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[Kayant]

Thanks to Videogamer

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.

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.

 

[Markitron]

And yet they couldn't move Tomb Raider away from Fallout 4's release date?

 

[Zedox]

Makes sense and better to have games throughout than all at one point.

 

[Beautiful Ninja]

And yet they couldn't move Tomb Raider away from Fallout 4's release date?

Maybe this was in response to sending RotR to its death.

 

[samuraidino]

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.

 

[The End]

I believe the industry term in "Nintendelay"

 

[Bolivar687]

Man, they really do react to what we say on GAF.

 

[The Jackdog]

well, none of the reviews said it was buggy!

 

[CalamityPixel]

And yet they couldn't move Tomb Raider away from Fallout 4's release date?

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

 

[Markitron]

Maybe this was in response to sending RotR to its death.

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

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?

 

[malfcn]

It's refreshing to see releases spread out.

 

[Strootman]

Nothing new here.

We already knew it.

 

[Floody]

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.

 

[Chobel]

Maybe this was in response to sending RotR to its death.

QB was delayed before we even know the release date of RoTTR.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Makes sense and better to have games throughout than all at one point.

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!!!

 

[plasmawave]

Maybe this was in response to sending RotR to its death.

Even a 4 year old could tell MS that it was a bad idea.

 

[Wereroku]

And yet they couldn't move Tomb Raider away from Fallout 4's release date?

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.

 

[dugdug]

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?

 

[0ptimusPayne]

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!

 

[Ridley327]

I believe the industry term in "Nintendelay"

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.

 

[Markitron]

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.

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.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

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?

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.

 

[Duxxy3]

 

[ShamePain]

With reviews like this it would've been murdered last fall sales wise, now it at least has some room to breathe.

 

[Dabanton]

So they're learning? About damm time.

 

[Nightengale]

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?

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.

 

[cakely]

Makes sense, the release timing seems pretty perfect. They found a nice empty week in which to launch it.

 

[Ricky Ricardo]

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.

 

[LeonSPBR]

Shocking.

And yet they couldn't move Tomb Raider away from Fallout 4's release date?

If only they did this... ROTR would have sell a lot better.

 

[ShamePain]

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.

Forza usually drops in september. Gear 4 will probably be october.

 

[Zedox]

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!!!

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.

 

[Markitron]

Shocking.
If only they did this... ROTR would have sell a lot better.

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.

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.

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).

 

[Duxxy3]

Shocking.



If only they did this... ROTR would have sell a lot better.

Would have made a great January release.

 

[cjw]

I actually thought this when Quantum Break got delayed. It made no sense releasing all those exclusive games at the same time.

 

[Auctopus]

Nothing new here.

We already knew it.

No, you didn't. You had assumed it.

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

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.

Yup preseason is long gone now hopefully Microsoft learned that.

 

[prwxv3]

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.

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.

 

[tensuke]

And yet they couldn't move Tomb Raider away from Fallout 4's release date?

I don't know who was responsible for this, MS or SE or whomever, but that was a really, really stupid move by somebody.

 

[jelly]

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.

 

[Bluth54]

Would have made a great January release.

Ironically RotTR came out in late January on Steam and seems to have done pretty well, selling around 650k copies so far despite being a late and full priced port.

 

[DeepEnigma]

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.

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.

 

[Spider_Jerusalem]

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?

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.

 

[Markitron]

I don't think they even considered Fallout.

Greenberg is man in charge of this I think.

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).

 

[Krooner]

I hope he's annoyed enough about it for Remedy to go multi-plat from now on. They're a fantastic developer.

 

[DJ Lushious]

So they're learning? About damm time.

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.

 

[Duxxy3]

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!!!

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.

 

[Dabanton]

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.

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.

 

[VolticArchangel]

And yet they couldn't move Tomb Raider away from Fallout 4's release date?

Maybe this was in response to sending RotR to its death.

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.

 

[Elandyll]

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.

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.

 

[AmuroChan]

I don't know who was responsible for this, MS or SE or whomever, but that was a really, really stupid move by somebody.

It was Microsoft'. Aaron Greenberg spoke about why they didn't move the date on KF Gamescast.