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Microsoft Business Update Podcast | OT | SEGABOX |

He's right about the cult around Phil Spencer.

Being critical of Spencer and Xbox's direction doesn't mean you're a traitor to Xbox, that's stupid. On the contrary, if you love something then you can be its harshest critic, because you see where it's going wrong and want it to succeed.

It's like if you had a child who used to excel at school (think Xbox 360) but then started going off the rails (Xbox One and especially Series), being lazy and their grades suffered. You wouldn't get angry at the teachers for the poor grades, you'd get angry at your kid who wasn't applying themselves. You'd get angry not because you hate your kid but because you love them.

Thank you sir
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
He's right about the cult around Phil Spencer.

Being critical of Spencer and Xbox's direction doesn't mean you're a traitor to Xbox, that's stupid. On the contrary, if you love something then you can be its harshest critic, because you see where it's going wrong and want it to succeed.

It's like if you had a child who used to excel at school (think Xbox 360) but then started going off the rails (Xbox One and especially Series), being lazy and their grades suffered. You wouldn't get angry at the teachers for the poor grades, you'd get angry at your kid who wasn't applying themselves. You'd get angry not because you hate your kid but because you love them.
For a huge fan of OG Xbox and Moore's X360 era current state of the platform is almost painful to look at, ngl.

Maybe instead of burning insane money MS will recover some of it's past greatness that isn't Gears, Forza of Fable? Something like Crimson Skies, Midtown Madness, Kameo, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon? Hell, Xbox-only jPRGs were a thing, and a huge one.

And now we're bickering about 4 AA titles and Diablo 4, that is basically failed GAAS ridden with insane M(acro)TX at this point. Even hardware is stale. X360 controller was golden standart for years in the industry. MS actually started the trend with console on-board storage (OG) and downloadable indie games (Arcade). Now we have a joke called Xbox Series controller that is decade behind even Nintendo Switch joycons and useless SSD cards (that are overpriced modified camera Type memory cards because reasons).

It's just sad.
 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Are you serious? What was that risky, innovative with helldivers 2 (firstly it is a sequel that changed view perspective vs first game), it’s a TPP GaaS shooter, one of the most popular game categories nowadays. On this topic, Capcom should revive Lost Planet as pure GaaS game, they would make a killing on it.



The predictions here on gaf were of Xbox going full third party, day 1, exiting hardware business.
phil confirmed it is is only 4 games, older and smaller and GaaS titles, and it is not meaning that floodgates will open.

Gullible sonyponies: "it’s not the end. It was all double speak, you cannot believe Phil, it was all PR etc.” (Interestingly sonyponies sound almost disappointed that they will not get to play some of the games)

doing it right?
Oh, we are back to "Sony Ponies" and "Xbots" now?

Anyway, I have a question: Assume that Xbox was indeed going full multiplatform and had an internal plan of eventually bringing all their games to PS and Nintendo. What do you think they'd have said at this point?

1) Here are 3-4 games we're bringing to PS and Switch in the near future?
OR
2) Here is our roadmap for the next 4-5 years of bringing our entire catalog to PS and Switch with their release dates/quarters?

If you need a hint: look at how PlayStation has been porting their games to PC and if we know their entire roadmap for the next 5 years.
 
It does feel like a damage control attempt, but as others said I cannot believe this podcast was something they believe anybody beyond their core evangelist would believe in. It was parading their biggest executives saying everything and its opposite, making a mockery of the “when everybody plays we all win” by them treating it as a marketing slogan on air, and still leaving the door very open to more stuff coming through (which the post podcast interviews widened even more).
Add to that whining about HellDivers 2 not coming to Xbox after swooping in and cancelling well on their ways version of multiplatform titles…
the fact that Sarah used "Palworld" as some kind of xbox accomplishment is insane too.

They were desperate to express the value of xbox.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
the fact that Sarah used "Palworld" as some kind of xbox accomplishment is insane too.

They were desperate to express the value of xbox.
It was obvious they are aware of it and have been pushing it through quite a bit of astroturfing, but fair people are enjoying it too.

Still, yes, it was surreal to see. They were just trying too hard to reassure fans that it makes people wonder why they had to parade all their top brass to say essentially hogwash…
 

Topher

Gold Member
One thing that they have mentioned on the podcast is that through their acquisitions they have now many more (than 4 games) on competing platforms. You add to this things like Ori, Minecraft etc. and that list of now MS owned IPs/games on other platforms is quite long. If you buy/spend money on dlc, in game items etc. In games like dishonored, doom, quake, wolfenstein. Diablo, ori, minecraft, Skyrim, CoD, crash, Spyro etc. the money goes to MS.

as I have said multiple times before, for biggest chance of success, any new GaaS game should be on all platforms day 1 (regardless if it is published by Sony or MS, or any other publisher) - that’s what logic dictates. Even more important for F2P gaas games. Same applies to smaller, almost experimental games - these should also try to leverage gamepass or/and playstation plus and/or epic game store exclusive to try get in front biggest audience possible and get some money upfront from platform holders. If that smaller game is great it will gain following and there is a chance for a sequel, if it bombs (because of the lack of exposure and therefore not sell well/not generating enough engagement) there will be no sequel, and as a industry we need more of these unique games, experiments like pentiment, hifi rush etc.or we will end up all playing open or semi-open world TPP cinematic experience games - as this what sales.

I want more new FPSes with interesting new concepts, I want more RTSes in epic universes, proper platformers 2d and 3d, something that hasn’t be done in long time and things that are completely new. That’s how we push gaming forward. That’s what Phil was saying about empowering creators - Sony would never greenlight project like pentiment.

one more observation, over the years, the narratives change in funny way; xbox has no games, when the games started releasing on pc, it changed to Xbox has no real exclusives, and now (After Sony started to release games on pc) it is Xbox have no console exclusives (which is no true), but it is about narrative.

Dang.....you really had a good post going but then fell back into your typical console warring narratives in the end. Too bad.
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
All their talk, all the Twitter zealots going crazy, seems pretty simple to me.

Make great games, put them on your next gen console, show the world why you want to play this game and why you need a new console.

This gen is lost, just bury it.

I keep saying this because I have known him for years but they let the only real gamer walk and I think in large part because he stood up to some there.

I go back to their internal showing of Halo Infinite, the one that gave us Craig, he said he actually laughed and thought it was a prank even asking them where the real demo was.

And Phil greenlit what he saw and in no small part because he let his friendship get in the way of being an actual boss
 

Topher

Gold Member
All their talk, all the Twitter zealots going crazy, seems pretty simple to me.

Make great games, put them on your next gen console, show the world why you want to play this game and why you need a new console.

This gen is lost, just bury it.

I keep saying this because I have known him for years but they let the only real gamer walk and I think in large part because he stood up to some there.

I go back to their internal showing of Halo Infinite, the one that gave us Craig, he said he actually laughed and thought it was a prank even asking them where the real demo was.

And Phil greenlit what he saw and in no small part because he let his friendship get in the way of being an actual boss

yikes

Matthew Broderick GIF
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
All their talk, all the Twitter zealots going crazy, seems pretty simple to me.

Make great games, put them on your next gen console, show the world why you want to play this game and why you need a new console.
This part is what Phil Spencer addressed in that Easy Allies interview, where he said he reads all the discussions online, saying this very same thing.
He literally said you're all wrong and it won't matter.

Now we see them starting to release games on Playstation and Nintendo.

Why? Because they know there is no coming back.
They will mostly likely stick around 20M-25M consoles sold next gen, especially now that pretty much all their games can potentially go multiplatform.
The little reason left to buy an Xbox console now got minuscule.
 

PaintTinJr

Member
One thing that they have mentioned on the podcast is that through their acquisitions they have now many more (than 4 games) on competing platforms. You add to this things like Ori, Minecraft etc. and that list of now MS owned IPs/games on other platforms is quite long. If you buy/spend money on dlc, in game items etc. In games like dishonored, doom, quake, wolfenstein. Diablo, ori, minecraft, Skyrim, CoD, crash, Spyro etc. the money goes to MS.

as I have said multiple times before, for biggest chance of success, any new GaaS game should be on all platforms day 1 (regardless if it is published by Sony or MS, or any other publisher) - that’s what logic dictates. Even more important for F2P gaas games. Same applies to smaller, almost experimental games - these should also try to leverage gamepass or/and playstation plus and/or epic game store exclusive to try get in front biggest audience possible and get some money upfront from platform holders. If that smaller game is great it will gain following and there is a chance for a sequel, if it bombs (because of the lack of exposure and therefore not sell well/not generating enough engagement) there will be no sequel, and as a industry we need more of these unique games, experiments like pentiment, hifi rush etc.or we will end up all playing open or semi-open world TPP cinematic experience games - as this what sales.

I want more new FPSes with interesting new concepts, I want more RTSes in epic universes, proper platformers 2d and 3d, something that hasn’t be done in long time and things that are completely new. That’s how we push gaming forward. That’s what Phil was saying about empowering creators - Sony would never greenlight project like pentiment.

one more observation, over the years, the narratives change in funny way; xbox has no games, when the games started releasing on pc, it changed to Xbox has no real exclusives, and now (After Sony started to release games on pc) it is Xbox have no console exclusives (which is no true), but it is about narrative.
From the podcast, and the developers mouths they need to feed from games revenue, I would say their own narrative is now that the 70% they'd get from selling non-acquired multiplatform games on PlayStation and Switch is worth more than the 100% they get from their own games on Xbox, plus the 30% they get from everything else from Rockstar, EA, Ubisoft and everyone else including all the experimental indie games on Live Arcade, and even potentially offsetting further losses from game pass core subs and sales on Windows Store and Steam too.

When Microsoft eventually get round to fully getting their revenues from Switch and PlayStation there is a very real possibility that PC might actually lose games because making them console exclusive might be worth more
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
This part is what Phil Spencer addressed in that Easy Allies interview, where he said he reads all the discussions online, saying this very same thing.
He literally said you're all wrong and it won't matter.

Now we see them starting to release games on Playstation and Nintendo.

Why? Because they know there is no coming back.
They will mostly likely stick around 20M-25M consoles sold next gen, especially now that pretty much all their games can potentially go multiplatform.
The little reason left to buy an Xbox console now got minuscule.
I have no idea what their target sales might look like moving forward

They have interesting things in the works that most people don't know about but then again seems like thats what they are good at, planning and not really delivering.

If they can pull off a couple of important ideas for the nextbox and they work properly and they can get it out the door much earlier than PS6 I will be all in.

If they are right now teasing more console options for the holidays in a redesigned Series X thats all digital thats not selling now its going to be an even deeper hole to come out of.

If anyone does any kind of research and they see a redesigned Series X sitting next to a PS5 Pro at the same price, or damn close, who would buy this Series X?

But then this just sounds like I have a stake in Playstation
 
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Killjoy-NL

Member
I have no idea what their target sales might look like moving forward

They have interesting things in the works that most people don't know about but then again seems like thats what they are good at, planning and not really delivering.

If they can pull off a couple of important ideas for the nextbox and they work properly and they can get it out the door much earlier than PS6 I will be all in.

If they are right now teasing more console options for the holidays in a redesigned Series X thats all digital thats not selling now its going to be an even deeper hole to come out of.

If anyone does any kind of research and they see a redesigned Series X sitting next to a PS5 Pro at the same price, or damn close, who would buy this Series X?

But then this just sounds like I have a stake in Playstation
Sounds fair.

But the big question is who will be left to be interested in a Series X, at the same price of a PS5 Pro, when Xbox games slowly drip onto PS5?
That's what part of the discussion is about.

Big European retailers aren't stocking up on Xbox physical games anymore, MS seems to have shut down the department in charge of physical games, so in retail, Xbox will cease to exist already.
Apart from a couple of boxes for the consoles themselves somewhere in a corner of the multimedia departments in stores.

And you probably do have stakes in Playstation as well.
Thing is that one platform-holder is in panic-mode and crashing.
 
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HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
Sounds fair.

But the big question is who will be left to be interested in a Series X, at the same price of a PS5 Pro, when Xbox games slowly drip onto PS5?
That's what part of the discussion is about.

Big European retailers aren't stocking up on Xbox physical games anymore, MS seems to have shut down the department in charge of physical games, so in retail, Xbox will cease to exist already.
Apart from a couple of boxes for the consoles themselves somewhere in a corner of the multimedia departments in stores.

And you probably do have stakes in Playstation as well.
Thing is that one platform-holder is in panic-mode and crashing.
The only stake I have in any of these companies is I own their hardware and I want great games from both companies
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
Fine by me.

Already said that my remark was unnecessary, but if you want to carry on, be my guest.

But maybe we should just move on and stay on-topic. 🙂
If you did say that I don't think you tagged me in it and I don't read every comment

I will drop it moving forward and thank you, sorry for the jab back
 

LordCBH

Member
I never doubted new hardware was coming. They want to sell Gamepass and they NEED hardware to do it right now. But what happens if the next generation is another drop in sales from this one? I don’t know how much it costs to R&D new hardware, so I’m just going to assume hundreds of millions. Will they commit to a generation after that if the Series 720 Z doesn’t even hit 18 million sold?
 
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Havoc2049

Member
You realize that 4 little games is probably just the beginning?
Like when they started putting Xbox games on PC and said they exact same thing.

Even 1 little game (like SoT, true 1st party) is enough to start the word of mouth rumour that Xbox games are coming to Playstation and start setting the mentality of "I'll wait for it to come to Playsation, no reason to buy a Xbox", sinking Xbox hardware sales even more, giving MS even more motivation to release further games on Playstation to make up for the cost of making games, making Xbox hardware progressively more irrelevant.

It's a snowball effect, and the snowball has just started rolling, give it time before shouting it is a nothingburger.
Not sure what you are going on about. Microsoft has always put games on PC and Xbox. OG Xbox games like Halo CE, Fable and Halo 2 were on PC as well. OG Xbox games like Midtown Madness, Links Golf and Crimson Skies were brought over from the PC. The PC/Xbox coexistence has always been part of the plan.

With Helldivers 2 success on PC and the rising cost of game development, look for Sony to bring more games to PC as well. Sony used to be big on PC with Everquest and other games. I always thought it was a bad business move when they abandoned the PC market. Yet here they are, back again.

And just like Microsoft, with the acquisition of multiplatform devs, Sony will be putting games on the Xbox day one. And because of the MLB deal, they already do.

This isn't even anything new. The industry has always been like this. As a kid, I played Nintendo and Sega games on Atari consoles. I played Tengen/Atari games on Nintendo and Sega consoles. I played Nintendo and Sega games on Atari and Commodore computers. During the 1st console gen, Atari (2600), Coleco (Colecovision) and Mattel (Intelivision) all put their games on competing consoles to expand revenue.

That's why to me this whole thing is a nothingburger and just business as usual in the video game industry.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Gullible sonyponies: "it’s not the end. It was all double speak, you cannot believe Phil, it was all PR etc.” (Interestingly sonyponies sound almost disappointed that they will not get to play some of the games)

doing it right?

Sonyponies? 🤣

Come on, mate. That's a bit immature. These are just video games. No need to take it so seriously.
 

PaintTinJr

Member
I have no idea what their target sales might look like moving forward

They have interesting things in the works that most people don't know about but then again seems like thats what they are good at, planning and not really delivering.

If they can pull off a couple of important ideas for the nextbox and they work properly and they can get it out the door much earlier than PS6 I will be all in.

If they are right now teasing more console options for the holidays in a redesigned Series X thats all digital thats not selling now its going to be an even deeper hole to come out of.

If anyone does any kind of research and they see a redesigned Series X sitting next to a PS5 Pro at the same price, or damn close, who would buy this Series X?

But then this just sounds like I have a stake in Playstation
Do you think they'll relent on the two issues that limits the Xbox appeal, today even with great games? namely no need for an internet connection and the inclusion of an optical drive and games that don't need an online check-in.

I personally think Xbox being first and holding the line on two very undesirable policies with Series, when XB1 was already written off because of them seems like madness, and against the backdrop of Microsoft's physical publishing team being made redundant, it seems inevitable that these two own goals will be in all their new hardware and have appeal to even less customers than the Xb1 or Series, with their plans to make game sales on other platforms.

Giving that a bit more thought, do you think Xbox will misread the room and release non-GaaS Xbox games on Switch and PlayStation needing an internet connection. and potentially risk scuppering any sales to most gamers on PlayStation that reject those policies whole heartly going by the XB1 failure?
 
Just did a quick google search for Starfield and it had a budget of 400M.

According to Circana, it sold an estimated 2.5M copies.


Apparently PC sales were really cannibalized by PC gamepass.
All their talk, all the Twitter zealots going crazy, seems pretty simple to me.

Make great games, put them on your next gen console, show the world why you want to play this game and why you need a new console.

This gen is lost, just bury it.

I keep saying this because I have known him for years but they let the only real gamer walk and I think in large part because he stood up to some there.

I go back to their internal showing of Halo Infinite, the one that gave us Craig, he said he actually laughed and thought it was a prank even asking them where the real demo was.

And Phil greenlit what he saw and in no small part because he let his friendship get in the way of being an actual boss

As a massive 360 fan, a console that got back me into gaming after years of not playing video games. This is depressing to hear. Not surprising though. Since the Xbox one reveal I feel like all I’ve done is ask “what are they doing over there?”.

Either way I wish them success in whatever form it takes.
 
Are you serious? What was that risky, innovative with helldivers 2 (firstly it is a sequel that changed view perspective vs first game), it’s a TPP GaaS shooter, one of the most popular game categories nowadays. On this topic, Capcom should revive Lost Planet as pure GaaS game, they would make a killing on it.


Uhh, yes, have you played it?

You just asked for more "FPS and RTS" games. So automatically all of those games are non-innovative?
 
All their talk, all the Twitter zealots going crazy, seems pretty simple to me.

Make great games, put them on your next gen console, show the world why you want to play this game and why you need a new console.

This gen is lost, just bury it.

I keep saying this because I have known him for years but they let the only real gamer walk and I think in large part because he stood up to some there.

I go back to their internal showing of Halo Infinite, the one that gave us Craig, he said he actually laughed and thought it was a prank even asking them where the real demo was.

And Phil greenlit what he saw and in no small part because he let his friendship get in the way of being an actual boss

Not disagreeing with you, my issue is putting new hardware out there, again, is not getting to the route of the problems. What good is more capable hardware if it’s going to be the same people or the same kind of people behind it all.

The thinking of “that failed, let’s move on” has passed. Xbox needs change at a people level before anything else.
 
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HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
Not disagreeing with you, my issue is putting new hardware out there, again, is not getting to the route of the problems. What good is more capable hardware if it’s going to be the same people or the same kind of people behind it all.

The thinking of “that failed, let’s move on” has passed. Xbox needs change at a people level before anything else.
You are echoing my message there as Phil greenlights crap thats well, crap
 
All their talk, all the Twitter zealots going crazy, seems pretty simple to me.

Make great games, put them on your next gen console, show the world why you want to play this game and why you need a new console.

This gen is lost, just bury it.

I keep saying this because I have known him for years but they let the only real gamer walk and I think in large part because he stood up to some there.

I go back to their internal showing of Halo Infinite, the one that gave us Craig, he said he actually laughed and thought it was a prank even asking them where the real demo was.

And Phil greenlit what he saw and in no small part because he let his friendship get in the way of being an actual boss

Their company has a major issue in making "great games", or at least games that are more than just "merely good" and catch the collective attention of the gaming market.

While, the concept of "make great games and they will come" is simple, Microsoft has been spending everything since the Kinect era trying to capture that and has failed time and time again.
 
You are echoing my message there as Phil greenlights crap thats well, crap

Yet he seems beyond criticism. I don’t get it. I’ve been gaming since the NES/Master System days and I don’t think I’ve seen a executive treated this way especially when you compare the output

It’s frustrating for me because I want Xbox to do well and be the best it can be, the guy isn’t the answer and when you see and hear the same things again and again year after year it just adds to the frustration.
 

Phase

Member
I never doubted new hardware was coming. They want to sell Gamepass and they NEED hardware to do it right now. But what happens if the next generation is another drop in sales from this one? I don’t know how much it costs to R&D new hardware, so I’m just going to assume hundreds of millions. Will they commit to a generation after that if the Series 720 Z doesn’t even hit 18 million sold?
I think they're just in the middle of a transfer of strategy and resources. They can't pull the plug and go all software yet because their talons aren't in enough pies for that choice to be secure yet. I fully believe the next xbox will be the last full console, then they'll have enough set up to move forward.

Maybe they'll introduce a handheld or a strictly-streaming xbox to keep hardware costs low, but if they spread their games far and wide and you truly can play their games on anything then they may forgo all hardware at that point.
 

Elysium44

Banned
Their company has a major issue in making "great games", or at least games that are more than just "merely good" and catch the collective attention of the gaming market.

While, the concept of "make great games and they will come" is simple, Microsoft has been spending everything since the Kinect era trying to capture that and has failed time and time again.

I just saw this video which was posted in the Forza thread, which is a case in point - FM2023 was a major disappointment and flop as we know, and apparently Turn 10 fire their most experienced developers after 18 months and hire new inexperienced people. Who would think this is a good idea? Of course the higher-ups who signed off on this failure are on permanent contracts. Phil Spencer bears ultimate responsibility for this corrosive policy.

 
I just saw this video which was posted in the Forza thread, which is a case in point - FM2023 was a major disappointment and flop as we know, and apparently Turn 10 fire their most experienced developers after 18 months and hire new inexperienced people. Who would think this is a good idea? Of course the higher-ups who signed off on this failure are on permanent contracts. Phil Spencer bears ultimate responsibility for this corrosive policy.



Microsoft doesn't treat the medium as an art.

They think it's like some piece of software where you can hire a bunch of programmers to build it and then it sustains with much less resources after it's already built.

That's not how gaming works at all. They have never understood this concept. For them to truly thrive they will need processes in place to to take a critical glance at progression milestones, and also employ people on a full time basis with the goal of retaining their institutional knowledge long term, and not throw them away as something disposable. They do not treat their workforce with respect.
 
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DrDamn

Member
I never doubted new hardware was coming. They want to sell Gamepass and they NEED hardware to do it right now. But what happens if the next generation is another drop in sales from this one? I don’t know how much it costs to R&D new hardware, so I’m just going to assume hundreds of millions. Will they commit to a generation after that if the Series 720 Z doesn’t even hit 18 million sold?

So potentially they need to be able to put GamePass on other hardware, therefore they would need their games available on other hardware, therefore ... hang on a minute ...
 
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skit_data

Member
I just saw this video which was posted in the Forza thread, which is a case in point - FM2023 was a major disappointment and flop as we know, and apparently Turn 10 fire their most experienced developers after 18 months and hire new inexperienced people. Who would think this is a good idea? Of course the higher-ups who signed off on this failure are on permanent contracts. Phil Spencer bears ultimate responsibility for this corrosive policy.


This stuff has to be so bad for dev team morale and no doubt creates a lot of unnecessary obstacles during development. I can't imagine many people want to work under these conditions.
 

pasterpl

Member
Uhh, yes, have you played it?

You just asked for more "FPS and RTS" games. So automatically all of those games are non-innovative?

nope, it is not type of game that interest me, outside of Forza horizon and CoD MP i refuse to play GaaS games. Never did I spent a penny on in game content (except some addicting mobile games). i have never played Fortnite, overwatch, palworld, valheim etc.

I have said

I want more new FPSes with interesting new concepts, I want more RTSes in epic universes, proper platformers 2d and 3d, something that hasn’t be done in long time and things that are completely new.

but yes, another samey fps or rts from gameplays perspective with improved graphics and different story is not innovation, its not taking a risk to try something new, I am not saying these games are bad, they can and some are excellent and I have lots of fun with Metro series, Doom eternal, all wolfenstein games, prey, dishonoured and even CoD. I still love bioshock etc. I replay regularly age of empires, mythology, settlers etc.
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
I just saw this video which was posted in the Forza thread, which is a case in point - FM2023 was a major disappointment and flop as we know, and apparently Turn 10 fire their most experienced developers after 18 months and hire new inexperienced people. Who would think this is a good idea? Of course the higher-ups who signed off on this failure are on permanent contracts. Phil Spencer bears ultimate responsibility for this corrosive policy.


Is med insurance this expensive in States for MS to resort to shitty practice like that (T10 is not the first MS studio to practice 18m contracts)?

Because for long dev cycle this whole idea to cut some dollars sounds like a deliberate sabotage.
 
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Elysium44

Banned
Is med insurance this expensive in States for MS to resort to shitty practice like that (T10 is not the first MS studio to practice 18m contracts)?

Because for long dev cycle this whole idea to cut some dollars sounds like a deliberate sabotage.

Certainly it seems terribly penny wise, pound foolish. Surely if you invest in your people and make them feel valued, they will give you 110% and it will make a better product, which generates more money... but I never got a business MBA so what do I know. Obviously you don't want freeloaders or dead wood either, but it is apparent they are getting rid of great people with talent, passion and work ethic who were a great asset to their company.
 

pasterpl

Member
Helldivers 2 is one of the most imaginative MP games in ages
I see a lot of praise for HD2, And I don’t have problems with this being your opinion, I don’t see it being "one of the most imaginative MP games". Same happened with BG3, I cannot stand turn based rpgs and BG3 was a big no no for me, but I appreciate that for many people that game was GOTY. Not everyone have to like same games or even genres.

Sounds like you do not care about "innovative" games like you mentioned in your original post, then.
I do care about innovative games, that’s probably why I have play quite a lot of indie games and mobile games. Most of AAA devs tend to avoid taking huge risks due to fear of game failing and this resulting in negative ROI and unhappy publisher.

I am an odd one, for example I stopped playing GTA when it went 3D, but I still replay original GTA games (got something against TPP games in general - not sure what it is as I loved Jade Empire, original fable games, Ninja Gaiden, original GoW trilogy, but never liked tomb raider, gears of war is even odder, I liked some DLCs but overall I don’t rate series high). I love arcade racing games but never liked ridge racer, but loved PGR series and Motorstorm, spend hours playing destruction derby and twisted metal, liked Forza horizon, but I hope that they will move it in a bit different direction with the next one (than FH5). And don’t get me even started with open world games, my taste in these in completely random And I cannot put a finger on what it is exactly.
 

Topher

Gold Member

I think what Ybarra talked about is probably Phil Spencer's problem all around. Seems like he wants desperately for everyone to like him. So he's got to be relatable and wear the tshirts and all that shit. That's fine for his fans, but for the studios, Spencer is the one writing the checks to keep the lights on so he needs to be able to get in people's faces when shit isn't good enough and tell them that. Or could be that's why Bethesda was put under Mike Booty (so many jokes one could make there) so that Booty has to be the one to shit on the devs (there's one!) . I don't know, but that's my theory based on what you've said and trying to reconcile how releases like Redfall happen for Microsoft first party studios.
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
I think what Ybarra talked about is probably Phil Spencer's problem all around. Seems like he wants desperately for everyone to like him. So he's got to be relatable and wear the tshirts and all that shit. That's fine for his fans, but for the studios, Spencer is the one writing the checks to keep the lights on so he needs to be able to get in people's faces when shit isn't good enough and tell them that. Or could be that's why Bethesda was put under Mike Booty (so many jokes one could make there) so that Booty has to be the one to shit on the devs (there's one!) . I don't know, but that's my theory based on what you've said and trying to reconcile how releases like Redfall happen for Microsoft first party studios.
I do think they need a change but who looks to be next in line isn't it imo

You guys stuck with me at least for this evening.

Started our vacation coming to Indianapolis to go to the NBA All Star game then off for a family vacation to celebrate our son getting married and when we get here both him and myself are running 102 fevers

Terrible way to start vacay
 

Topher

Gold Member
I do think they need a change but who looks to be next in line isn't it imo

You guys stuck with me at least for this evening.

Started our vacation coming to Indianapolis to go to the NBA All Star game then off for a family vacation to celebrate our son getting married and when we get here both him and myself are running 102 fevers

Terrible way to start vacay

Aw man......congrats on your son. Hope you feel better.
 

splattered

Member
I never doubted new hardware was coming. They want to sell Gamepass and they NEED hardware to do it right now. But what happens if the next generation is another drop in sales from this one? I don’t know how much it costs to R&D new hardware, so I’m just going to assume hundreds of millions. Will they commit to a generation after that if the Series 720 Z doesn’t even hit 18 million sold?
Hundreds of millions are probably a dropvin the bucket to MS though
 
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