• 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.

Microsoft Studios (& Partners) Current and Future Landscape

Shiggy

Member
I was looking for evidence of Fazely being shut down, because it seems weird that such a thing could occur without an article being written. Citing one game's credits for evidence of a second studio not existing isn't good evidence.

I've not searched LinkedIn for resumes for Fazely Devs. If anyone has an article, I'd be really interested in reading it.

Apologies if this comes off as hostile, that's not the intent at all.

Yes, when I first saw updates on LinkedIn about Fazeley employees, I was a bit surprised. In the end, together with any new recruitment updates for that studio, the lack of mentioning by Rare and Microsoft, and the lack of mentioning on Fazeley's website, one can only come to the conclusion that it got silently closed down. That no articles appear on game dev closures happens more often than you think though. LinkedIn is pretty helpful in that regard.

The credits aren't evidence for the lack of Fazeley, just evidence for the general studio size.
 
Well... MS have the rest of those European billions they can't bring back into the states without paying tax on, and Crytek just unloaded a bunch of studios.

Time to do some shopping me thinks.




Also, would someone please... for the love of god.... get working on a 3rd person, splinter cell style, Perfect Dark game.
 
I was thinking Slim's role in this one might fit the thread.

giphy.gif




I agree Microsoft has been great at supporting their console launches. But then they have petered out after a few years in all three of their consoles. So the question is whether they treat Scorpio like their fourth console and give it a big launch, or they treat it like a mid-cycle refresh.

They are almost certainly treating this like the launch of a brand new console as opposed to a mid-cycle refresh, or like the launch of a slim revision console. That's how they have hyped this. You also generally don't hype your typical mid-cycle refresh an entire year in advance. They told people about this thing an entire year and a half in advance. That's typically not something you do for your typical refresh. They are handling this like a brand new system, and I think it secretly is. They just don't want to give off the appearance of abandoning Xbox One gamers.
 

daTRUballin

Member
Well... MS have the rest of those European billions they can't bring back into the states without paying tax on, and Crytek just unloaded a bunch of studios.

Time to do some shopping me thinks.




Also, would someone please... for the love of god.... get working on a 3rd person, splinter cell style, Perfect Dark game.

Why does everyone want a new PD game to be in third person? It doesn't make any sense. Keep PD in first person please. If you want a third person game, just make a new IP.
 
Yes, when I first saw updates on LinkedIn about Fazeley employees, I was a bit surprised. In the end, together with any new recruitment updates for that studio, the lack of mentioning by Rare and Microsoft, and the lack of mentioning on Fazeley's website, one can only come to the conclusion that it got silently closed down. That no articles appear on game dev closures happens more often than you think though. LinkedIn is pretty helpful in that regard.

The credits aren't evidence for the lack of Fazeley, just evidence for the general studio size.

That's a huge shame then. Hopefully the devs got picked up by someone else.

Going back to the main topic, even if I don't agree with Microsoft's approach (second party over first party), it is interesting, and has worked in the past. People seem to think that Microsoft not having many first party studios is calamitous, but their biggest games in the past have been second party - independent studios contracted to work on exclusive games for Microsoft.

Bungie for a long-time was a second-party, Gears was an Xbox exclusive despite Epic remaining independent, Mass Effect is another example. I think Playground, Remedy and Iron Galaxy are the best examples of that strategy currently. The issues I think are capacity and quality control. It seems that Phantom Dust has been cancelled for not meeting internal expectations, and there have clearly been issues with Crackdown 3 (hopefully it turns out well in the end).

It's clear why the arrangement suits Microsoft - if a game flops, they take the hit on that game, not on redundancies. But it means we're not getting sequels to some solid games (Sunset Overdrive, Ryse) - either because the studios themselves lack the capacity, because the developer retained the IP, or because Microsoft has become risk-averse.
 

bman94

Member
Really disappointing as a Xbox Fanboy. Just terrible IP management. Going onto the fourth year of the Xbox One's life and no Fable game. No use of any Rare IP's outside of Killer Instinct. As matter of fact, what they did with Killer Instinct is brilliant.

You know you don't have development studios with experience in creating fighters, so you gave it do developers that do know how to create fighting games. They should be doing with this with all of their big IPs.

Give Fable to a western developer willing to create a large scale RPG. Give Banjo to a developer that can produce a 3D platformer. Give another developer Conker so you can have more variety. The minute something doesn't go right for Microsoft they drop it like a fly. It's fucking disheartening cause I'm really unsure of Microsoft's future as a console manufacturer if they can't provide some damn first party support.
 

Electret

Member
Why does everyone want a new PD game to be in third person? It doesn't make any sense. Keep PD in first person please. If you want a third person game, just make a new IP.

Seriously. It's remarkable how consistently folks call for a move to third person (and stealth-based gameplay) when a new PD is mentioned. Is it simply that it's been years since most have played the game? I just beat it the other day on perfect agent. The game is an objective-based FPS with an emphasis on shooting, and there is more than enough in its DNA to differentiate a new entry from 99% of modern FPS games.
 

maverick40

Junior Member
The OP is grim reading for sure.

So basically their top 2 studios were created for the sole purpose of shitting out Halo and Gears titles?

Add in Forza with Turn 10 and you have the same 3 games every 2 years.

Not good at all.

Halo and Gears peaked years ago so it will be interesting to see where they go from here.
 
That's a huge shame then. Hopefully the devs got picked up by someone else.

Going back to the main topic, even if I don't agree with Microsoft's approach (second party over first party), it is interesting, and has worked in the past. People seem to think that Microsoft not having many first party studios is calamitous, but their biggest games in the past have been second party - independent studios contracted to work on exclusive games for Microsoft.

Bungie for a long-time was a second-party, Gears was an Xbox exclusive despite Epic remaining independent, Mass Effect is another example. I think Playground, Remedy and Iron Galaxy are the best examples of that strategy currently. The issues I think are capacity and quality control. It seems that Phantom Dust has been cancelled for not meeting internal expectations, and there have clearly been issues with Crackdown 3 (hopefully it turns out well in the end).

It's clear why the arrangement suits Microsoft - if a game flops, they take the hit on that game, not on redundancies. But it means we're not getting sequels to some solid games (Sunset Overdrive, Ryse) - either because the studios themselves lack the capacity, because the developer retained the IP, or because Microsoft has become risk-averse.

To be fair, Microsoft's approach to Xbox is the same approach they take to everything they do. They create a platform, have a few key pieces of software for it; then let their Dev-Tools do the talking as third party takes it from there.... maybe add in in some financial incentive every now and then in the form of Second Party as well.
 

wapplew

Member
MS never really strike me as they are in it for game making business. They are in for gaming platform business, gaming infrastructure business, never in for game making.
Their games always used as tools to chase whatever cooperate goals of the time, like the TV show thing with QB, multiplayer focus to push engagement and live subscription, release games on PC to push Windows store etc.
I don't feel they are committed to make games anymore. I really missed the MS studios of PC era.
 

FelipeMGM

Member
Really hopping for some new ''2nd'' party games annouced at this year E3 MS conference

Their keynote will prob have:

Halo 6 announcement
Forza 7
KI Season 4
Ori Sequel
State Of Decay 2
Sea Of Thieves
Scalebound
Crackdown 3
Third party sutff
Scorpio
VR stuff

I guess there is not much room for new stuff, but Im still hopeful

The OP is grim reading for sure.

So basically their top 2 studios were created for the sole purpose of shitting out Halo and Gears titles?

Add in Forza with Turn 10 and you have the same 3 games every 2 years.

Not good at all.

Halo and Gears peaked years ago so it will be interesting to see where they go from here.

Yeah, but unfortunely this is not news at all at this point
 

Zalman

Member
MS never really strike me as they are in it for game making business. They are in for gaming platform business, gaming infrastructure business, never in for game making.
Their games always used as tools to chase whatever cooperate goals of the time, like the TV show thing with QB, multiplayer focus to push engagement and live subscription, release games on PC to push Windows store etc.
I don't feel they are committed to make games anymore. I really missed the MS studios of PC era.
I see where you're getting at. I miss that game making passion from Microsoft, something I often see from Nintendo and Sony.
 

Figments

Member
The OP is grim reading for sure.

So basically their top 2 studios were created for the sole purpose of shitting out Halo and Gears titles?

Add in Forza with Turn 10 and you have the same 3 games every 2 years.

Not good at all.

Halo and Gears peaked years ago so it will be interesting to see where they go from here.

Good to know that games people have been enjoying new releases of for years now have peaked. It's not like the change in development studios have brought in opportunity to explore new avenues with the IPs and spread out into interesting territory.

Oh wait.

Seeing them all together like that really shows how anemic their studio output going forward will be.

Anemic for who? Define your limits on what is or isn't anemic for this context.

To be fair, Microsoft's approach to Xbox is the same approach they take to everything they do. They create a platform, have a few key pieces of software for it; then let their Dev-Tools do the talking as third party takes it from there.... maybe add in in some financial incentive every now and then in the form of Second Party as well.

This is logical, practical, and for the best. Having a large stable of studios not specifically focused on creating and maintaining a platform and highlighting its features isn't what Microsoft wants, and they've proven this time and time again.

Fine, let me rephrase. I would like for them to fund a AAA Western RPG. There's not a lot of companies with the ability to make such games, and I really enjoy them.

A triple-A WRPG with drop-in, drop-out co-op in singleplayer and an online pseudo-MMO component would be cool.

Because in all likelihood that's what it's gonna be if they ever entertain the idea.

MS never really strike me as they are in it for game making business. They are in for gaming platform business, gaming infrastructure business, never in for game making.
Their games always used as tools to chase whatever cooperate goals of the time, like the TV show thing with QB, multiplayer focus to push engagement and live subscription, release games on PC to push Windows store etc.
I don't feel they are committed to make games anymore. I really missed the MS studios of PC era.

Every console maker is in it for the business. The fact of the matter is, each one approaches it differently, and it's difficult to asses any situation as matters of black and white when said approaches are often at odds with each other.
 
And I don't get the "Oh, it's more Halo" stuff. Those games are some of the best that exist on consoles as far as I'm concerned, so I totally welcome many more of them. And being as big a fan of the series lore and characters as I am, each new entry sends me into hype overdrive, and I've personally never had more fun just simply playing Halo as I have in Halo 4 and Halo 5, and the presentation and production values, along with the story direction and characters, contribute to that opinion.

I love the Halo titles, even more so since 343i has been at the helm, so while someone may look at Halo and think "blah," I look at Halo and think "OMFG can't wait!!" Microsoft could have just Halo 6 alone next year (please have Halo 6 ready next year,) and to me that would be an awesome year because we know there are going to be plenty of other fantastic games released for xbox. I never had the view that the majority, or the best of them, have to all come from Microsoft.
 

Chris1

Member
343 has 450 devs???

What the fuck. Maybe ms should have trimmed the fat there instead of closing all those studios last year.

Good thread Banjo
 
343 has 450 devs???

What the fuck. Maybe ms should have trimmed the fat there instead of closing all those studios last year.

Good thread Banjo

They're likely not all game development. 343i is all things Halo, and all things Halo isn't just games. It's books and extended fiction, likely merchandising etc. For example, that incredible hunt the truth campaign was likely not done by the devs, but instead by a team of gods and goddesses within 343i.
 

le.phat

Member
15 years in the business and this is what they have to show for it. Microsoft gives so little back to the industry i reallly wonder if the landschape would change at all, should they bow out.
 
They're likely not all game development. 343i is all things Halo, and all things Halo isn't just games. It's books and extended fiction, likely merchandising etc. For example, that incredible hunt the truth campaign was likely not done by the devs, but instead by a team of gods and goddesses within 343i.

450 is all development.
 
Wow. Scorpio is the last thing they need to be making. Barely any focus on games lineup is a much larger issue.

They've never been a huge contender but ever since Kinect in the 360 games have been an afterthought. I long for early 360 and the fantastic OG xbox lineups.
 
What are people's opinions on Scalebound? The gameplay demo I saw looked pretty rough. Has it previewed well?

Sea of Thieves...does this have a single player campaign, or is it all multiplayer/co-op stuff?

It's unfortunate that Crackdown 3 seems to have disappeared? That's a single player open world game with destructible environments?

When is We Happy Few releasing? Do we know the scale/size of that game?

Is State of Decay 2 still going to be viable single player or is it all multiplayer/co-op focused now?

Sorry for the all the questions. As a new Xbox One S owner who is only interested in single player games, I'm trying to get a feel for which games to get excited about. The lineup is looking a little light at the moment.
 

Maximus P

Member
Aren't Microsoft known for holding their cards very close to their chest in that they announce games a year or even months before they release? (apart from one or two games such as crackdown 3)

Hopefully we get more game announcements at E3, becuase I'd agree with others here that the first party is lacking. Some may disagree, but I'd like to see them drop Halo for a few years and work on something else.
 

Calm Mind

Member
I would really like to see Microsoft give Sony some much needed competition in the console space. Hopefully these plans get them closer to that.
 

blakep267

Member
What are people's opinions on Scalebound? The gameplay demo I saw looked pretty rough. Has it previewed well?

Sea of Thieves...does this have a single player campaign, or is it all multiplayer/co-op stuff?

It's unfortunate that Crackdown 3 seems to have disappeared? That's a single player open world game with destructible environments?

When is We Happy Few releasing? Do we know the scale/size of that game?

Sorry for the all the questions. As a new Xbox One S owner who is only interested in single player games, I'm trying to get a feel for which games to get excited about. The lineup is looking a little light at the moment.

- we've only seen 2 showings of scalebound. The first initial showing in 2015 of he small skirmish and boss fight, then the co-op boss in 2016. 2015 was rush but the 2016 showing didn't look bad from a technical standpoint. Just showing a boss fight isn't the best showing

- I don't know if you could call it a campaign. But you can solo sea of thieves or you could play with others. They said here would be solo ships etc

- they did a live stream last month and reiterated that Crackdown was coming Holiday 2017. It has a single player with limited destruction and multiplayer with presumably the cloud destruction

- We happy few is an early access game. I don't know if it has a timetable. But the actual full release is gonna have story bits etc while right now it's just a survival game mainly
 

oti

Banned
What are people's opinions on Scalebound? The gameplay demo I saw looked pretty rough. Has it previewed well?

Sea of Thieves...does this have a single player campaign, or is it all multiplayer/co-op stuff?

It's unfortunate that Crackdown 3 seems to have disappeared? That's a single player open world game with destructible environments?

When is We Happy Few releasing? Do we know the scale/size of that game?

Sorry for the all the questions. As a new Xbox One S owner who is only interested in single player games, I'm trying to get a feel for which games to get excited about. The lineup is looking a little light at the moment.

Scalebound - Was super hyped for this game... until they showed more gameplay. Yikes.

Sea of Thieves - Didn't grow up with Rare but I'm optimistic about this one, it's a budget game too so we'll see. Won't set the world on fire but should be a great addition to the Xbox software library regardless. Don't think it will have singleplayer though.

Crackdown 3 - I sense a huge flop coming our way. But I never liked the series so it could be just my bias speaking.

We Happy Few - Will this game ever be really out?
 

sackninja

Member
Aren't Microsoft known for holding their cards very close to their chest in that they announce games a year or even months before they release? (apart from one or two games such as crackdown 3)

Hopefully we get more game announcements at E3, becuase I'd agree with others here that the first party is lacking. Some may disagree, but I'd like to see them drop Halo for a few years and work on something else.

Well scalebound was revealed at the same conferance crackdown was (e3 2014) and halo 5 was at e3 2013 which was also over 2 years before launch, but other than that I think they've been pretty okay about it.
 
Aren't Microsoft known for holding their cards very close to their chest in that they announce games a year or even months before they release? (apart from one or two games such as crackdown 3)

On average for their non-annual franchises it's around 15 months. Generally they aim to release whatever they announce in current years E3 by the following years holiday season.

The ones they hold super close to their chest are Forza, and stuff like smaller games and remasters.
 

Ushay

Member
Good to know OP, very useful.

It's a shame they have far fewer quality 1st party studios. It looks like MS strategy is to work with partner studios for exclusives more, either that or they have studios we don't know about.

E3 2017 should give us a good idea of where they are headed and who they've tapped in the shoulder for exclusives.
 

blakep267

Member
Aren't Microsoft known for holding their cards very close to their chest in that they announce games a year or even months before they release? (apart from one or two games such as crackdown 3)

Hopefully we get more game announcements at E3, becuase I'd agree with others here that the first party is lacking. Some may disagree, but I'd like to see them drop Halo for a few years and work on something else.
Usually MS has 3-4 things that are "new" announcements for E3. I say "new" because it's stuff like Dead rising 4. An obvious thing, but something that was previously unnaounced. Last year it was FH3, DR4, Stte of decay 2 & to a lesser degree Phantom Dust remastered.

So what I'm getting at is at e3 you could probably assume they'd have 3-4 things on top of showing what we already know. Those 3-4 things however could be just forza 7, Halo 6 ori 2, a new IP etc
 

Chris1

Member
Aren't Microsoft known for holding their cards very close to their chest in that they announce games a year or even months before they release? (apart from one or two games such as crackdown 3)

Hopefully we get more game announcements at E3, becuase I'd agree with others here that the first party is lacking. Some may disagree, but I'd like to see them drop Halo for a few years and work on something else.
They've been pretty good about it since Phil took over yeah. (I know scalebound and crackdown were 2014 but Phil only just took over like 2 months before I doubt he had much say in it)

I'd expect forza 7, halo 6, ori 2, AAA ip releasing that fall(think mcc tomb raider and dead rising 4). Maybe if you're lucky you'll get a smaller game like Recore.


I have a feeling halo 6 won't be shown but if history is anything to go by it'll be there
 
15 years in the business and this is what they have to show for it. Microsoft gives so little back to the industry i reallly wonder if the landschape would change at all, should they bow out.

This is a weird take. They make a great platform for developers and fund games from third party devs. You don't think Playground is appreciative? Or Iron Galaxy? You don't think Platinum is excited that they paid for Scalebound's development? What about last gen studios that are making some money because of backwards compatibility? Capcom Canada is eating because of M.S. Etc.

I don't want any shrinking of this hobby. I don't want anyone to exit.
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
That chipset CG is something every Xbox fan wanted, you know.

Xbox always lead in terms of power. Getting shitty multi-platform games after two gens of being in top was really bad.

We also got Xbox One S. Getting rid of that huge power supply and gigantic console is a dream come true for Xbox fans.

Is this post satire? I mean, who cares about the actual games, right?
 
Is this post satire? I mean, who cares about the actual games, right?

Third parties sell software. Does PC suck because MS doesn't make enough games for Windows? I do agree with you though their lineup needs an injection. I have a feeling the Forza factory will prob branch out.
 

Chobel

Member
Halo 6 will defintely be shown lol, but it won't be a CG trailer I think. Probably "gameplay" demo just like the one Gears 4 had in 2014.
 

Chris1

Member
Halo 6 will defintely be shown lol, but it won't be a CG trailer I think. Probably "gameplay" demo just like the one Gears 4 had in 2014.
I don't think so but I don't really have any solid reasoning for it not to be just a feeling. I think halo will be there in some form (3A?) But not 6.


But I don't see them doing a gameplay demo when that gears one was terrible and hurt it more than helped. What they need to do is show off a story trailer otherwise we both know everyone is gonna respond with "but where's the story?". I don't think a 4-5 minute game play demo will show enough of the story for people to see that 343 learned from halo 5.
 

blakep267

Member
Halo 6 will defintely be shown lol, but it won't be a CG trailer I think. Probably "gameplay" demo just like the one Gears 4 had in 2014.
I think the difference is that there hasn't been a mainline gears game in 3 years and this was the new studio sort of putting itself out there. Halo 5 didn't get a proper gameplay demo until 2015. So I could see a CG trailer and a blowout in 2018 but not a full demo.
 
That seems like a really weak pipeline of games. I don't mind so much myself as I have only just gotten my first Xbox, so I have a lot of their older titles to play first, but I imagine it is pretty disappointing if you have been a long time Xbox fan.
 

Kayant

Member
Situation does like bleak but as long as they are willing to invest in properties I don't see the need to expand their studio portfolio as it doesn't look like it fits their strategy going forward. The big thing I see is how many studios are there these days that would be willing to do collaborations like that?
Microsoft's different divisions tend to hold each other at gunpoint. Perhaps MS doesn't see their game division as profitable enough to warren new studios (just speculation, though).
That seems like reasonable reasoning especially based on the studios the parted ways with so far. Their strategy is seemingly to keep mega franchises close to their heart and produce anything else externally well maybe not 100℅ correct with Rare being included 😋.

Gears of war/ Halo not performing to their series high likely would have been disappointing to them.
 
One of the easiest fixes Microsoft could do is partner up with Mistwalker again with a multi game deal and produce AA to AAA JRPGs for their console and Windows 10, and fill a hole in their genre software lineup.
 
One of the easiest fixes Microsoft could do is partner up with Mistwalker again with multi game deal and produce AA to AAA JRPG for their console and Windows 10, and fill a hole in their genre software lineup.

Mistwalker and?

Mistwalker is like the least important partner in developing a AAA JRPG. The development studio that actually develops the game will be.
 

alt27

Member
Don't understand microsofts attitude to be honest . Any generation the hardware is going to very close between themselves and Sony . One might be slightly more powerful but it's not going to be huge .

The difference is first party games as we can all play the third party stuff on each console . Why they don't invest more into this is beyond me .
 

maverick40

Junior Member
Good to know that games people have been enjoying new releases of for years now have peaked. It's not like the change in development studios have brought in opportunity to explore new avenues with the IPs and spread out into interesting territory.

Oh wait.

I don't understand where you are going with this. They literally created two new studios to pump out Halo and Gears every two years.

The sales of Halo: Guardians and Gears 4 are considerably less than their predecessors.

Are they going to keep milking these games until they sell no more?
 
As an XB1 owner and potential Scorpio buyer, this list sucks.

As others already pointed out, MS was never able to compete with the others in this field. But especially during the last generation they had 2 juggernaut IPs which sold extremely good (just remember that Greenberg tweet regarding Halo 3 sales).

This gen Halo 5 barely met expectations (sales-wise) and for all we know Gears 4 bombed. So people start looking at other exclusives from MS.

While MS has some interesting new IPs in the oven, SoT above all, there isn't a single worthy Halo or even Gears (sales) successor on the Horizon (pun intended).

Furthermore, MS seems to have no intention to give IPs which didn't have super satisfying sales numbers right from the start a second chance. It must be very inconvenient for XBOX players to see that exciting games like Quantum Break or Sunset Overdrive apparently don't get a sequel, while Sony fans get Knack 2.
 
Top Bottom