Yearsoflurking
Member
Ms seems to not want to deal with studios who want to handle multiple projects. Honestly I can't blame them
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Obsidian: Microsoft looking to extern-publish [mid-to-large size] independent studios
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Steelyuhas
Member
By what metric? MSFT does about four times more revenue annually.
In regards to a purchase of Bluehole though, agreed that if they weren't interested in selling to Tencent, it's probably not about a dollar amount for selling.
Why be excited for potential when you can throw salt
Anyway this is good news, I hope some good games come out of it
rokkerkory
Member
They needed to do this to make their customers feel ok about jumping into 1X.
Well to be fair, 2018 looks incredible by default since tons of games got delayed and there's gonna be another Halo and Forza Horizon. It's the best case scenario for pushing the X. Having possibly 6 major exclusives on the console in 1 year
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
It's obviously cheaper to outsource to a third party a la Killer Instinct.
My issue, is that if rumours are to be believed, Microsoft really needs to work on their developer relations to ensure, not only to hat we get more new games, but SEQUELS to said games.
Nightengale
Member
That's not so much on developer relations though, that's on finding good developers who can deliver a desirable and good product that sells well enough to get a sequel funded. And on MS's marketing or other functions to support the game in marketing so that it gets that chance.
Nightengale
Member
Why?
Before E3 they will have Crackdown, SoD2 and Sea of Thieves.
At E3 presumably we will get a date for Ori 2, a new Forza and new Halo which will come out in the next 6 months after E3.
And maybe some more longer term projects that are 18 months off.
for most titles, a year before they think it will be released. For known IPs, maybe 6 months. They have repeatedly said they are not announcing games early anymore.
Not really. With the delay of crackdown they'll have 3 boxed retail games coming out(( Crackdown, SoD2, Sea of thieves) and the possibility of Ori as a digital title. And not to mention they announced 22 smaller digital games coming to the platform last E3, such as black desert etc.
What? Suddenly MS did a good job with Rare?
LordBaztion
Member
So, Obsidian's big project is not for MS. I hope it is multi platform.
My bad I totally forgot about thise other 2 titles
MosquitoSmasher
Member
It's good news that they are actually doing something about it, but we probably won't be hearing any game announcements from these for a while but that's OK. I also wonder what kind of games we can expect. Will it be indie games, mostly MP games or both MP and SP, will there be games that can be considered to be on the scope of Tomb Raider or Hitman? Or well actually a game like Sunset Overdrive, Ryse, DR3 and QB. If we're looking at those kind of projects I look forward to the future.
If we can get some really nice games this way that also take advantage of the hardware that X offers I'm ok with them not building any more actual first party studios. We'll see how this plays out.
If we can get some really nice games this way that also take advantage of the hardware that X offers I'm ok with them not building any more actual first party studios. We'll see how this plays out.
Team Andromeda
Member
MS should never have left them go to SONY and make Heavenly Sword. They are a class act. Kung Fu Choas is better than Power Stone II and they are able to make an action game MS badly needs and lacks.
Tameem Antoniades is pure class
It has been said to be multiplatform.
Okami Haundo
Member
I feel like this can be equally as important for the 1X if they actually have things to announce for next fall.
MosquitoSmasher
Member
What is the sole reason that MS doesn't want to bother with building first party anymore though? I mean I would say several of their exclusives didn't do too well but apart from Gears, Halo and Forza most of their exclusives actually weren't first party. Then you had Lionhead Studios making Fable Legends and Press Play making games too, Rare, etc but these were/are existing studios. Never really thought about it, but did they actually bother to build new studios at all since Xbox One's arrival?
Panaphonics
Banned
Yes please
say no to exclusive games.
hydrophilic attack
Member
well if this means they sign a new contract with platinum i'll forgive them for scalebound
Kung FU Chaos is my main hope for Backwards compatibility! That and Midtown Madness 3 are why I wish to get an Xbox One S! Couch Multiplayer! And MM3 Couch MP vs ONline, hoping MS allows for online again
.Come on MS, help a couch mper out!
Wash your mouth young man, Power Stone is the best damn it!
It costs more money.
Nope.
Tencent USD$343 billion x Microsoft USD$510.37 billion
Both market values are from 2017.
hydrophilic attack
Member
But then why are most other publishers moving towards building up in-house studios over contracting independent studios?
VincentMatts
Member
MS should have never let Bungie go independent. D2 would be selling xboxes like hot cakes right now. Huge gigantic mistake. As for this news, ill get excited when i see something worth getting excited over.
It's pretty clear that MS were never that interested in "normal returns" in the gaming market. Sony is happy to fund a variety of games, with a variety of returns on investment, as part of their long-term strategy of maintaining their position in the gaming market. Microsoft regarded gaming as a means to a presumably much more lucrative end -- at first it was the "battle for the living room" stuff, but after that dream died it seems like they've been flailing around to try to find some sort of transformative, paradigm-shifting hit that transcends the traditional gaming market and will bring people into an MS-controlled ecosystem.
I think they've realized that there's no amount of money they can throw at "normal" game developers that will cause them to produce the results they are looking for. So rather then settling for normal games with normal returns from companies like Obsidian and Platinum, or building their own similarly "normal" studios, they'd rather just swoop in and buy up a phenomenon after-the-fact like Minecraft and PUBG.
Lots of reasons, but briefly:
- Other publishers have their own considerations and strategies
- An MS employee costs a lot more to employ than an employee of another company. Different benefits, compensation structure, etc.
Lord of Castamere
Member
So wait, a new multi-platform Obsidian game is being announced next week?
I actually wonder about this bit since you're not the first person I've seen bring this up- I know it stems from the company's other branches, of course, but why is the company structured this way? Is this a company values thing? It's awesome for employees, for sure, but it seems to put them at a competitive disadvantage. Just wondering about the reasons behind it. Is this an industry standard for these big software companies? It's interesting.
fluffydelusions
Member
Make a new NOLF game...that is all
lol never happening
If you establish a better worker compensation plan, you can attract better talent, which when you make as much profit as Microsoft does, tends to be your primary concern.
Steverulez
Member
I would say a lack of flexibility and understanding of the market they're in.
Not sure you can reasonably run a completely consumer facing business with stiff competition in the same way you can run your monopolistic operating system and various other software or business to business services but they're gonna keep trying dammit.
But nirolak makes a good point too
Megatron
Member
Theres no value in buying obsidian. They dont own any ips. You are just buying a studio, and the employees can leave tomorrow. Buying the pubg studio is way more likely, imo.
phantasmic_glaive
Member
....I can't buy that. If this was another company we are talking about here, sure. But as someone above pointed out them being worth over half a trillion bucks, it leaves me pissed.
Yes it costs more money. But that's why you slowly build from the ground up, piece by piece. Starting off small letting them learn from your bigger studios. It'll take time, but if they're not going to take the time to make actual, real, original content then I really don't see the point. I.e hire studios to check off checklist.
I you buy cheap, make cheap, .. guess what our end experience will be? Cheap.
I'm not trying to start nothing, but they need to put their money where their mouth is.
It's not really a matter of you "buying" it. MS has an amount of money they believe is "worth it" to spend on video games, and that's what they are going to spend. They aren't interested in taking a giant loss on this market.
Yes, they could easily afford to spend more. But just because they can doesn't mean they feel they should.
AuthenticM
Member
Does Obsidian own the rights to Alpha Protocol?
Banjo-Kazooie
Member
I also vaguely remember reading somewhere that the Xbox division also isn't always the best competitively with job salaries based on how the company is set up. Like for example a "developer" base salary might be lower compared to strictly video game companies because it's a Microsoft company wide level bracket meaning a developer on Bing is the same pay grade as a developer on Xbox. So the positions aren't always geared towards being comparable to other strictly video game companies like say, Ubisoft.
That and how MS is heavily reliable on "vendors", and the vendors are always trying to get the permanent positions, so turnover on specific jobs are always greater as employees working as vendors might accept permanent positions elsewhere in Microsoft as the become available, and not necessarily within the Xbox division
Is this sounding right(?)
Yeah that's for sure, I'm just trying to understand why that's a hard requirement for the entire company, and why Microsoft doesn't run their studios as subsidiaries, for example (this was suggested by another poster on here a while back- that Microsoft studios all operate under the same salary structure, benefits, and bonus plans, for example, as opposed to each Sony studio, for example, running as independent subsidiaries). It seems like they don't have the flexibility other publishers have in this regard. But then again, I guess this kinda speaks to the state of their games business if they're this cost-sensitive about it as opposed to the rest of their operations.
They appear to have been cutting back their expenses significantly over the years. I suppose it could just be bad allocation of resources and cancelled projects, but are they operating under the same budget they have been, or do the studio closures actually reflect budget cuts rather than reallocation of available resources?
Yearsoflurking
Member
Element gave a good breakdown of it. Last pages of this thread
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1420272&page=100000
phantasmic_glaive
Member
That's because they have been losing since day 1. And will continue to do so taking this path.
lol, they are not interested in taking a giant loss in this market, but people who were interested and bought Xbox's, that are now dust collectors, took the real loss.
My point is, if they aren't interested in making this platform the best they can, why should I be? Or anyone for that matter?
Edit: I feel you tho
Banjo-Kazooie
Member
In another thread, Element (an insider who has been correct on other MS dealings) stated that they are spending just as much, if not more than what they have in the past. It's just that they are allocating more on their core big franchises and GaaS style offering games as opposed to funding many bigger 3rd party games like Sunset and Ryse
It sounds like they're either on a path to exit the business, or trying to hold on until they're through a storm right now. They could be hoping for a lucky break, like a success on the level of Minecraft that stems from a small initial investment. Or maybe they plan to take another swing at the market but realize they'll need to wait for the next-gen reset to really make a push. If they don't take any losses and make a small profit each year in the lead up to next-gen, it'll presumably be easier to justify a very large investment at the start of next gen in hopes of increasing their potential in the market. However, it'll be quite the uphill battle to convince the market that they're the right option next-gen, if people come out of this gen super satisfied with the PS4, but dissatisfied with the Xbox One. They might be hoping for another fuck up by Sony.
From my perspective, it looks like the truth lies somewhere in pretty much all of the above. But the most likely outcome? I don't know. From where I'm sitting right now, the most likely outcome seems like a market exit in the next generation.
I dare to hope we haven't seen the fruit of these investments just yet. Their output this gen hasn't made potential higher investments seem worth it.
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