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[VGC Podcast]: Avowed and HBII nearest after Starfield, Fable recently went into full production, Perfect Dark and Everwild "not close"

Umbasaborne

Banned
Live picture of an Xbox dev working on Perfect Dark as we speak.
r80lBkA.jpg



Seriously,I don't mind the waiting but "not even close" for some of these games after all this time is giving me flashbacks of the whole Beyond Good and Evil 2 bullshit and how they said it's "early in development" after like 10 years.
Microsoft has so far dropped the ball super hard this gen, hearing reports like this definitely twist the blade a little more
 
Pretty much every game announcement in modern history, the game announced is already halfway through production before it is announced to public. Microsoft announced all these games but didn't tell their consumers that these games are all at least 4-5 years from coming out. The biggest error from Microsoft and Phil Spencer is why it took until 2019 to start purchasing new studios? The only thing that makes sense is that Microsoft was indeed close to exiting the console market entirely after the Xbox One. But what a costly mistake to wait 5ish years before even attempting to compete with Sony.

And outside of established studios like Bethesda or Obsidian, I have real doubts how good any of these upcoming games will turn out. I still wouldn't put any of their studios on the same level of a Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Sony Santa Monica, or Guerilla Games
 

sachos

Member
Man this timelines could mean anything. Nearest could mean 3 months or 1 year, once a game enters full production how long does it take to come out? 2-3 years? And by "not close" i guess he means they will come out at least after the "nearest" but before Fable?

So if everything goes right it should be 2024 for Hellblade and Avowed, 2025 Perfect Dark and Everwild and 2026 Fable?

Im mostly interested in Avowed, Fable and Perfect Dark i hope they can get them right.
 
When you realize that besides Avowed all these projects were announced before the announcement of Returnal, GoW Ragnarok, Horizon 2, R&C Drift Apart, Miles Morales, Demon's Souls R, GT7 etc....
They were also announced before Redfall and HiFi Rush.
Considering both were attached to setting up a whole nee studio, or a whole new team, that makes sense.
 

analog_future

Resident Crybaby
So if everything goes right it should be 2024 for Hellblade and Avowed, 2025 Perfect Dark and Everwild and 2026 Fable?

Im mostly interested in Avowed, Fable and Perfect Dark i hope they can get them right.

Sounds about right to me.

2023 is
  • Hi-Fi Rush
  • Minecraft Legends
  • Redfall
  • Forza Motorsport
  • Starfield
2024 is
  • Avowed
  • Hellblade II
  • Another 1-3 games that haven’t been announced yet ala Pentiment last year or Hi-Fi Rush this year
  • Actiblizz games assuming the acquisition goes through
2025 is
  • Fable
  • Indiana Jones
  • State of Decay 3
  • Another 1-3 games that haven’t been announced yet
  • Actiblizz games

2026 is
  • Perfect Dark
  • Everwild
  • Gears 6
  • Other Bethesda games
  • Other Actiblizz games

Pretty easy to estimate how things could very well come together in the coming years.
 
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Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Sounds about right to me.

2023 is
  • Hi-Fi Rush
  • Minecraft Legends
  • Redfall
  • Forza Motorsport
  • Starfield
2024 is
  • Avowed
  • Hellblade II
  • Another 1-3 games that haven’t been announced yet ala Pentiment last year or Hi-Fi Rush this year
  • Actiblizz games assuming the acquisition goes through
2025 is
  • Fable
  • Indiana Jones
  • State of Decay 3
  • Another 1-3 games that haven’t been announced yet
  • Actiblizz games

2026 is
  • Perfect Dark
  • Everwild
  • Gears 6
  • Other Bethesda games
  • Other Actiblizz games

Pretty easy to estimate how things could very well come together in the coming years.
I actually think that timeline is too conservative, but even if this is 100% accurate, that's one hell of a timeline.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
The Initiative are supposed to be an elite team of developers correct?

I wonder what happened to be honest.
As per the last confirmed report, the team was pretty much disbanded, and more than 50% of the people they collected from other studios had left.

Yesterday, Andy from VGC, shared on his podcast that Matt Booty had an all-hands monthly meeting. In that meeting, Matt said that people left because they had so many other opportunities. Numerous developers who left The Initiative reached out to Andy via email and said that that's not true.

"We didn't leave because we wanted another job; we left because it was poorly run."

You can listen to that podcast here between 18:00 - 21:10.
 
As per the last confirmed report, the team was pretty much disbanded, and more than 50% of the people they collected from other studios had left.

Yesterday, Andy from VGC, shared on his podcast that Matt Booty had an all-hands monthly meeting. In that meeting, Matt said that people left because they had so many other opportunities. Numerous developers who left The Initiative reached out to Andy via email and said that that's not true.

"We didn't leave because we wanted another job; we left because it was poorly run."

You can listen to that podcast here between 18:00 - 21:10.

Sounds like it was a pretty big failure then. Sounds like 343s management problems to be honest.
 
As per the last confirmed report, the team was pretty much disbanded, and more than 50% of the people they collected from other studios had left.

Yesterday, Andy from VGC, shared on his podcast that Matt Booty had an all-hands monthly meeting. In that meeting, Matt said that people left because they had so many other opportunities. Numerous developers who left The Initiative reached out to Andy via email and said that that's not true.

"We didn't leave because we wanted another job; we left because it was poorly run."

You can listen to that podcast here between 18:00 - 21:10.

That matches up with other reports of their being a clash of leadership when they brought Crystal in.
 
As per the last confirmed report, the team was pretty much disbanded, and more than 50% of the people they collected from other studios had left.

Yesterday, Andy from VGC, shared on his podcast that Matt Booty had an all-hands monthly meeting. In that meeting, Matt said that people left because they had so many other opportunities. Numerous developers who left The Initiative reached out to Andy via email and said that that's not true.

"We didn't leave because we wanted another job; we left because it was poorly run."

You can listen to that podcast here between 18:00 - 21:10.
smh. oh, well - at least they had cool digs for a while. live from their lovely santa monica studio (3 years ago):

 

pasterpl

Member
Sounds about right to me.

2023 is
  • Hi-Fi Rush
  • Minecraft Legends
  • Redfall
  • Forza Motorsport
  • Starfield
2024 is
  • Avowed
  • Hellblade II
  • Another 1-3 games that haven’t been announced yet ala Pentiment last year or Hi-Fi Rush this year
  • Actiblizz games assuming the acquisition goes through
2025 is
  • Fable
  • Indiana Jones
  • State of Decay 3
  • Another 1-3 games that haven’t been announced yet
  • Actiblizz games

2026 is
  • Perfect Dark
  • Everwild
  • Gears 6
  • Other Bethesda games
  • Other Actiblizz games

Pretty easy to estimate how things could very well come together in the coming years.


I think we will get next Doom and maybe Quake in addition to the above, hoping for Wolfenstein reboot as well. We will 100% get another forza horizon within next 1-2 years as well. Maybe next evil within? I am also expecting next halo sometime around 2026. Another gears tactics, another halo wars etc. lots more games from 1 st party.
 
The difficult thing for Playground is the expectation that’ll be put on Fable. Before it was announced they had ads mentioning Horizon Zero Dawn as a point of reference.

Since then Forbidden West has released and has upped the bar graphically, and definitely is among the best in the world for animation, especially in dialog. It’s also a vastly bigger game with more to do.

They’ve also got the expectation that this is a very good Fable game and have that baggage to contend with. Fable was one of Xbox’s original ‘Holy Trinity’ games. Maybe the time between Fable 3 and this game will allow them to properly reset as some of the fanbase has moved on.
 
The usual suspects will tell us that everything is fine and that it's "normal" since dev cycle is what it is nowadays, also, they will mention hi-fi rush, wo long, Starfield "the savior of 2023®" etc etc.
The reality though is that if you got an Xbox to play those promised AAA you're still going to have to wait years - I bailed their ecosystem precisely because of that to be honest, personally, I don't have the time to keep on waiting anymore for titles that may or may not release 4+years after their announcement due to the apparent mismanagement of said studios.

It may sound like a meme but, after 2+ years since its release, it had become the Waitbox series X®, I just couldn't anymore, had to take my business elsewhere where there are titles that I'm actually interested in playing now, not next year, nor the year after.

Peace
 
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RevGaming

Member
I think we will get next Doom and maybe Quake in addition to the above, hoping for Wolfenstein reboot as well. We will 100% get another forza horizon within next 1-2 years as well. Maybe next evil within? I am also expecting next halo sometime around 2026. Another gears tactics, another halo wars etc. lots more games from 1 st party.

Halo Infinite took 6 years. They haven't started that one and it's 2023 and still trying to "fix" infinite.

Why do you need another forza horizon? Shouldn't they focus on fable now since it's far away? Does Fable or yet another forza adds more to the catalogue.

I wouldn't be surprised if all these studios release one AAA game this gen and that's it.
 
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pasterpl

Member
Halo Infinite took 6 years. They haven't started that one and it's 2023 and still trying to "fix" infinite.

Why do you need another forza horizon? Shouldn't they focus on fable now since it's far away? Does Fable or yet another forza adds more to the catalogue.

I wouldn't be surprised if all these studios release one AAA game this gen and that's it.

Playground built a whole separate team for Fable, so that one team can work on Forza and second team on Fable only.
 

ACESHIGH

Banned
It may sound like a meme but, after 2+ years since its release, it had become the Waitbox series X®, I just couldn't anymore, had to take my business elsewhere where there are titles that I'm actually interested in playing now, not next year, nor the year after.

Peace

So you got a gaming PC then?
 
So you got a gaming PC then?

Sure.
Also, that didn't take long brother, you, ozriel , catlady, Hendrick 's and a couple of others are always at the ready when it comes to anything MS related - am I wrong ? 😉

I really don't get it, everything has to be a conspiracy or "trolling" or "warZ" with you people, can't wrap your thick heads around the fact that - you know - people have their own tastes and opinions that may actually different from yours.
I know that this is the internet and people are always angry but it doesn't always have to be this way friend, honest to God...

Take care, cheers
 

RevGaming

Member
Playground built a whole separate team for Fable, so that one team can work on Forza and second team on Fable only.
No. Just keep one. 2 Forza games are enough. It's a sim. It's not changing a lot. Attract more users, not the same ones.

What about Halo?
 

pasterpl

Member
No. Just keep one. 2 Forza games are enough. It's a sim. It's not changing a lot. Attract more users, not the same ones.

What about Halo?

Lol. Playground is developer for forza horizon, not motorsport (2 different games, 2 different studios)
 
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pasterpl

Member
Yes, I know.
Turn 10 should stop working on forza games.

What about Halo? Lol

Forza motorsport and forza horizon are completely different games. Both successful in their categories. Why should turn 10 stop making motorsport games?

What about halo? They just had a big studio overhaul with some 3rd parties coming to help, I think that with enough support they can produce AAA game in 3 years. They might not do that and try to save the halo infinite instead. Hell knows.

Looking at studios and previous trailers and multiple rumours we should be getting between 3-6 AAA games from MS a year from now on(1st party + 3rd party published by XGS). This year they have already released AOE2 on Xbox and HiFi Rush, Minecraft legends is just around the corner, same with redfall and Forza Motorsport. Starfield should be next and then Ara (probably before starfield) and AOE4 console edition. So 6-7 games in H1, mix of AA and AAA, we are also getting Stalker 2 as a console exclusive. Not bad for console without games. We will find out about H2 in June.
 
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RevGaming

Member
Forza motorsport and forza horizon are completely different games. Both successful in their categories. Why should turn 10 stop making motorsport games?
One motorsport and one horizon are enough per GEN. They should make another game, and comeback to forza next gen.
What about halo? They just had a big studio overhaul with some 3rd parties coming to help, I think that with enough support they can produce AAA game in 3 years. They might not do that and try to save the halo infinite instead. Hell knows.
They might not release another game this gen because of the overhaul.
Looking at studios and previous trailers and multiple rumours we should be getting between 3-6 AAA games from MS a year from now on(1st party + 3rd party published by XGS). This year they have already released AOE2 on Xbox and HiFi Rush, Minecraft legends is just around the corner, same with redfall and Forza Motorsport. Starfield should be next and then Ara (probably before starfield) and AOE4 console edition. So 6-7 games in H1, mix of AA and AAA, we are also getting Stalker 2 as a console exclusive. Not bad for console without games. We will find out about H2 in June.
You said 3-6 AAA games per year starting now this year and you just mentioned 2 for this year lol. Redfall and M.Legends are more like AA. Forza doesn't add much when Horizon is the better series and hopefully Starfield is good. They have to be good you know? Forspoken doesn't count for example. If you don't release something good, you won't make an impact.

You won't see 6 AAA games per year with their current studios. All I see for next year is Hellblade 2 and Avowed. Maybe iD gets something out but that's it.

Maybe with ABK, they can reach 6, but it seems they release 2 per year (overwatch 2 and mw2 2022 and diablo 4 and cod 2023).

Anyways, you have to be very optimistic to be on xbox.
 
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Scotty W

Member
yeah, also Perfect Dark taking that long screams incompetence to me.
I don’t see how this state of affairs can possibly be sustainable. One comparison to the old days that gets me is Super Mario 2.

As you probably know, it was originally a different game that was just reskinned.

Now isn’t that amazing? They just had an extra game lying around, and it was a classic.
 

01011001

Banned
I don’t see how this state of affairs can possibly be sustainable. One comparison to the old days that gets me is Super Mario 2.

As you probably know, it was originally a different game that was just reskinned.

Now isn’t that amazing? They just had an extra game lying around, and it was a classic.

it's a bit more complicated than that.

Mario 2/Mario USA was originally a concept for a new Mario game, and they used the concept for Doki Doki Panic instead when Fuji TV proposed a deal to them.

so Mario USA was a repurposed licensed game that was based on a repurposed concept for Mario 2 lol
 
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kuncol02

Banned
It was. But who cares?
Did you even read what you posted? There is no proof in that links that MS called it AAAA. Wiki links to second link and venturebeat article doesn't link to any sources.
AFAIK there was only was job offer that had info that Initiative is looking for people with experience making AAAA games and nowhere else. So no MS didn't called Perfect Dark AAAA game.
And by the way, don't use wiki as proof of anything it's not good site even as source aggregator.
 

Daneel Elijah

Gold Member
Did you even read what you posted? There is no proof in that links that MS called it AAAA. Wiki links to second link and venturebeat article doesn't link to any sources.
AFAIK there was only was job offer that had info that Initiative is looking for people with experience making AAAA games and nowhere else. So no MS didn't called Perfect Dark AAAA game.
And by the way, don't use wiki as proof of anything it's not good site even as source aggregator.
Didnt say that Microsoft did it. Just that it has been announced. And yes the links are not proof. But better than nothing.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Did you even read what you posted? There is no proof in that links that MS called it AAAA. Wiki links to second link and venturebeat article doesn't link to any sources.
AFAIK there was only was job offer that had info that Initiative is looking for people with experience making AAAA games and nowhere else. So no MS didn't called Perfect Dark AAAA game.
And by the way, don't use wiki as proof of anything it's not good site even as source aggregator.
Yes, they did.





 
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