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I think it's time for Don Mattrick to come back to XBOX

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thelastword

Banned
To be fair, the CEO wasn't a fan of the Xbox division; wanted to sell it off. He inherited what was left over after the Xbox One fiasco. And games are complex and can't be fast-tracked. So unless Microsoft paid for exclusivity for a game that was likely going to go multi platform; they aren't going to pop out big AAA games with only 2 years of development from studios with prior engagements. And it's not like they could have started earlier if the CEO wasn't a huge fan of the division.

The biggest game Sony has is a stand-alone expansion to Spiderman. They have Ratchet and Demon Souls too but they probably aren't going to bring in crazy numbers either. Ones a fancy remake also. Insomniac recently became a first party but if you think about when these games were likely started, all the games weren't originally developed "in-house". Without Insomniac, Sony probably wouldn't have been able to output anything from their first-party as they would have been all games with contracted third-party resources. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just pointing out that resources are finite and you can't really expedite things. I think the old Microsoft would have tried to do the same thing if they couldn't output enough from first-party for console launch. They kind of did that with the Xbox One, where they got Crytek, Insomniac, Remedy, Capcom and Respawn to make them an exclusive game for Xbox One (and PC).

Phil Spencer isn't enough of a shark though. He tries too hard to be the good guy and hasn't done and great business moves like the old Xbox division was during the 360 days.
TBF, Sony showed much more than what you just mentioned, like Kena, Ghostwire, Sackboy LBP, Pragmata, Little Devil Inside, All Stars (which you should go look at the latest screens they are bonkers)...Then there's Returnal, Destruction All Stars, Stray, Project Athia and we all know there are games in development like Lost Soul Aside.....

The thing to note is that Sony has not announced their full launch lineup.....Rumors are that this would be revealed at their event in August...I think from their batch of potential launch games, we can say that it's a higher graphical ceiling with more variety and quality to choose from...

Then we can expect the best games this gen at 4k 60fps. I'd say that's potential for a pretty solid launch overall...
 

thelastword

Banned
Funny, but you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

“You want to play last gen games? We’ve got a product for that, it’s called the Xbox One”
What's ironic is that Phil went about it this way for next gen....

“You want to play last gen games? We’ve got a product for that, it’s called the Series X”, for at least 2 years from launch.....
 

jakinov

Member
TBF, Sony showed much more than what you just mentioned, like Kena, Ghostwire, Sackboy LBP, Pragmata, Little Devil Inside, All Stars (which you should go look at the latest screens they are bonkers)...Then there's Returnal, Destruction All Stars, Stray, Project Athia and we all know there are games in development like Lost Soul Aside.....

The thing to note is that Sony has not announced their full launch lineup.....Rumors are that this would be revealed at their event in August...I think from their batch of potential launch games, we can say that it's a higher graphical ceiling with more variety and quality to choose from...

Then we can expect the best games this gen at 4k 60fps. I'd say that's potential for a pretty solid launch overall...
I didn't say they showed only those games I mentioned. In the context of the conversation, I was talking about major games coming out around launch Xbox showed a bunch of timed-exclusives too and games coming out later.

They probably have more secrets, but I don't think they'd have anything crazy unless they bought more exclusive deals with third parties. A lot of their first party should be pretty occupied unless they've been splitting studios into teams and hiring extra people.
 
Not exactly. RROD plagued XBOX very early on, people had multiple machines die on them and for some reason Don was able to keep 360 hardware sales trending regardless.
Well these guys would be my go to, but sadly I don't see how the old gang would ever come back to XBOX. Yet Xbox surely need a man who can decipher what games to greenlight, one that would not cancel something like scalebound, which would have decent combat from Platinum in the name of lesser franchises or potential ones......I'm looking at Booty too and though I think it's early on for him.....I'm not seeing that new drive for next gen for the games that will elevate the brand....They need somebody with an eye....Hey, I'd even give Itagaki the reigns to run XBOX over these current guys at the helm......

Yet Mattrick is a business mind and also a dev, so best of both worlds...
The console selling despite the rrod has more to do with the influence the console had on that generation. You make it sound like Don Mattrick somehow found a way to market against it or that they fixed the hardware issue. As far as I know the console had a chance to rrod no matter what edition you had, even till the very end.
 
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Ten_Fold

Member
Isn’t that the guy who wanted the Kinect to be the thing and the Xbox doesn’t work with out it? Also isn’t he the same guy that was pretty much responsible for the PS3 making a big comeback?
 
Yes, I think Don has a better game mind.... He would pick the diamond from the rough much better than Phil.....Phil cancelled games that looked promising and greenlit games that stayed in development limbo for years to paltry reviews and low sales. Then he had no choice than to put them on gamepass, only then to try and suggest that these games are doing very well because of gamepass subs mostly a low cost of entry.....That revenue and profit is gone. The excitement to buy a game you value as good and worth your $60 is gone....The quality of games suffer if gamepass is the new conduit..


As for google etc....Well google tried their own stuff which didn't pan out....I think the only way Sony can get some competition now is if Nintendo releases modern hardware and try to relieve the GC era with a modern looking Zelda, Eternal Darkness type games, RE4 type deals etc....and of course many new IP's from them beyond Mario etc..

I too believe none of those are proper suitors and that only Nintendo can go back to rivaling Sony by making a powered box. The thing is Nintendo won't do so as long as Microsoft is in the business taking the left-over market share from Sony. And MS will not leave unless they're really crushed.
 
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I too believe none of those are proper suitors and that only Nintendo can go back to rivaling Sony by making a powered box. The thing is Nintendo won't do so as long as Microsoft is in the business taking the left-over market share from Sony. And MS will not leave unless they're really crushed.
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Why u got my avvy
 

Redlight

Member
Has anyone ever read a 'thelastword' post all the way through? (be honest, skipping the last third or skimming doesn't count).
 
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Kingthrash

Member
Looking at how things have gone with XBOX for this entire generation, the many pitfalls. I think Mattrick had a much better understanding of what a console was, choosing the right games for the brand and setting a trend of success. The creator of Stunts ensured that the 360 grew from 2007 when he became the one in charge of XBOX and PC gaming at Microsoft. I think he chose great games and made some deals to keep 360 alive, even if the division already had an anchor around the neck called rrod, but he was able to meander through it... I think Mattrick showed then that he had the proper acumen to weather the storm and he did....

Mattrick was never one to continuously make promises and not deliver upon them or make too many bad decisions, he brought some good games and excitement to XBOX, which transcended beyond the core XBOX buyers, something which we can't say about Phil Spencer for the last 7 years....Looking at Mattrick's statement about "we have a console for you, buy a 360", I think people misunderstood what he was saying. That statement was not about arrogance from Mattrick, he was just trying to sell the console and feature set his company was pushing and was just being plain honest and upfront. Moreover, to this day, I think Mattrick had little say in XBOX's TV TV TV approach or their DRM policies, I very much doubt an established game developer like Mattrick would be at the forefront of such features, he had didn't twist DRM to make it sound palatable, he was raw about it, you don't want it, there's an offline console....So i think the person who was really pushing DRM and TV TV TV was given the reigns, that's Phil Spencer, it's why he is so much into services too and I think it was their way of trying to expand XBOX and so their studios and first party games and investments thereinto have suffered....

Don't get me wrong, Phil Spencer was/is not solely responsible for 2013 or TV TV TV and DRM. I think that push comes higher up the food chain at MS, it is how they always pushed XBOX OG or their vision for it eventually. They always envisioned a set top box that would dominate the living room just like Windows, but adoption of the brand never really got to the heights or saw the worldwide adoption that would guarantee that...

Still, I think XBOX as a brand has lost too much air and identity. XBOX OG went from Ninja Gaiden, Doa, Perfect Dark, Sega Games to a multiplayer behemoth in the 360 days ushered by Halo and Gears, to a console pushing too many stylized games, indies and games for lower age demographics.....This is not the traditional XBOX we know.....The messaging under Phil Spencer has been too flip-floppy, too much hype without delivery. It only serves to disappoint till even the most hardcore XBOX fan's and their zeal is eroded away. The last two shows from XBOX has been very flat and underwhelming, especially on top of them always reiterating "the most powerful console" which is sadly not sustained relative to what they show......Mistakes like, no next gen games till 2 years in, a lower end console, cutting off this gen for a while already (first party), the hardware cutoff was just the last nail to say MS is done with current gen owners. Pushing a gamepass service where it's profitability is not quantifiable, since subs can be had for $1-2 on sales/promotions and MS would eventually lower the budget for their games hitting gamepass on day 1 to offset too huge of a loss overall....


There is more about how XBOX has been mismanaged or where they focus on the wrong things and are still not course correcting, even heading to a cliff..... Look at Halo Infinite, it does not look like what you expect from a 12TF hyped box with RDNA 2 and VRS. When was the last time an MS console launched without Forza, games which should have been in development for a while, even Fable is not going to make launch. So of course MS is going to dig into the virtues of BC, because it seems their software houses are just not ready for next gen after all these years and hype from the media recently that XBOX was ahead of the competition relative to readiness for next gen, with all the studio purchase et al.


There's been too many bad decisions and pitfalls. TBF, my XBOX is my PC. It's where I've played all the Forza Motorsports, Horizons, Gears etc.....But MS is failing to even breath in new lifeblood or revitalize these old franchises in any way, so I say we need a man who knew games....Bring back Don Mattrick to the XBOX fold....

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Agreed.....xbox is at a all time low, when today was supposed to be a all time high.
Utter failure.
 
They pretty much sucked on PS1 and PS2 entirely, with the exception of God of War and Gran Turismo I guess. They had Uncharted take off a bit and some other signs of life on PS3. But it wasn't until PS4 they truly started to hit their stride and produce industry leading games. Naughty Dog was funded while they made mediocre games for 2 entire generations. Same with Sucker Punch. Same with Insomniac. Same with almost all their studios. Naughty Dog made entire trilogies that more or less sucked, and had to slowly increase their output from bad to good, to great, to revolutionary. Guerilla Games made mediocre Killzone games for 2 whole gens before finally putting out 1 really good game.
Huh? Everything Naughty Dog has touched has been a success. Sucker punch and Insomniac made good shit as well.
They need to clone shuhei Yoshida. Man has a taste for greenlighting good shit
Even Demon Souls which he regretted greenlighting became a success. The indies they showed in their last showing really Impressed me. He’s going to do so good in his new role.
 
Don jumped to some mobile games business, and he brought that down with him. lol
Xbox brand has seen upwards growth with the little time Phil had.

Nice 'concerned trolling' by OP
Little time, as in, 7 years?

The original xbox was slapped together in ~18 months. With no xbox division, no hype, no mega budget and they delivered the original Halo as a launch title!

Spencer, Booty and Greenberg are out of excuses. Sack them, now.
 

dano1

A Sheep
As a PlayStation guy I will say definitely not to Don!
I really liked Phill but he better start bringing some good launch games soon!!
 

thelastword

Banned
I didn't say they showed only those games I mentioned. In the context of the conversation, I was talking about major games coming out around launch Xbox showed a bunch of timed-exclusives too and games coming out later.

They probably have more secrets, but I don't think they'd have anything crazy unless they bought more exclusive deals with third parties. A lot of their first party should be pretty occupied unless they've been splitting studios into teams and hiring extra people.
Some of their big guns have games in development, but remember these bigger studios handle two games now. Insomniac is working on Ratchet and Spiderman. Naughty is handling LOU and UC4. If UC has shifted to San Diego, it means ND has room for a new IP........

As for first party or exclusives for launch. I think Destruction All Stars, Sackboy, Spiderman are all locks, which speaks to more variety than simply Halo. Then you have Godfall and ports from some of the best games this gen which all happen to look better than Halo Infinite on Series X, So ports/patches to UC4, TLOU2, Tsushima, GOW, Death Stranding, Detroit, Astrobot etc......Who knows if Demon Souls Remake will make launch or if Sony will surprise with a Driveclub Remaster at 4k 60fps, but we know they have lots of games in development, We know of Lost Soul Aside and Project Awakening......

We will know more later...There should be some exclusives from Japanese Studios as well.....I guess we wait and see for the final list...

I’m not much of an XBox player, but who was most responsible for the success of the XBox 360? Was it Seamus Blackley? Hire that person.
Don Mattrick was....
 

IDappa

Member
TBF, Sony showed much more than what you just mentioned, like Kena, Ghostwire, Sackboy LBP, Pragmata, Little Devil Inside, All Stars (which you should go look at the latest screens they are bonkers)...Then there's Returnal, Destruction All Stars, Stray, Project Athia and we all know there are games in development like Lost Soul Aside.....

The thing to note is that Sony has not announced their full launch lineup.....Rumors are that this would be revealed at their event in August...I think from their batch of potential launch games, we can say that it's a higher graphical ceiling with more variety and quality to choose from...

Then we can expect the best games this gen at 4k 60fps. I'd say that's potential for a pretty solid launch overall...
Yep don't forget to add those timed exclusives to bolster the list. Oh yeah and the games you're sure are in development. I hate reading everything you type, you just cannot be unbiased. I luv ma plastic box should be your tag.

If you were truly a gamer you wouldn't act the way you do.
 
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longdi

Banned
Little time, as in, 7 years?

The original xbox was slapped together in ~18 months. With no xbox division, no hype, no mega budget and they delivered the original Halo as a launch title!

Spencer, Booty and Greenberg are out of excuses. Sack them, now.

original xbox lost them a lot of money because they bought pc parts as well as buying bungie.

the original xbox had the greatest gap in performance of a generation. absolutely destroyed the overhype Emotion Engine. :messenger_peace:
 

thelastword

Banned
Yep don't forget to add those timed exclusives to bolster the list. Oh yeah and the games you're sure are in development. I hate reading everything you type, you just cannot be unbiased. I luv ma plastic box should be your tag.

If you were truly a gamer you wouldn't act the way you do.
What are you talking about, we have seen gameplay of Lost Soul Aside. We have seen Project Awakening's trailer. We can at least attest that Project Awakening looks very similar to the UE4 demo relative to graphical complexity...So we know there are many games in development.

The problem with Phil's position at launch is that his best looking games will come from third parties and not from XBOX studios working on Series X hardware and pushing it to spec. You best looking games on Series X come this holiday will be COD, BF, NFS etc....Not their first parties...
 

IDappa

Member
What are you talking about, we have seen gameplay of Lost Soul Aside. We have seen Project Awakening's trailer. We can at least attest that Project Awakening looks very similar to the UE4 demo relative to graphical complexity...So we know there are many games in development.

The problem with Phil's position at launch is that his best looking games will come from third parties and not from XBOX studios working on Series X hardware and pushing it to spec. You best looking games on Series X come this holiday will be COD, BF, NFS etc....Not their first parties...
Everything you have said is conjecture and based off of rumours. You are adamant PS5 will have the better looking first party launch games based off of whispers and your own dreams. Which proves my point that you cannot be unbiased about your favoured piece of plastic. There is not need to try and hide that fact, everyone knows.

If you look at the facts currently PS5 have a a handful of launch exclusives, with a few being timed.

As it stands neither company has an impressive launch line up imo and I won't blow smoke up one companies arse to make myself feel better. To clarify I own all platforms.

By the way having all multiplats performing better on one console over another is a big check to some people. Just look at the heat xbone received at the start of the generation for playing multiplats worse.
 
Looking at how things have gone with XBOX for this entire generation, the many pitfalls. I think Mattrick had a much better understanding of what a console was, choosing the right games for the brand and setting a trend of success. The creator of Stunts ensured that the 360 grew from 2007 when he became the one in charge of XBOX and PC gaming at Microsoft. I think he chose great games and made some deals to keep 360 alive, even if the division already had an anchor around the neck called rrod, but he was able to meander through it... I think Mattrick showed then that he had the proper acumen to weather the storm and he did....

Mattrick was never one to continuously make promises and not deliver upon them or make too many bad decisions, he brought some good games and excitement to XBOX, which transcended beyond the core XBOX buyers, something which we can't say about Phil Spencer for the last 7 years....Looking at Mattrick's statement about "we have a console for you, buy a 360", I think people misunderstood what he was saying. That statement was not about arrogance from Mattrick, he was just trying to sell the console and feature set his company was pushing and was just being plain honest and upfront. Moreover, to this day, I think Mattrick had little say in XBOX's TV TV TV approach or their DRM policies, I very much doubt an established game developer like Mattrick would be at the forefront of such features, he had didn't twist DRM to make it sound palatable, he was raw about it, you don't want it, there's an offline console....So i think the person who was really pushing DRM and TV TV TV was given the reigns, that's Phil Spencer, it's why he is so much into services too and I think it was their way of trying to expand XBOX and so their studios and first party games and investments thereinto have suffered....

Don't get me wrong, Phil Spencer was/is not solely responsible for 2013 or TV TV TV and DRM. I think that push comes higher up the food chain at MS, it is how they always pushed XBOX OG or their vision for it eventually. They always envisioned a set top box that would dominate the living room just like Windows, but adoption of the brand never really got to the heights or saw the worldwide adoption that would guarantee that...

Still, I think XBOX as a brand has lost too much air and identity. XBOX OG went from Ninja Gaiden, Doa, Perfect Dark, Sega Games to a multiplayer behemoth in the 360 days ushered by Halo and Gears, to a console pushing too many stylized games, indies and games for lower age demographics.....This is not the traditional XBOX we know.....The messaging under Phil Spencer has been too flip-floppy, too much hype without delivery. It only serves to disappoint till even the most hardcore XBOX fan's and their zeal is eroded away. The last two shows from XBOX has been very flat and underwhelming, especially on top of them always reiterating "the most powerful console" which is sadly not sustained relative to what they show......Mistakes like, no next gen games till 2 years in, a lower end console, cutting off this gen for a while already (first party), the hardware cutoff was just the last nail to say MS is done with current gen owners. Pushing a gamepass service where it's profitability is not quantifiable, since subs can be had for $1-2 on sales/promotions and MS would eventually lower the budget for their games hitting gamepass on day 1 to offset too huge of a loss overall....


There is more about how XBOX has been mismanaged or where they focus on the wrong things and are still not course correcting, even heading to a cliff..... Look at Halo Infinite, it does not look like what you expect from a 12TF hyped box with RDNA 2 and VRS. When was the last time an MS console launched without Forza, games which should have been in development for a while, even Fable is not going to make launch. So of course MS is going to dig into the virtues of BC, because it seems their software houses are just not ready for next gen after all these years and hype from the media recently that XBOX was ahead of the competition relative to readiness for next gen, with all the studio purchase et al.


There's been too many bad decisions and pitfalls. TBF, my XBOX is my PC. It's where I've played all the Forza Motorsports, Horizons, Gears etc.....But MS is failing to even breath in new lifeblood or revitalize these old franchises in any way, so I say we need a man who knew games....Bring back Don Mattrick to the XBOX fold....

05-21Mattrick_Web.jpg
Is this a joke thread?

Mattrick was the shittiest thing to ever happen to Xbox.
Phil is still repairing the damage and on a good way.
 
original xbox lost them a lot of money because they bought pc parts as well as buying bungie.

the original xbox had the greatest gap in performance of a generation. absolutely destroyed the overhype Emotion Engine. :messenger_peace:
The first console always loses money, that's the nature of the beast. Which the Xbox was, an absolute beast
 
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TwiztidElf

Member
I get that people are upset right now, but closing studios and giving all the game development money to the NFL for an exclusive deal isn't the answer.
 
Don Mattrick is used as a scapegoat for every problem Xbox has or ever had, when the most success the brand ever had was while under his leadership.
Don Mattrick was responsible for Kinect and the Xbox one launch. Whatever success he made, he really fucked it up in the later half.
 
Don Mattrick was never in charge of the 360 when it first launched. He gutted Rare into a crappy unwanted Avatar studio for kinect games. The 360 became a Netflix Box, with more focus on TV features, than focus with 1st party games. You only had a repeat of Halo, Gears, Fable, and Forza almost until PS3 began to catch up when Sony build their focus on Games over media
 

jakinov

Member
Some of their big guns have games in development, but remember these bigger studios handle two games now. Insomniac is working on Ratchet and Spiderman. Naughty is handling LOU and UC4. If UC has shifted to San Diego, it means ND has room for a new IP........

As for first party or exclusives for launch. I think Destruction All Stars, Sackboy, Spiderman are all locks, which speaks to more variety than simply Halo. Then you have Godfall and ports from some of the best games this gen which all happen to look better than Halo Infinite on Series X, So ports/patches to UC4, TLOU2, Tsushima, GOW, Death Stranding, Detroit, Astrobot etc......Who knows if Demon Souls Remake will make launch or if Sony will surprise with a Driveclub Remaster at 4k 60fps, but we know they have lots of games in development, We know of Lost Soul Aside and Project Awakening......

We will know more later...There should be some exclusives from Japanese Studios as well.....I guess we wait and see for the final list...
Don't work for Naughty Dog and they aren't 100% transparent, they have split their work force around a bit in the past but I think they just do that when they need to to be efficient. I'm sure they are working on something next-gen but it probably doesn't have that many people that worked on it initially. Naughty Dog said that they had all their devs working on TLOU2 at one point. Insomniac I believe has 3 teams. Santa Monica and Gureilla have 1 AFAIK.

I don't think a lot of those are coming at launch as they don't have release dates. I'm not arguing about variety here or who has the prettier games. The basic point I was making was Sony isn't really launching with a bunch of crazy releases or "making a baby in 1 month with 9 women" in order to have a bunch of things ready for launch.
 
Mattrick sowed the seeds of the problems MS is dealing with today. Their first parties were GUTTED. They allowed other companies to also buy their second parties out from under them. Remember Mass Effect was actually an Xbox exclusive back in the day. Remedy was a second party, Bungie was owned by them. Lionhead (RIP) was too. RARE was gutted under Mattrick, they had Japanese exclusives as well. Those studios were bought out from under them, sold off or shuttered. Those that remained ended up working on one specific franchise, or Kinect games. They also basically pissed off their premier first part off SO MUCH that they asked to buy themselves out and by asked, pretty much said "let us do this, or we walk anyway." Destiny SHOULD have been an MS first party, or something like it anyway.

Phil has had to basically rebuild from nothing, and while he was running things, I consider the fruits of his labors really only beginning with the BoneX. That did actually seem to be a turning point for MS. It was a hell of a piece of hardware, and it, and the BC, as well as Game Pass have been great. The problem is that they can't snap their fingers and have AAA games ready for launch. Games take time, sometimes they don't even work out and get canceled before we even see them. That and the studios that are active, 343 in particular, have had some major issues. But he has been at least picking up studios again, MS HAS an actual first-party presence again but a lot of these teams had games in development for other publishers or promised to other platforms when they were purchased.

With a better person running the division during the Mattrick years, we'd have Bungie, Bioware, Lionhead, the actual Rare, Remedy as first parties to compliment the newer acquisitions.

So no, keep him the fuck away from the division.
 
There is no question the Xbox brand is the weakest its been in a really long time these days

Weaker than the launch of the Xbone? Come on, $499 and weaker than the PS4 with MCC as their big Halo game at launch. Titanfall landed as a wet fart. PS4 ate its lunch with third party games. Phil turned around the brand. Whether or not it is enough, that will be the question, but he is giving it the old college try.
 
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