• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Sam Lake: MS delayed Quantum Break to help stagger out XB1's big releases

K

Kayant

Member
Thanks to Videogamer

Sam Lake said:
Funnily enough the delay came from Microsoft’s end, he says.

It was looking at its portfolio of upcoming games and were feeling that it would be foolish to have all of these bigger games come out at the same time, essentially fighting among themselves for the audience. So it wanted to stagger them out.

Certainly we were happy to take the extra time and really happy to have that extra time as these are really challenging, complicated projects always. In a big game like this, the polish phase is absolutely essential. We were more than happy to take the extra time. That mainly resulted in much a higher level of polish and iteration and fine-tuning of the experience.
Click to expand...

MCVUK's Interview with Sam Lake - http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/reme...-the-studio-s-most-ambitious-game-yet/0164881

Warp me through time if old.
 
And yet they couldn't move Tomb Raider away from Fallout 4's release date?
 
About time that Microsoft figured this out. Saving all your titles for the holiday season was definitely not a wise idea, as it resulted in pretty much nothing in terms of big exclusive releases for 8 or 9 months of the year, and then having some of their titles almost sent out to die during the holidays against bigger multiplats and first party titles.
 
Beautiful Ninja said:
Maybe this was in response to sending RotR to its death.
Click to expand...

CalamityPixel said:
Could've been Square's fault or like the person said above, this could have been a harsh lesson learned from ROTR.
Click to expand...

When was QB given its April release date? If it was a lesson learned from ROTR then what would they be spacing QB out from now?
 
I have no problems with that, much better then just blowing your load in a 2 month period, which is usually MS go to.


*Edit: I wonder if they did the same to Scalebound, give it a bit more time in development and avoid it getting slaughtered in the Holidays.
 
Zedox said:
Makes sense and better to have games throughout than all at one point.
Click to expand...

So no more 'pre-season', huh, wonder why that is?

;)

And yes, it does make sense. Which is why Sony has been doing this with their first party, and letting the 3rd party duke it out in an already saturated holiday season.

Also why I truly believe they delayed UC4 slightly, give R&C and a couple of others some love and and breathing. Which reminds me... R&C in under 2 weeks!!!
 
Markitron said:
And yet they couldn't move Tomb Raider away from Fallout 4's release date?
Click to expand...

I am guessing they could have but it probably wouldn't have changed the exclusivity dates. So if they delayed it to January the pc version would have come out at the same time.
 
As most of you are saying, this is a nice change of pace for MS.

But, at the same time, Quantum Break is the only one coming out before Fall 2016, so far. Are there any more XB1 AAA exclusives dated for the rest of the year? We know Gears is hitting in the Fall. Forza is usually a Fall game. We've seen nothing from Recore, Halo Wars 2, or even much of Crackdown 3. Is there any reason to think any of those will hit before Fall 2016?
 
Im glad they did it, and they should continue to do it. Its been annoying seeing all their exclusives during the holiday when people are going to be buying the bigger, popular 3rd party titles anyway. Sometimes its nice to have some exclusives to play in the spring/summer!
 
The End said:
I believe the industry term in "Nintendelay"
Click to expand...

I mean, is it really that bad when a mostly complete game gets a little bit more time for polish? The opposite is what happened to Alpha Protocol, when it got a big delay but Sega was unwilling to spend any more money on it, resulting in it the condition that it launched in.
 
Wereroku said:
I am guessing they could have but it probably wouldn't have changed the exclusivity dates. So if they delayed it to January the pc version would have come out at the same time.
Click to expand...

Probably some truth in that. I know CoD, BF and F4 all had their own weeks in November, but a late November/early December could have made a huge difference.
 
Xer0 said:
As most of you are saying, this is a nice change of pace for MS.

But, at the same time, Quantum Break is the only one coming out before Fall 2016, so far. Are there any more XB1 AAA exclusives dated for the rest of the year? We know Gears is hitting in the Fall. Forza is usually a Fall game. We've seen nothing from Recore, Halo Wars 2, or even much of Crackdown 3. Is there any reason to think any of those will hit before Fall 2016?
Click to expand...

Surely nobody expects big releases in the middle of summer? Or at least, surely nobody think they'd be a good idea for any publisher who wants to sell to anyone but the more dedicated parts of the audience.
 
KJgF7ei.png
 
Xer0 said:
As most of you are saying, this is a nice change of pace for MS.

But, at the same time, Quantum Break is the only one coming out before Fall 2016, so far. Are there any more XB1 AAA exclusives dated for the rest of the year? We know Gears is hitting in the Fall. Forza is usually a Fall game. We've seen nothing from Recore, Halo Wars 2, or even much of Crackdown 3. Is there any reason to think any of those will hit before Fall 2016?
Click to expand...

Crackdown 3 MP Beta will hit in Summer.
No indication that full game is even this year.

ReCore is 2nd half of the year. It was originally planned for Spring, so maybe late summer? Next to Forza is a good fit.

Halo Wars 2/Gears will be October/November respectively.
 
MS cramming all their big releases into a 4 month window never seemed like it could produce maximum value simply because a bunch of other players were stuffing their major stuff in there too.

So this works out.
 
Nightengale said:
Crackdown 3 MP Beta will hit in Summer.
No indication that full game is even this year.

ReCore is 2nd half of the year. It was originally planned for Spring, so maybe late summer? Next to Forza is a good fit.

Halo Wars 2/Gears will be October/November respectively.
Click to expand...

Forza usually drops in september. Gear 4 will probably be october.
 
DeepEnigma said:
So no more 'pre-season', huh, wonder why that is?

;)

And yes, it does make sense. Which is why Sony has been doing this with their first party, and letting the 3rd party duke it out in an already saturated holiday season.

Also why I truly believe they delayed UC4 slightly, give R&C and a couple of others some love and and breathing. Which reminds me... R&C in under 2 weeks!!!
Click to expand...

I always thought it was dumb to put everything at the end of the year. Do I like having a lot of games at the end of the year? Sure...but I like having a lot of games to play throughout the year.
 
LeonSPBR said:
Shocking.
If only they did this... ROTR would have sell a lot better.
Click to expand...

I actually think RotTR was a little overrated by most, but it was still a great game and deserved a lot better. I certainly enjoyed it more than F4 and Blops 3. Then again the end of blops 3 takes place in an AI's dream, so bettering that game isn't hard.

Zedox said:
I always thought it was dumb to put everything at the end of the year. Do I like having a lot of games at the end of the year? Sure...but I like having a lot of games to play throughout the year.
Click to expand...

It's a lot better than it used to be, 2015 had plenty of games staggered throughout the year, and two of the biggest games were released in early summer (TW3 and Arkham Knight).
 
I actually thought this when Quantum Break got delayed. It made no sense releasing all those exclusive games at the same time.
 
Zedox said:
I always thought it was dumb to put everything at the end of the year. Do I like having a lot of games at the end of the year? Sure...but I like having a lot of games to play throughout the year.
Click to expand...
Yup preseason is long gone now hopefully Microsoft learned that.
 
Ricky Ricardo said:
MS cramming all their big releases into a 4 month window never seemed like it could produce maximum value simply because a bunch of other players were stuffing their major stuff in there too.

So this works out.
Click to expand...

That and they loose a shit tone of momentum from January to the fall because there are very few releases from them. Yes they get a huge boost from the holidays but Sony has proved that the other months matter just as much. I think the Xbox one would be in a much better position today if they did this from the get go instead of that pre-season crap.
 
It was suppose to be Tomb Raider versus UC4 and considering how poor the advertising ended up being for Tomb Raider I imagine they toned it down significantly when UC4 got delayed. Microsoft probably didn't want two 3rd person shooters from them close to each other so Tomb Raider never changed. I don't think they even considered Fallout.

Greenberg is man in charge of this I think.
 
Zedox said:
I always thought it was dumb to put everything at the end of the year. Do I like having a lot of games at the end of the year? Sure...but I like having a lot of games to play throughout the year.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Even when they are spread out, we all still have a backlog... :/ The Struggle, lol.

If only to be a kid again, where there was so much time to play games... then again, we maybe played the same 3 games all year to two years in a row on average, lol.
 
Xer0 said:
But, at the same time, Quantum Break is the only one coming out before Fall 2016, so far. Are there any more XB1 AAA exclusives dated for the rest of the year? We know Gears is hitting in the Fall. Forza is usually a Fall game. We've seen nothing from Recore, Halo Wars 2, or even much of Crackdown 3. Is there any reason to think any of those will hit before Fall 2016?
Click to expand...

Killer Instinct: Season 3 just came out. And Ori Definitive Edition too, even if it isn't properly a new release. Summer will be GOW Beta time.
 
jelly said:
I don't think they even considered Fallout.

Greenberg is man in charge of this I think.
Click to expand...

He was on the Kinda Funny gamescast before the game came out. I don't remember exactly what he said, but he suggested that they had a choice of going against CoD, Battlefront or Fallout. They should have avoided all of them, if anything F4 was the game most likely to take sales directly away from TR (maybe).
 
DeepEnigma said:
So no more 'pre-season', huh, wonder why that is?

;)

And yes, it does make sense. Which is why Sony has been doing this with their first party, and letting the 3rd party duke it out in an already saturated holiday season.

Also why I truly believe they delayed UC4 slightly, give R&C and a couple of others some love and and breathing. Which reminds me... R&C in under 2 weeks!!!
Click to expand...

Microsoft loaded up the fall with too many titles. Sony didn't have nearly enough.

Both need to do a better job of staggered releases.
 
DJ Lushious said:
I don't understand why MS didn't learn this last gen. It's as if the Xbox division forgot everything they learned from the 360 era and have been bumbling their way since unveiling.
Click to expand...

They sadly sent both Tomb Raider and Sunset Overdrive to die. Fall is all about the big third party games. Unless you're a massive IP like Halo forget about it. I know they want to make their lineup look as varied as possible during this time but if people are spending full price on a game at that time it's usually going to be a safe bet and usually a MP heavy game.
 
Markitron said:
And yet they couldn't move Tomb Raider away from Fallout 4's release date?
Click to expand...

Beautiful Ninja said:
Maybe this was in response to sending RotR to its death.
Click to expand...

Rise of the Tomb Raider's situation was pretty fucked up, that both MSFT and Square couldn't do anything but endure the Xbox platform numbers, whatever they end up. MSFT's time with the game as their "exclusive" ends in December 2015, so they had to make the most of it through PR spins. PC launch was in January. Now as per their new policy of "every future Xbox first party title will release simultaneously on WIN10", they could've eased up on the PC launch of this third party timed exclusive and still call it "exclusively on Xbox" (though Square would never lock this down to WIN10 only), but their main PR line for this game "exclusively for Xbox in 20XX" would've become futile, as the PlayStation 4 version will release sometime later this year for sure. Their only way of both, pushing console bundles was to stick to the Nov 2015 launch. With a 2 month timeframe on the X360 & X1 this also helps them in additional PR like that post on Xbox Wire, "all Xbox exclusives sold over 1M units in 2015". Their bane however, came in the form of Fallout 4 releasing on the same day as theirs, lol.
 
Duxxy3 said:
Microsoft loaded up the fall with too many titles. Sony didn't have nearly enough.

Both need to do a better job of staggered releases.
Click to expand...
Sony had a kinda barren lineup of retail exclusives in fall '15, very true, but that was due to the delay of UC4 and R&C, not planning.

Otoh looks like they made the right call...

Now in '16:

January: Gravity Rush R
February: Street Fighter V
March: MLB16
April: Ratchet & Clank
May: Uncharted 4
June: No Man's Sky
July: ? (P5 in Japan perhaps?)
August: ?
September: Possibly Gran Turismo Sports
October: Possibly The Last Guardian
November: Possibly Horizon Zero Dawn
December: Possibly Dreams

Unknown if will make it to the west this year: P5, Gravity Rush 2, NiOh, Nier2 (probably not)

I'd say this year is staggered (in theory) decently in terms of exclusives.
We'll see what happens in practice.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Outward 2 delayed to 2027
News Event 
12
207
DEAD ORIGINAL replied
Driftguard for Xbox Controllers is out!! Break out your old controllers with stick drift folks!
4
304
Kuranghi replied
Should MS just go fuck it and take a big loss on hardware price?
2
86
733
Felessan replied
Being Sam Lake
39
3K
fatmarco replied
  • Locked
Valor Mortis delayed to October 13
1
159
Hideous Snake replied
Top Bottom