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[MarkusRJR]

Well reading between the lines, they basically just said they're focusing on social games and not big single player games. As an Xbox fan who plays mostly single player games I'm probably gong to have to move over the Playstation next gen, which is disappointing since I really like my Xbox One hardware-wise.

There's few reasons to buy an Xbox nowadays unless you really need to have Halo/Gears/Forza. Like, that was the meme for the Xbox and Xbox 360 but it really seems like it's a bigger (and actually legitimate) complaint now imo. Compared to the competition Xbox needs to step it up, and Phil constantly saying they're going to improve every single year with nothing to show for it is disheartening.

 

[Taliban Stan]

”The audience for those big story-driven games... I won't say it isn't as large, but they're not as consistent. You'll have things like Zelda or Horizon Zero Dawn that'll come out, and they'll do really well, but they don't have the same impact that they used to have, because the big service-based games are capturing such a large amount of the audience. Sony's first-party studios do a lot of these games, and they're good at them, but outside of that, it's difficult – they're become more rare; it's a difficult business decision for those teams, you're fighting into more headwind."

Sad to hear. I wish "doing really well" was considered good enough for them. Seems like they see two types of games: insane blockbusters and flops with so little middle ground that even "doing really well" is considered not worth it. Break sales records or go home.

Hey, if we called it Halo Zero Dawn, Legend of Cortana, Masterchief: Automata, or Covenantbound would the "doing really well" not being enough part fly out the window and these games could exist like how Halo Wars gets to exist?

Even money hungry movie studios have make mid budget movies and give them wide releases because they get that they can't literally just be like 2 or 3 genres/franchises.

There's few reasons to buy an Xbox nowadays unless you really need to have Halo/Gears/Forza. Like, that was the meme for the Xbox and Xbox 360 but it really seems like it's a bigger (and actually legitimate) complaint now imo.

Basically, they decided that the memes were actually on to something and had given them the perfect business plan for success.

 

[GHG]

I think you're right about how the marketing budget for the division is spent, but let's not pretend they're always chasing a tail. Considering the actual hardware sales of the Kinect, as much as I think it was totally misguided (and they should have known from the average software quality that it wasn't sustainable), I recall that thing selling a lot of units, and making them a lot of money.

Like, at least 24 million units including the bundles by the time the thing petered out, and they sold through 8 million in the first two months, which was primarily just the add-on itself. Guinness confirmed it as their fastest-selling consumer electronics device (though no clue if that's changed since then).

That was them chasing a tail though, while it made money (and fast), it wasn't sustainable and the product was not ready until the fad had already matured from a product life cycle perspective. There was only one direction sales will go after that and that was down. Then, to make matters worse, despite the sales clearly declining they doubled down on it until the rebrand for the Xbox One. They didn't realise their mistake until it was too late.

If they managed to create a fad then you are looking at Wii type numbers (and beyond with the level of marketing spend they have at their disposal) and the opportunity to create an ever lasting legacy which does wonders for your brand. They should be looking to the future and saying "what is going to be the next big thing in gaming" or "how can we create the next big thing in gaming" and then have a crack at it. One thing that is clear however, is that they are too risk adverse to even think about doing something like that.

History is repeating itself I feel. They should have let Bungie make destiny for them or partnered with Blizzard for Overwatch. By the time whatever they are cooking is ready, the market will be ready to move on to something new and fresh. They will make some money from it, but not enough to justify the strategy shift for a whole division.

 

[TyrantII]

imo they do not even have the studio capability to be pumping out strictly high quality SP stuff at this moment in time (I mean they even lost Remedy who are going multiplat now far as I know).

They'd need to seriously ramp up their hiring of talent.
But they must believe why make that effort when there is easier money to be made in the short to mid term doing what we know; MP focused titles.

And again, these are the types of titles their gaming audience is hungry for so no need to pivot on their part.

They need to change their stance internally in first party and studio support. Hell, they lost Bungie because they would only let them be a Halo farm studio. Now Bungie has a major new IP with close to a million users a week playing in Destiny.

It's Microsoft's story in a nut shell, and not even the Xbox divisions call. There's a huge disconnect between what MSFT and investors want the Xbox divisions to be, and what it needs to do to be successful and a positive to gaming as a whole.

 

[Bluenoser]

Sounds like the same thing he's been saying for years pretty much.

Frankly, to me the problem with MS's first party output is that whenever they have a failure/mediocre game, they start chasing what third party devs/publishers are doing. That, imo, is not what a console manufacturer should be doing.They should be releasing experiences that are not common things third parties go for.

Sony's continual focus on SP experiences is what makes their first party output good.
Nintendo's continual focus on SP or Local MP experiences, which again, are not that common in the AAA space, is what makes their first party output worth it.

But MS, rather than learn from the mistakes or shortcoming of their attempts to step into these genres, basically goes "well that doesn't work at all, so we're not going to pursue something like that again" when a game doesn't perform to their expectations. Sony has flops, Nintendo has flops. But they keep on trying, and do come out with great games. And each respective userbase is better off for it.

Yes, Sony's had Demon's Souls, Uncharted, Horizon. But they've also had Genji Days Of The Blade, Lair, and The Order 1886.

Not to mention, Sony is good at reading the room with regards to how their franchises are received.

Killzone, a huge franchise for Sony was not very well received on PS4, and they gave GG the green light to work on something completely different.

Uncharted trilogy came to an end, and they had ND get to work on a different franchise, which surprisingly was better received than UC was.

It definitely takes a combination of taking risks, hiring good people, and knowing your audience.

 

[Herp Derpington]

There will be some new trend to chase by then.



It was mid-way into the PS2 gen when we really started to see the fruits of what Sony's WWS would become, and that was cemented in the first few years of the PS3 which is basically why no-one thinks that console is a joke anymore like how it started out. MS have been in the market for 17 years now, so it's not like they haven't had a chance to figure out what works for first-party. They just don't feel like they've had a proper vision or focus since the creative heads from the OG Xbox days left (i.e. Peter Moore, J Allard, etc).

Well that's kinda my point. It's just never been as high as priority for them versus Sony. Yes they've had awhile to cultivate a good 1st party stable (and they do have quite a few really good IPs) but it's just not their thing. Chalk it up to shifts in strategy by a changing leadership if you want but it's been long enough where I think they're just who they are. You either accept it at this point or you move on . The constant hand wringing and whining though just seems so unneeded and somewhat forced.

They'll always have a fairly interesting if a bit smaller and maybe more repetitive 1st party lineup and they'll focus on gaas and possibly 3rd parties as they've always done. Buying exclusives is probably over for the most part but if you can get enough gaas on the platform to attract a decent audience you'll be fine. Heck they have half of the audience Sony has yet they were highly profitable the past quarter. They'll be fine.

 

[Seik]

E3 shall be interesting, can't wait to see what the big 3 will bring to the table.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Oh I bet you will Spencer, I bet you will.

 

[Feorax]

Games as service can't get upgrades with Scorpio? It's gotta be exclusive to SP games?

Of course they can, but when was the last time a GAAS product was held aloft as a technical marvel that truly pushed the cutting edge of graphical prowess? That's the type of game they're going to need to show why a Scorpio is a better choice than a Pro, but unfortunately, these games are traditionally expansive SP games where fidelity is second only to game-play, exactly the types of games Phil is saying he's not all that interested in.

 

[Somnia]

Is it better because of REQs or just a better game, multiplayer wise?

Halo 5 multiplayer is extremely better than Halo 4's and one of the best Halo MP's ever created. Granted Halo is very split so others will disagree

 

[DR2K]

More than 1 billion investment with first party? That's a lot of money.
That's like 20 Horizon ZD with some change.

Considering how much they spent on that cancelled Fable game. It's a big number, but they're not very wise with their studio investments.

 

[belvedere]

Well that sort of sucked some of the wind out of my hype boat sails.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

Of course they can, but when was the last time a GAAS product was held aloft as a technical marvel that truly pushed the cutting edge of graphical prowess? That's the type of game they're going to need to show why a Scorpio is a better choice than a Pro, but unfortunately, these games are traditionally expansive SP games where fidelity is second only to game-play, exactly the types of games Phil is saying he's not all that interested in.

Your games as a service can still have a SP component. Also games like Destiny have huge expansive worlds that can take advantage of Scorpio's power. Again, none of this is exclusive to strictly SP games.

 

[moltonasty]

Between Scorpio and MS first party plus Nintendo's Switch announcements and whatever Sony has cooked up..E3 2017 is gonna be absolutely bonkers.

 

[MarveI]

Yeah, you can't just back mediocrity because then you possibly get more mediocrity unless they see the faults and have confidence to give it another go. Microsoft need to have the passion, creativity and patience to make something great and people will come, no doubt. The audience likes great games, make them. It's tough but people do it time and again.

It's baffling because didn't they do such a great job of that during the 360 era ?
To me that clearly shows that the people heading it back then knew what they were doing and made great decisions. It's not like they were always so bad at this. On the contrary. MS and Phil need to take a hard look at what made the 360 so succesfull and learn from that. Because a very strong and quality filled 1P lineup was key.

 

[jelly]

The Tomb Raider exclusive was embarrassing. What a waste of money when they would be better served investing in a new IP.

They are reactionary. Sony have Uncharted, what do we have.....buy Tomb Raider. Sony delays Uncharted. Oh.

 

[Occam]

Any day now.

 

[The Salt Life]

So basically it's more "service based" games and forget about SP.

That's what the majority of gamers seem to like now. Playing together, a community. When I play a SP game I know I'm wasting time and falling behind my friends in those service based games.

 

[nycgamer4ever]

They have been late to the party with everything since they had their heads turned by the Wii during the 360 days.

"Oh look, that's making money, let's do that!"

And then by the time they actually release their version of whatever it was that they thought was hot the market is already moving on to the next thing. They need to understand that to really make serious money you need to invest and innovate in making the next big thing, but that would involve effort beyond looking at a few spreadsheets to decide what to do next.

Unfortunately I feel like this shift has been years in the making at Xbox division ever since the last couple of years of the Xbox 360's life when games dried up. It was probably their plan when they announced Xbox One with the always one drm nonsense before the backlash. They tried the first party games but can't compete in that space so they have shift again to make money in the console space in other ways to compete. It's working as evidence of their financial report. Despite losing the console sales war they are still making alot of money in the games department so naturally they will continue to gravitate towards that platform. However you alienate a whole portion of your fans. I don't believe that he is correct in saying that AAA single player games have less impact. They still have great impact and are the reasons why people buy into certain platforms. You just have to commit to make good games. They just don't have the first party to do it.

 

[Winthorpe]

It definitely takes a combination of taking risks, hiring good people, and knowing your audience.

It also comes from Sony admitting that what they are good at is making hardware, not developing games. That's not a criticism.

Whereas the DNA of videogame design runs through Nintendo, Sony are an electronics giant that, as you say, give talented developers space to create games and (seemingly) more scope to experiment.

I've been really disappointed with MS this gen. Unimaginative and underwhelming.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

The constant hand wringing and whining though just seems so unneeded and somewhat forced.

It might be different if we hadn't heard it all before from Spencer. When he was made head of Xbox it was all "first party is key" blah blah blah from him, and then over the next couple of years he shuts down/gets rid of four devs (I think) and starts filling in gaps in their line up by paying for games to nor launch on PS4.

That's why I think this E3 is absolutely crucial. He's good at talking the talk. Now let's see the fruits of his labours.

 

[Bluenoser]

That's what the majority of gamers seem to like now. Playing together, a community. When I play a SP game I know I'm wasting time and falling behind my friends in those service based games.

Lol what? Why play a SP game then?

 

[jelly]

Any day now.

Need a Xbox version of this. The Xbox dashboard and a controller. Any photoshop pros?

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

It's baffling because didn't they do such a great job of that during the 360 era ?
To me that clearly shows that the people heading it back then knew what they were doing and made great decisions. It's not like they were always so bad at this. On the contrary. MS and Phil need to take a hard look at what made the 360 so succesfull and learn from that. Because a very strong and quality filled 1P lineup was key.

Almost all those "exclusives" went third party.

 

[wapplew]

He is smart to bet against GAF.
Many members here still shook by Ghost Recon sales performance, I'm sure whatever GaaS MS making that don't look too sexy for GAF will sell gangbuster.
To people who say MS chasing trend, let me remind you MS have been leading this trend since Xbox one launch, in fact that whole drm thing it's all about game as service.

 

[The Salt Life]

Lol what? Why play a SP game then?

That's a question I ask myself, why am I playing a SP game when I can be playing destiny, marvel age of heroes or sea of Thieves and keeping pace with my friends who are at end game and geared up for raids and such.

 

[DriftingSpirit]

But that's the point. This isn't their strength, so why keep pushing? Meanwhile, Forza, KI, Gears, and Halo DLC are doing well. The indies are filling in that niche for SP content.

I mean, the games I listed aren't even first party devs. They are third party studios MS partnered with. Even if MS' strength doesn't reside in strong SP content, there is no reason why they cannot do a better job at building those SP games with third party talent. MS can focus on their GaaS internally while they get assistance from third parties to build good SP content. They just have to do a better job with managing the content.

I just don't think it should be an either/or type situation. MS can have their GaaS model at the center and still put forth better effort for stuff outside of that.

 

[Winthorpe]

Basically, Destiny should have been an MS exclusive.

 

[Feorax]

Your games as a service can still have a SP component. Also games like Destiny have huge expansive worlds that can take advantage of Scorpio's power. Again, none of this is exclusive to strictly SP games.

I agree, all I'm saying is that traditionally that's where the graphical showcases have been. I cant think of a GAAS game that's been held up as a graphical masterpiece in some time.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like if I'm just going to be paying for a very slightly higher res Destiny 2 compared to Pro, I'd rather just get a Pro and have games like Horizon and Uncharted that truly blow me away. Sony is a known quantity at this point with regards to quality, MS is very much the opposite, and this is probably the last thing I'd be saying if I was Spencer leading up to a new hardware launch.

 

[MilkyJoe]

It' s complete fecking bollocks. Is he saying that Single player games only sell if they are on Sony or Nintendo? so single player will be indie buget on Xbox?

All those SP multiplat games be dammed then??

What he fails ot see is that people want GOOD single player games. They have a war chest of great IP and they spend the money on shit like a Hybrid TV show/ game, that no one bought because no one wants to watch fecking TV when they want to play a game.

Jesus wept, how can these people not read the market ?

"what do you want? "
"We want Ice-cream!!"
"We listened to our customers, and here is that candy floss you wanted"

 

[Boke1879]

We'll see

 

[mysteriousmage09]

That's what the majority of gamers seem to like now. Playing together, a community. When I play a SP game I know I'm wasting time and falling behind my friends in those service based games.

That's a question I ask myself, why am I playing a SP game when I can be playing destiny, marvel age of heroes or sea of Thieves and keeping pace with my friends who are at end game and geared up for raids and such.

Sounds more like an obligation to keep playing those games more than anything.

 

[family_guy]

That's what the majority of gamers seem to like now. Playing together, a community. When I play a SP game I know I'm wasting time and falling behind my friends in those service based games.

It's all a waste of time. However at least with a single player game, like Horizon or Last of Us, I can discuss the story elements in the same way I would when a book or movie comes out. That's more social to me. If I'm out hanging out with my friends, we're not talking about our kill death ratios.

 

[Lord of Ostia]

Not sure that service based games as an exclusive are a smart choice, especially given the sales difference between Xbox and Playstation this gen. Those games require a large pool of players to make their money through micro transactions, because the average user isn't buying them (or buying many anyway). Obviously they will also release on PC, but only through the Windows store, which limits their sales potential for PC titles pretty significantly. There aren't the halo 3, Xbox 360 domination days anymore.

 

[The Salt Life]

It' s complete fecking bollocks. Is he saying that Single player games only sell if they are on Sony or Nintendo? so single player will be indie buget on Xbox?

All those SP multiplat games be dammed then??

What he fails ot see is that people want GOOD single player games. They have a war chest of great IP and they spend the money on shit like a Hybrid TV show/ game, that no one bought because no one wants to watch fecking TV when they want to play a game.

Jesus wept, how can these people not read the market ?

"what do you want? "
"We want Ice-cream!!"
"We listened to our customers, and here is that candy floss you wanted"

No I just think he see's destiny and GTA online success and wants to makes games like it, Sea of Thieves for starters, possible crack down 3 will have these huge service, ever progressing universes I believe.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

I think Sea of Thieves will be a test to see how this pans out. That game has a lot riding on it's shoulders.

 

[gaming_noob]

They know they can't compete in SP market with Sony and Nintendo. Gotta try something new. I want to see the plan.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

The Tomb Raider exclusive was embarrassing. What a waste of money when they would be better served investing in a new IP.

They are reactionary. Sony have Uncharted, what do we have.....buy Tomb Raider. Sony delays Uncharted. Oh.

I think this is spot on but I don't think they have always been like that. When OG Xbox and 360 came out, they excelled on making a console online infrastructure despite criticism over paying a monthly fee and the games were of a variety, from kameo to mass Effect from Alan Wake to Viva Piniata.

I look at it now and particularly in their UI and features, not just the games, they seem to be catching up. You still can't even delete the history of a 0/1000g game on Xbox One, when it all it took was a press of the X button on 360, completed 1000/1000g games no longer have their own section which again, did have on 360, I know many achievement hunters are irked by this. Upload Studio vs Share Factory....i mean I honestly didn't think Sony would outclass them there.

It's like the ladies and gents who are there at MS now don't get or want to understand what makes a platform keep momentum or what made the previous systems so revered particularly the 360.

The brand hasn't been the same since around 2009 imo

 

[Sony]

So, a Halo/Forza crossover?

 

[lukeskymac]

Unsurprising. This E3 will be really interesting.

 

[MatrixMan.EXE]

We'd see job listings immediately.

This too. Something would have leaked.

 

[Okami Haundo]

I mean, the games I listed aren't even first party devs. They are third party studios MS partnered with. Even if MS' strength doesn't reside in strong SP content, there is no reason why they cannot do a better job at building those SP games with third party talent. MS can focus on their GaaS internally while they get assistance from third parties to build good SP content. They just have to do a better job with managing the content.

I just don't think it should be an either/or type situation. MS can have their GaaS model at the center and still put forth better effort for stuff outside of that.

I completely agree with you on this. Microsoft can (and honestly needs to) focus on both to be successful. Phil has talked a lot lately about how he knows that they need to improve in this area.

He's also talked pretty openly about how they made a ton of mistakes this gen, and they couldn't allocate resources to improve everything at once. I believe him when he says that a more diverse lineup is their next major goal. We just need to see what the results of that effort are. I'm hoping they have something to show sooner rather than later.

 

[jayu26]

That's what the majority of gamers seem to like now. Playing together, a community. When I play a SP game I know I'm wasting time and falling behind my friends in those service based games.

That's a question I ask myself, why am I playing a SP game when I can be playing destiny, marvel age of heroes or sea of Thieves and keeping pace with my friends who are at end game and geared up for raids and such.

Do you even enjoy these multiplayer games? Or you just playing just because friends...

I think Sea of Thieves will be a test to see how this pans out.

How what pans out? It also follows GAAS model.

 

[LKSmash]

It' s complete fecking bollocks. Is he saying that Single player games only sell if they are on Sony or Nintendo? so single player will be indie buget on Xbox?

All those SP multiplat games be dammed then??

What he fails ot see is that people want GOOD single player games. They have a war chest of great IP and they spend the money on shit like a Hybrid TV show/ game, that no one bought because no one wants to watch fecking TV when they want to play a game.

Jesus wept, how can these people not read the market ?

"what do you want? "
"We want Ice-cream!!"
"We listened to our customers, and here is that candy floss you wanted"

Are you talking about the GAF market or the actual market that's kept GTA a top selling game for 3 years and Ghost Recon #1 over Zelda?

 

[Lord of Ostia]

I think Sea of Thieves will be a test to see how this pans out. That game has a lot riding on it's shoulders.

I don't see that game capturing a large audience. Sea of Thieves isn't Destiny or Ghost Recon WL. It's a much slower paced pirate themed game, and while certain pockets of the Web are excited for it, they've shown a lot and the hype for it is pretty mum.

 

[The Salt Life]

Sounds more like an obligation to keep playing those games more than anything.

Well yeah, destiny was the only game I played on Xbox one and PS4 for two years, I didn't buy other games.

It's all a waste of time. However at least with a single player game, like Horizon or Last of Us, I can discuss the story elements in the same way I would when a book or movie comes out. That's more social to me. If I'm out hanging out with my friends, we're not talking about our kill death ratios.

None of my friends care about SP games, or stories, they care about loot, raiding and pvp. Imo horizon was over rated and that's why I only played 50% of it.

 

[Lys Skygge]

I feel like Phil has been saying they're going to invest in first party for years now.

 

[Maintenance]

I think Sea of Thieves will be a test to see how this pans out. That game has a lot riding on it's shoulders.

That's a game as a service.

 

[Hero]

Exclusives alone aren't what drive people to buy systems. If they were, Sony wouldn't need marketing deals for games like Red Dead, Destiny 2, Battlefront 2, and Call of Duty...
.

But Sony has exclusivity deals for DLC/marketing for all those games you just listed, so I'm not sure how you're disproving my point?

 

[MarveI]

But its not just Uncharted or Zelda, it's also FFXV, P5, Nier, Nioh, Horizon, etc... One common thing among these games is high review score (excepting for FFXV, but that one is a bit of a different animal due to the FF brand). Now, look at MS efforts in that regard. They just haven't delivered any good games, not to mention great ones.

And when you look at the games rated at least 88 (around 90) you see that they sold really well.

A great example is Forza Horizon 3. The best rated MS exclusive game. Sold more than FH2 on X1,360 combined on X1 alone. So clearly if your game is great it will sell great. Simple as that.

Making great games is like making great films. It's about planning, passion, making the right decisions. Get the quality people heading it, have a vision and voila. Sony is doing it time and time again, Nintendo too. So it's not impossible. But IMO the real reason MS and Phil Spencer is failing at this is because they are approaching this like corporate suits (ironically Phil hates suits but when you look at what he has done and hear what he says he acts just like them). His actions contradict the things he promises/says.