There's a whole lot of assumptions being thrown here.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Phil Spencer: We're upping our investment with first party and committed to innovate
- Thread starter leeh
- Start date
- Status
There's a whole lot of assumptions being thrown here.
Nobody gives a fuck about the brand.
Let's summarize this "absolutely solid job" into bullet points
1) removal of Kinect
2) introduction of Xbox 360 BC
3) bought Minecraft
4) ended and closed Lionhead, Press Play, Function Studios, Good Science, LXP, SOTA
5) loss of long-standing exclusive partnerships with Epic Games and Remedy
6) failed / soured exlusivity experiments with Respawn, Insomniac, Crystal Dynamics, Platinum
7) renamed Black Tusk to Coalition and told them fuck ideas, make Gears
8) announced Sporkio
9) announced that every 1st party Xbox game will also be on PC
Forgot anything?
And that's pretending "Phil" wasn't around before. In fact he absolutely was around when Bungie wanted out, when Bioware lost interest in making exclusives, when Bizarre was made redundant to Microsoft's plans, when former XBLA heroes like John Blow and Phil Fish were declared enemies of the state, when FASA was closed after a glorious GAAS arena shooter based on an RPG license of all things and so on and so forth.
Over the past decade MGS has done nothing but liquidate assets and burn bridges. They are now coasting along on the fumes of Xbox 360 fan goodwill but they have neither the capacity nor the strategy to deliver anything competitive going forward. BC is absolutely the smartest thing they could have done, given the reality of their current production pipeline.
They seem to want to invest as little as possible in first party games, and transition fully into a platform provider - Xbox simply being the box under the TV option to go along with the Windows 10 side of things.
The issue is they're outgunned by Sony on the console side, and steam on the PC side. There might be some traction begin across both PC and console when Sony and Steam are platform specific?
Lightbreaker
Neo Member
The brand and the work culture/ethic at Xbox needs a shake up. It's clear that while Phil is doing an okay job it's just not enough to suffice the public. Granted the guy did step up to the plate, taking that clusterf*ck of a machine (OG Xbox One blunder) from D Mattrick.
It's amazing how we allow stuff like this to seep in.
It's amazing how we allow stuff like this to seep in.
Microsoft don't really care about products unless they make a massive return on the investment. They could make a game for 30 million, make 150 million back but that doesn't even appear on their radar because it didn't make a billion so they won't bother doing what Sony does unless they are desperate to fill a hole like say Tomb Raider or Titanfall. They want tent pole franchise to milk and maximise micro transactions.
Unknown?
Member
This is probably why Scalebound was cancelled, diverting resources to online service based games.
semiconscious
Gold Member
very good. i think, along with passing on the larger world market with their console, ms almost appears ready to settle for this arrangement, afa being #2 in both areas. the only real problem is that even spencer himself has yet to come up with a 'graceful' way of spinning this as a positive. i mean, this's definitely why mau was conceived
...I know 'wait till E3' has become completely cliché and useless to even attempt to be taken seriously around here but Christ... the fucking show is just over a month away..maybe see what MS has and after June 11th doom and gloom all you want.
I really like what Phil and company are doing on the hardware and services side, which is why Xbox is still my preferred platform. However, I hope they take a look at their legacy and invest in unique gaming experiences. OG Xbox and 360 provided some awesome exclusive games. I look back at those times, fondly.
Phil's latest comments don't inspire much hope, but I also know that he's not going to spoil any potential surprises. I hope they have good announcements planned for E3. Either way, I will be picking up a PS4 to get in on the awesome exclusives there.
Phil's latest comments don't inspire much hope, but I also know that he's not going to spoil any potential surprises. I hope they have good announcements planned for E3. Either way, I will be picking up a PS4 to get in on the awesome exclusives there.
But I wanna doom and gloom now!
CassidyIzABeast
Member
They lost Lebron(Molyneux) so they blew it up. Lionhead was lost at sea as shown by it taking them 4+ years to put out a f2p game.
While your post was good, this is not true. Brand recognition and purchases based on strong brands is very much a real thing.
Goalus
Member
A lot of people commenting in this thread don't seem to understand the situation Phil is currently in.
It is obvious that he doesn't have an unlimited budget to his disposal that he may burn at will, like it seemingly used to be the case for Peter Moore in the early 360 days. MS is investing in the Xbox platform, but Satya expects Phil to bring in some money in a conceivable time frame, otherwise he (Satya) might completely turn off the money tap. That means that Phil needs to find a way to strenghten the platform in order to make big AAA productions profitable, but without relying on too many big AAA productions (that are risky by nature even if you are a market leader, but even more so as a distant second) in order to achieve this goal.
This is not an easy task, and I think Phil has been doing all the right things. A consistent, long-term hardware strategy is crucial, and 360 BC and Scorpio are essential parts of that. Xbox will be the best place to play 3rd-party titles for at least two years, and this alone will strengthen the platform, even without MS doing anything by themselves. Should Sony release a new console, MS will have a new console out no longer than twelve months later (they can easily do this with their new generation-less approach because no one has to buy the new hardware in order to stay in the ecosystem). Gradually, big AAA productions will become less risky and thus more numerous. In a sense, you could say that Phil is still busy disposing of the garbage that Don Mattrick left.
I personally love what he is doing for the Xbox platform.
It is obvious that he doesn't have an unlimited budget to his disposal that he may burn at will, like it seemingly used to be the case for Peter Moore in the early 360 days. MS is investing in the Xbox platform, but Satya expects Phil to bring in some money in a conceivable time frame, otherwise he (Satya) might completely turn off the money tap. That means that Phil needs to find a way to strenghten the platform in order to make big AAA productions profitable, but without relying on too many big AAA productions (that are risky by nature even if you are a market leader, but even more so as a distant second) in order to achieve this goal.
This is not an easy task, and I think Phil has been doing all the right things. A consistent, long-term hardware strategy is crucial, and 360 BC and Scorpio are essential parts of that. Xbox will be the best place to play 3rd-party titles for at least two years, and this alone will strengthen the platform, even without MS doing anything by themselves. Should Sony release a new console, MS will have a new console out no longer than twelve months later (they can easily do this with their new generation-less approach because no one has to buy the new hardware in order to stay in the ecosystem). Gradually, big AAA productions will become less risky and thus more numerous. In a sense, you could say that Phil is still busy disposing of the garbage that Don Mattrick left.
I personally love what he is doing for the Xbox platform.
SpinningBirdKick
Banned
Why is everyone being so hard on Phil?
I think he's the perfect executive to carefully manage the slow careful winding down of the Xbox business into obsolesce without spending too much company money.
His soothing tones and touching soundbites offer comfort and hope to Xbox owners everywhere. This will surely prevent people abandoning the platform too quickly while first and third party support slowly withers away due to budget cuts.
Don't listen to these people Phil, you're doing a great job... sunsetting the Xbox brand.
I think he's the perfect executive to carefully manage the slow careful winding down of the Xbox business into obsolesce without spending too much company money.
His soothing tones and touching soundbites offer comfort and hope to Xbox owners everywhere. This will surely prevent people abandoning the platform too quickly while first and third party support slowly withers away due to budget cuts.
Don't listen to these people Phil, you're doing a great job... sunsetting the Xbox brand.
While true, it constantly is made bigger than it actually is.
Going as far as creating some narrative of Microsoft never having a chance, because "Playstation".
1) Removal of Kinect was something people were asking for
2) 360 BC was the number one requested feature on Xbox uservoice
3) Minecraft was a great acquisition for MS
4) Function, SOTA, Good Science, LXP, and SOTA were internal teams on HoloLens development that changed when the newly appointed CEO made HoloLens business focused. Fable Legends was a $75m stinker and PressPlay's Project Knoxville sadly didn't generate much interest.
5) Epic doesn't really make games anymore and Remedy can't seem to deliver a hit
6) about right
7) Leadership at BlackTusk voted to take on Gears
8) ?
9) Play Anywhere is fantastic. Don't know how anyone can be mad at this. Not sure I can give him credit for this either since the CEO merged Xbox into the Windows team and made it their mission to integrate across all W10 devices.
Bungie left, FASA closed, Bizarre Creations acquired by Activision, and BioWare went with EA while Phil was head of EMEA studios and located in Europe, so those weren't at all part of his job. He had nothing to do with XBLA relations either.
I think Phil spun up some good games early this gen, but they didn't pan out. You can have only so many commercial losses before having to go back to the drawing board and determine where to course correct.
Shil Pencer
Member
strong the fanboy is in here, wait till e3 I shall
Branding is overrated. It's the product offering in the here and now and the prospects that are important.
More to the point, I see absolutely no impact of whatever might fall under "brand tarnishing" -- software ownership policies? Kinect intrusions? I really don't know -- on Xbox One sales. Stuff like this stops mattering when it's off the table, and those items have been off the table for a very long time.
Whenever I see this brought up I perceive it as a veiled expression of how Xbox One "deserves" better sales but still has this weight upon it that is only slowly coming off. I think that's false. It's the product offering vs the competition, combined with pricing, that places the systems exactly where they belong, exactly where they are.
Same in reverse keeps happening in PAL threads especially where strong PS4 sales are ascribed to "the brand", when in reality PS4 is simply the best value for money for a games console, certainly in terms of performance.
The only angle for branding here is stone cold statistics. What has happened, in terms of retention of exclusivity, third-party readiness for signing further deals, sizing of first-party workforce, is most likely going to continune in absence of detail insight. You might call that "the brand", I just call it building reasonable expectations from past observations. IOW if PR person X says he's happy excited so and so in hope to make me feel a little warmer and fuzzier about his brand, that's not going to do anything. And frankly, if it really had a wide impact, Xbox would be winning worldwide right now.
Alot of this is inaccurate with a bunch of cherry picking. There was no loss of partnership with Epic, they focused on tech, Remedy doors are still open (they tweeted recently that Phil was in the house), point 6 isnt true at all, Insomniac are busy, Respawn had greater success with Titan Fall then TF2, Phill wants to work with Platinum again he said so in IGN panel 2 months ago and CD were proud of what they achieved with latest TR, not sure where you came up with conclusion for this point.
Regarding point 7, MS brought in industry vet Rod Ferguson, big gain for the team and we got a great GoW game with a promising future.
And yes you forgot a whole lot and your downplaying how significant it was for him to green light 2 new consoles packed with new features. Scorpio is something fans have been wanting for a long time, powerful like Xbox feature packed like 360, its a direct answer to those crying out for power.
DriftingSpirit
Member
Yeah, I think it was a clash in goals. Plat probably just wanted to make a pure action RPG and MS wanted more focus on the online and service components. The co-op stuff, for example, just seemed hamfisted.
And that's kinda the problem that someone, or a group of people at Microsoft aren't getting. They can't just make 1 game 30 different ways. Otherwise you have a homogenized platform. You need variety.
The Artisan
Member
hm, that's what i was thinking. i didn't read OP's quotes but if they are strongly implying to leave out campaigns in games just for mp that's a bit sad.
wapplew
Member
Make no sense, Fable legends was service game top to bottom, Scalebound have online coop, these cancellation doesn't fit the GaaS focus narrative.
Maybe those games greenlit when Mattrick at helm, not Spencer's baby.
I wouldn't be as salty about the lack of single player games if concurrently splitscreen multiplayer weren't dying too. They've started this drive were they squeeze as much out of the player as possible. MS and some other publishers have been very aggressive in killing single player games, getting rid of splitscreen (handy when you're charging for online play) and introducing microtransactions everywhere.
DriftingSpirit
Member
The announcements at E3 have become progressively smaller since 2013. With an even tighter budget, will there be even less? I think MS should at least be able to match or be on par with 2015 though.
Here is a chart by Nightengale (w/ commentary) on Microsoft's E3 slate since this generation started.
And the downplaying of 2 new consoles that are much more then just refinements. Xbox One S is an example of listening to the base, lots of changes without the expense.
Not necessarily Gaas but nudging people towards a Gold subscription.
What makes you think I presented those as negative points, my brand?
The announcements at E3 have become progressively smaller since 2013. With an even tighter budget, will there be even less? I think MS should at least be able to match or be on par with 2015 though.
Here is a chart by Nightengale (w/ commentary) on Microsoft's E3 slate since this generation started.
I only expect Forza 7 and Halo 6 be there big titles for E3 this year.
secretanchitman
Member
Forza 7 probably but I would assume Halo 6 coming out in 2018 though. Halo has been on a 3 year cycle since Halo 4 came out.
wapplew
Member
I expect a repeat of E3 2014. But this time, they don't cancel those games.
DriftingSpirit
Member
Halo 5 was announced at E3 2014 and came out end of 2015. Halo 5 will get announced this year and come out end of 2018.
I expect a Reach remaster to be their surprise announcement with MP modes that integrate into Halo 5. They will also double down on old games. I could see them giving some big 360 titles a res boost via BC. What I want is a playable port of Panzer Dragoon Orta as scraps for the niche gamer.
3rd party wise they'll stay close with Bethesda to fill the long single player game gap they have.
3rd party wise they'll stay close with Bethesda to fill the long single player game gap they have.
Adam Tyner
Member
A reveal this year could still be in the cards, though. Halo 5 was shown off at E3 in 2014, even though it didn't come out until the following year.
Goalus
Member
Good call.
nekkid
It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
*that people care about
I agree with what you're saying except with your views on brand. Xbox isn't winning in part due to the brand faltering. Companies spend millions on building brand recognition, and they don't do this on a whim.
Hence the word "really" instead of making it an absolute. It's a F2P game that even they don't seem to put that much effort into pushing. You can't argue their focus is on Unreal Engine development.
secretanchitman
Member
Oh yeah, I would definitely expect a Halo 6 reveal this year. It would be silly if Microsoft didn't show the game off at E3.
PositiveGamer
Member
The only way that would make sense is if they were doing a Play Anywhere release, or even being so bold as to make a H3 Steam release as well similar to their Steam Halo Wars release. However, I think Spencer and 343 have said no more Halo releases this year.
Night.Ninja
Banned
Free clicks
Lightbreaker
Neo Member
MS needs to draw a line with Steam. I don't mind the non heavy hitter exclusives jumping on aboard the Steam train but have some decency for yourself, MS.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked