from bad. Granted, not every game may appeal to every gamer but for me, State of Decay 2 and Forza Horizon 4 are guaranteed pre-orders the week before they get released. Crackdown 3 is the game that I think will be the disappointment but at the same time, I think it will still sell well enough to where it's not a failure. Sea of Thieves looks like a lot of fun but the game being an online MMO and in first person turns me off. However, I have been more impressed with Sea of Thieves than any of the 2017/2018 Xbox One exclusive. Forza Horizon 4 would probably be the only game that will impress me more but it's at least ten months away until it gets announced.
mike4001_ said:
Agree 100% but even so, with Forza Horizon 3 being released two weeks after ReCore and Gears of War 4 being four weeks after ReCore, Microsoft should have delayed it regardless as it could have only helped them.
blakep267 said:
There was a five year gap between Halo 3 and Halo 4 so a four year gap isn't out of the question. Besides, let's say that in three years Halo 6 is an 80 and sells only a few million copies but will be a 90 and sell double in four years. Which would you take? Halo isn't as good or as popular as it once was and the best way to get that back is by making sure that the game is of the upmost quality in every way. Nowadays, I simply don't see that happening in three years.
As for Ori 2, they did work on the definitive edition and a few patches so im sure that the game isn't in any way, shape or form a 2018 title. If it was, they would have shown gameplay at E3 but instead, it was just an in engine trailer which while looking great doesn't exactly give me confidence that it's coming out in 2018 but we'll see.
PanicFreak said:
Yeah, I just don't see 343 being done with Halo 6 in time for an October 2018 release. If Spencer was 100% confident in that, it would have definitely been teased at E3 or Gamescom. That's why im thinking 2019.
Dynasty said:
I think BOTH Anthem and Halo 6 will be 2019 titles with Anthem being early but heavily pushed by Microsoft due to the marketing deal that they have with EA and Halo 6 being October 2019. I just don't see Halo 6 and Gears 5 being released in three years.
TheUnsunghero26
Member
Yeah, some of the insiders have said that MS passed on it. I brought this up a few pages ago, but MS is hiring for a Horizon-like game, and apparently the recruiter is the same one used by Playground.
D
Deleted member 471617
Unconfirmed Member
For those looking to purchase a physical copy of ReCore: DE, it seems like it's online only at Microsoft.com. I ordered a copy earlier today for $20 plus tax with free shipping. Best of all, I was able to use the credit I had on my account so im happy about that. Should get the game near the end of the week.
LiquidSolid
Member
Everyone knows about that job listing, the problem is you're looking at it like it's a game leak when in reality, it's far more likely they're just looking to hire an environmental artist with a style similar to Horizon. For all we know, it might just be for Forza Horizon 4. Or a completely different game unrelated to Playground, for that matter, that recruitment agency works with a ton of developers. So there's not much point jumping to conclusions at this point.
Three Halo's came out (four if you include CE Anniversary) and an entire studio was built in the five year gap between 3 and 4 though.
I think it's crazy to predict Halo 6 will be a 2019 game, let alone a 2020 game. As far as I'm concerned, it's a lock for late 2018 and Gears 5 is a lock for late 2019. Neither game will be hurt by being announced the same year they launch because everyone's already familiar enough with both series.
Whether they reignite popularity in either franchise is up to what they do with those games, not how long it takes to develop. If they play things safe then I don't think an extra year of development is going to dramatically change anything, what they need to do is take risks.
Yearsoflurking
Member
I don't get the need for halo next year according to many in this thread. Already been 2 massive halos on xbox one, why is 6 needed so urgently? 2018 will have sod2 crackdown sea of thieves etc and massive 3rd party games. Halo isn't needed in the holidays. Microsoft shouldn't rush it either
VanCityGamer
Member
2 massive Halos? Halo Wars 2 is a completely different kind of game and didn't perform particularly well in terms of sales or reviews.
There has been 1 mainline Halo game released this gen. Its single player campaign was a massive letdown. That's why Halo fans are anxious for another entry ASAP (and for some more excellent multiplayer).
Also, that list of games for first party is lacking. Not very impressive at all IMO. Which is part of the problem.
Yearsoflurking
Member
Halo mcc and halo 5. They shouldn't rush halo they should nail the single player and multi down. Not rush the shit out because a random october deadline . If it makes it? Why not release it. If not it'll be fine in spring.
So horizon 4 ,sod2, crackdown 3 and sea of thieves is a lackluster year?
You're forgetting Halo Reach here.
It wasn't a numbered release, but looking at how it was treated content- and marketing-wise it can easily be considered a mainline release.
My money is still on Halo 6 in 2018.