• 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.

Spencer on Why There Are No Xbox Series X Exclusives: We’re Putting the Player at the Center

Moogle11

Banned
Sorry for that developer that has to scale back geometry, NPCs or physics to run their game on Jaguar cores 🐆

Game engines are pretty damn scaleable these days. I’m not expecting any innovative gameplay leaps next gen anyway. Just more games pushing 60FPS at higher resolutions, ray tracing and other graphical bells and whistles and so on. All that stuff can easily be scaled down or not included in the last gen ports, much like older PCs can just play on lower settings and disable some things.

I get why some are disappointed, but I don't really care about enemy AI advancements or big changes in gameplay. I mostly play simpler, story driven games, have no problems putting things on easy to enjoy it more etc. So I'm not looking for smarter enemies, crazy physics, tons of enemies or npcs on screen. As long as I keep getting more things like RDR2, God of War, Horizon, Mario Odyssey, Gears 4 and 5, Ori, Spider-Man, Pokemon and the various other games I've loved this generation I'm golden. I started seriously playing games with the NES and this gen has been one of my absolute favorites. I don't even care about how big the graphics leap is. I'm still on 1080p and if there's a lot of cross gen stuff I'll probably be slow to upgrade to a new console or upgrade my PC anyway.
 

Airbus Jr

Banned
This is the dumbest news i heard today

Congratulations Phil

tenor.gif
 
Last edited:

DaMonsta

Member
That's the problem, Sony already has those games in their ps store and on Ps now. MS can deploy games to the PS just like every other publisher but services are not needed nor wanted.
Well I don’t think Sony would let them sell services on their console, but they do plan to sell services directly to/through Sony with Azure.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
Game engines are pretty damn scaleable these days. I’m not expecting any innovative gameplay leaps next gen anyway. Just more games pushing 60FPS at higher resolutions, ray tracing and other graphical bells and whistles and so on. All that stuff can easily be scaled down or not included in the last gen ports, much like older PCs can just play on lower settings and disable some things.

I get why some are disappointed, but I don't really care about enemy AI advancements or big changes in gameplay. I mostly play simpler, story driven games, have no problems putting things on easy to enjoy it more etc. So I'm not looking for smarter enemies, crazy physics, tons of enemies or npcs on screen. As long as I keep getting more things like RDR2, God of War, Horizon, Mario Odyssey, Gears 4 and 5, Ori, Spider-Man, Pokemon and the various other games I've loved this generation I'm golden. I started seriously playing games with the NES and this gen has been one of my absolute favorites. I don't even care about how big the graphics leap is. I'm still on 1080p and if there's a lot of cross gen stuff I'll probably be slow to upgrade to a new console or upgrade my PC anyway.
Lol I knew somebody would bring up scalability and while x86 did make everything easier to port and easier to scale down, not everything scales linearly. Resolution and frames sure.

Why not want the other advancements though?
 
Last edited:

Texas Pride

Banned
I think giving him 2 years after the XSX launch would be generous imo. His empty promises won't survive a new console gen especially if it flops early. He's gonna fuck around and talk himself out of a job.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GHG
Calling no xbox one exclusive "spin" is literally retarded. Its not spin when its a decision. If they were interested in changing it they could.

The term "spin" - particular bias, interpretation, or point of view, intended to create a favorable (or sometimes, unfavorable) impression when presented to the public.

You may feel its a bad decision but its not spin lol
Well, from my interpretation of events, it looks like Spin to me.

You see, I never believed it when Xbox claimed they "intentionally" delayed Scarlet exclusives for until 1 year after the console's launch. Why one year? Why not at least three years if not six? One year seems too short to hold any meaning.

Any argument suggesting that Scarlet games could be scaled down, applies for three or even six years. If Microsoft really believed in this scaling down buisness, then it makes sense ti do it for the majority of Scarlet's life. But just One Year? That sounds like an excuse to justify something unplanned.

Where i stand (and i am aware I have no actual evidence), the Scarlet Exclusive games were not able to meet deadline of Scarlet's launch, and Xbox decided they were going to pretend it was intentional. That's what we mean by "spin".

When people are talking about spin they’re not meaning the no exclusives bit. They’re meaning him saying the no exclusives thing is because exclusives are anticonsumer is BS. They had plenty of exclusives before and only started play anywhere, game pass for PC etc after it was clear the Xbox One wasn’t going to sell near the 360, much less the PS4.

I think it’s a wise business move. But that’s what it is. A business move. They aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their hearts to help consumers or gamers. They’re doing it as they had to find a way to make more profits from their games and services than they could from the base willing to buy and Xbox One and knowing they were unlikely to sell a ton more consoles next gen unless Sony fucked up somehow.
As i said, I don't believe there was ANY business move made period. This is just a marketing move, trying to justify something that was forced on them by necessity. That it is one huge pantomime so people wouldn't notice their game studios couldn't make games fast enough.

Your justification falls flat because the 1 year Xbox One compatability is too short for it. One year of no Scarlet exclusives is not long enough to make a difference in sales. I have no doubt in my mind that one year of Xbox Compatibility is meaningless in sales boosts.
 

Moogle11

Banned
Lol I knew somebody would bring up scalability and while x86 did make everything easier to port and easier to scale down, not everything scales linearly. Resolution and frames sure.

Why not want the other advancements though?

I'm not saying it's easy, I'm just saying it's doable. My 970 is still mostly going strong in 1080p, no reason the Xbox 1 (and especially the Xbox One X) couldn't handle things on high to medium setting equivalents for a good while in 1080p and 30fps etc. if they want to do cross gen stuff for a while.

As for the other stuff, I just like simple games. I mostly play things like Sony first party games, or RDR2, or Witcher 3 (on easy) for the story, characters etc. or Nintendo games for the charm and nostalgia, visual novels and walking sims with little to no gameplay challenge and so on. I hate games with hard bosses/enemies with tough AI to figure out, hard puzzles, strategy games that require lots of thinking and planning, RPGs with tons of complex systems, complex character builds and stats to min max.

I just play games to veg out, chill and relax and find easy ones more immersive than TV/movies. Games that are hard or ask to much of me just aren't for me as I'm mentally exhausted from work most of the time and would just watch something instead of play one of those types of games.

So it's not that I don't see the benefits in games advancing in AI complexity, NPCs and all that other stuff, its just mostly stuff that would hinder rather than enhance my enjoyment of gaming.
 

Vasto

Member
I know people are gonna act stupid in here cause it’s Microsoft, but all he’s saying is that they will try to bring the games to gamers wherever they chose to play. If they can get a game working on your platform of choice they will do so.

This is how games have always worked outside of exclusive games with the goal of selling hardware.

Nothing new or surprising here, but here we are with a thread full of fud. Smh


Exactly,

He has been saying this for a while now.
 
Last edited:

Moogle11

Banned
As i said, I don't believe there was ANY business move made period. This is just a marketing move, trying to justify something that was forced on them by necessity. That it is one huge pantomime so people wouldn't notice their game studios couldn't make games fast enough.

Your justification falls flat because the 1 year Xbox One compatability is too short for it. One year of no Scarlet exclusives is not long enough to make a difference in sales. I have no doubt in my mind that one year of Xbox Compatibility is meaningless in sales boosts.

The business reason for cross gen stuff is to just provide a larger base to sell games like Halo Infinite too while the series X is building it's base. I wouldn't be surprised to see some cross gen stuff for beyond a year as well, especially if Series X sales are lagging. The business goal is to just sell as many games (and services) as they can.

They can maximize the sales of Halo Infinite, for example, by selling it to Xbox One owners, PC gamers, Xbox Series X early adopters and some revenue from people who sign up for Gamepass on either Xbox console or PC because they want to play it. I'm sure it will have some DLC or MTs etc. that they can sell to all those folk to.

So it's definitely a business move as they know there's a chance the Series X could fail to sell even as much as Xbox 1. Having games on PC, Gamepass on PC and Xcloud eventually on an array of devices is there long term hedging against that possibility/getting a jump on a future were dedicated hardware isn't as dominant a model any more. The cross gen stuff is just acknowledging they need to make as much money as possible right now and not have a huge budget game like Halo Infinite to a new console that will have a small base for a while even if it eventually succeeds. Sony has been hugely successfuly in selling PS4 hardware, exclusive games and PS+, so they can take the risk of having big budget exclusives while the PS5 base is growing--though if I were them I'd think hard about having some cross gen stuff too as it just makes sense to sell as many copies of software as possible. The early adopter base will buy up all hardware stock anyway and you can have big budget exclusives come out once that market is getting tapped and you need to get people off the fence and moved onto to next gen.
 

Grinchy

Banned
When we're in year 2 and Xbox finally has a first party next-gen game that wasn't already being built for this gen, and it doesn't run on Xbones, I hope everyone remembers to bump these threads. It's kinda short-sighted PR unless it's going to be even longer than a year before they finally eek out some next-gen games.
 
a powerful machine.....that so generic with program exclusives but tis gaming exclusives are neutered.....hmm not interesting( mostly exclusives show the true power of a console's creativity and loyalty of its makers by making games for the owners' satisfaction)
 
Last edited:

Kumomeme

Member
nah..i believe there no enough time to have game ready for launch..development take time, and their studio probably wont make it with normal AAA devs period
 
The business reason for cross gen stuff is to just provide a larger base to sell games like Halo Infinite too while the series X is building it's base. I wouldn't be surprised to see some cross gen stuff for beyond a year as well, especially if Series X sales are lagging. The business goal is to just sell as many games (and services) as they can.

They can maximize the sales of Halo Infinite, for example, by selling it to Xbox One owners, PC gamers, Xbox Series X early adopters and some revenue from people who sign up for Gamepass on either Xbox console or PC because they want to play it. I'm sure it will have some DLC or MTs etc. that they can sell to all those folk to.

So it's definitely a business move as they know there's a chance the Series X could fail to sell even as much as Xbox 1. Having games on PC, Gamepass on PC and Xcloud eventually on an array of devices is there long term hedging against that possibility/getting a jump on a future were dedicated hardware isn't as dominant a model any more. The cross gen stuff is just acknowledging they need to make as much money as possible right now and not have a huge budget game like Halo Infinite to a new console that will have a small base for a while even if it eventually succeeds. Sony has been hugely successfuly in selling PS4 hardware, exclusive games and PS+, so they can take the risk of having big budget exclusives while the PS5 base is growing--though if I were them I'd think hard about having some cross gen stuff too as it just makes sense to sell as many copies of software as possible. The early adopter base will buy up all hardware stock anyway and you can have big budget exclusives come out once that market is getting tapped and you need to get people off the fence and moved onto to next gen.
You said all that... But you still haven't explained the One Year cutoff point.

And the whole "it would all be sold out at launch anyway" had always being a dangerous line of thinking. Because this time around, Xbox is literally cutting the legs off Scarlet's launch in every way possible. And we have had consoles that were not sold out at launch, and it wasn't that many gens ago. Those consoles are just no longer around, because once you have a truly failed launch your console is just dead.

You really think Scarlet can sell itself and it doesn't need support? Or you are just saying that because Xbox is not offering any support?

The one year delay is still impossible as a deliberate decision. At least i am assuming Xbox is not run by morons. Keep in mind that I am actually having more faith in the Xbox Studio's decision making than you do. I am actually claiming Xbox is salvaging an unavoidable bad situation, while you are saying Xbox is harming Scarlet's launch deliberately.
 
Didn’t an MS exec said no exclusive only for the 1st to 2nd year? I mean it’s definitely disappointing but the first two years of the current gen have been mostly cross gen as well so it’s not unprecedented.

I’m surprised about no VR though. Like ever?

And it was only 1-2 years from the start of this year, meaning actually at the most, the first one year of next gen.
 

Moogle11

Banned
Seemingly there would be no Series X if not for Sony.

I don’t think that’s true. In a perfect world they’d liked to:
  • See Series X sell a lot better than Xbox one and sell a lot of games, Live subs and Gamepass subs
  • Still make money for while from new game sales and subs on Xbox one owners who don’t buy a Series X early (or ever for some)
  • Make money selling games and Gamepass on PC
  • Make money from a few games they put in other platforms like Switch (Cuphead, Ori etc)
  • Make money from Xcloud on a variety of devices
They weren’t ready to just ditch having a console. They’re just diversifying their portfolio essentially and have more ways to make money from their games and services is the Series X fails. If it does better than X1, then great as that’s more money for them. If it doesn’t, they can further double down on PC and getting Gamepass and a cloud in as many devices as possible.

I’m curious to see how it pans out for them and which parts are most successful. I don’t have a horse in the race as I have no loyalty to any of these platforms. Just curious to see where the future of gaming may be going and whether we may slowly trend away from dedicated hardware with their own closed ecosystems or if it fails and continues on largely the same as always with Sony and Nintendo and maybe a new competitor if MS fails in a generation or two or three.
 
I don’t think that’s true. In a perfect world they’d liked to:
  • See Series X sell a lot better than Xbox one and sell a lot of games, Live subs and Gamepass subs
  • Still make money for while from new game sales and subs on Xbox one owners who don’t buy a Series X early (or ever for some)
  • Make money selling games and Gamepass on PC
  • Make money from a few games they put in other platforms like Switch (Cuphead, Ori etc)
  • Make money from Xcloud on a variety of devices
They weren’t ready to just ditch having a console. They’re just diversifying their portfolio essentially and have more ways to make money from their games and services is the Series X fails. If it does better than X1, then great as that’s more money for them. If it doesn’t, they can further double down on PC and getting Gamepass and a cloud in as many devices as possible.

I’m curious to see how it pans out for them and which parts are most successful. I don’t have a horse in the race as I have no loyalty to any of these platforms. Just curious to see where the future of gaming may be going and whether we may slowly trend away from dedicated hardware with their own closed ecosystems or if it fails and continues on largely the same as always with Sony and Nintendo and maybe a new competitor if MS fails in a generation or two or three.
Except that's not how you launch Hardware. Hardware launch is hard, and if you don't reach critical mass of customers then all the money designing and manufacturing consoles goes down the drain.

Wii U didn't reach critical mass, there was not enough people owning it. The result is that Nintendo was losing money and their only solution is to create the replacement console ASAP. You can't make and sell a console to only a "small" number of customers, that would mean you would never make your money back.

Your theory depends on the viability of Scarlet being able to survive on a smaller install base than what Xbox One current has. But that just isn't the case. If you don't sell enough consoles, that console is effectively a loss to the company as a whole. It is all or nothing, Scarlet either reach profitable quanity of install base, or it doesn't. There is no inbetween.
 

Moogle11

Banned
You said all that... But you still haven't explained the One Year cutoff point.

And the whole "it would all be sold out at launch anyway" had always being a dangerous line of thinking. Because this time around, Xbox is literally cutting the legs off Scarlet's launch in every way possible. And we have had consoles that were not sold out at launch, and it wasn't that many gens ago. Those consoles are just no longer around, because once you have a truly failed launch your console is just dead.

You really think Scarlet can sell itself and it doesn't need support? Or you are just saying that because Xbox is not offering any support?

The one year delay is still impossible as a deliberate decision. At least i am assuming Xbox is not run by morons. Keep in mind that I am actually having more faith in the Xbox Studio's decision making than you do. I am actually claiming Xbox is salvaging an unavoidable bad situation, while you are saying Xbox is harming Scarlet's launch deliberately.

I don’t have a good explanation for a firm one year cutoff. Like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see cross gen games beyond that and think it could just be PR speak as there’s been some backlash from gamers who want next gen exclusives to justify their future purchase, who worry about cross gen holding games back well into next gen etc.

I don’t think they’re deliberately trying to sabotage sales of Series X. I think they just know that they got killed by Sony with the PS2 and with the PS4, and finished neck and neck last gen when Sony fucked up all the momentum they had with the bad PS3 launch price, tough to develop for cell processor etc.

They know Sony has all the momentum again with how much the PS4 has sold and is unlikely to botch the PS5 launch in a major way and that means it’s a tough road to hoe for the Series X to sell much more than the Xbox One.

Hence Spencer’s prior comments about the number of consoles sold not being their main metric anymore. They care about number of users across platforms and services. You’ll hear them touting the total number of active users in Halo Infinite across Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, console Gamepass, PC Gamepass and Xcloud (when it’s out) way more than Series X consoles sold unless it’s a surprise hit they vastly exceeds their expectations.

That’s what they’re going for. Not launching Halo Infinite and other cross gen would severely hurt the monthly average user numbers they crave, limit the market for DLC and MTs etc.

As for launch hardware selling out, I think that’s still a given. It was very hard to find Xbox Ones and especially PS4s for a couple months after launch and they both had godawful launch games. A cross gen Halo Infinite is much more of a system seller than shit like Ryae, Knack, Killzone Shadowfall etc. So I don’t think lacking a true exclusive will hurt much, especially if it ends up being a great game and they can market it showing how much better it looks and runs on Series X.
 

Bkdk

Member
If they release a proper PC version, it will become the exclusive on its own. With better graphical power, more customizable options and super modding friendly, the PC experience will be vastly superior like past Bethesda single player open world titles.
 

Moogle11

Banned
Except that's not how you launch Hardware. Hardware launch is hard, and if you don't reach critical mass of customers then all the money designing and manufacturing consoles goes down the drain.

Wii U didn't reach critical mass, there was not enough people owning it. The result is that Nintendo was losing money and their only solution is to create the replacement console ASAP. You can't make and sell a console to only a "small" number of customers, that would mean you would never make your money back.

Your theory depends on the viability of Scarlet being able to survive on a smaller install base than what Xbox One current has. But that just isn't the case. If you don't sell enough consoles, that console is effectively a loss to the company as a whole. It is all or nothing, Scarlet either reach profitable quanity of install base, or it doesn't. There is no inbetween.

Like I said, it may well fail and end up being the case that they should have just gotten out of the console business after Xbox One. Time will tell.

They clearly don’t have enough confidence to go all in on another console and make a huge budget game like Halo Infinite exclusively on it after having the Xbox One struggle to compete in sales.

This approach of hedging their bets may end up hurting more than helping for sure. If I were them I probably would have just doubled down on PC, maybe put out some Xbox branded home theater PCs and gaming laptops are to get some hardware money while trying to build Xcloud and Gamepass.

I just don’t see market space for three dedicated consoles plus PC gaming. We’re seeing a trend toward consolidation. Nintendo combined their handheld and console as there wasn’t a market for both. MS started play anywhere, game pass for PC and is working on Xcloud to get their games on multiple devices. Sony started PS Now and is porting Horizon to PC.

Other than last gen with the Wii phenomen and 360 and PS3 both Doug well there’s usually been one clear console sales winner and maybe one solid second place seller (Genesis, N64) and the others were sales disappointments or failures (Turbografix, 3DO, Dreamcast etc).

That trend isn’t going to change going forward with people having more sucks on their time than ever before with all the streaming video services, game subs and give aways etc. There’s more content available for cheaper than ever. Fewer and fewer people will be able to justify buying more than one console, much less ones that have as much overlap as Sony and MS and PC do. You have to really love one platforms exclusive games to justify it and many are going to be fine missing out as they have too much media to consume and games to play on one platform.
 

Flayer

Member
If a console doesn't have exclusives or some kind of unique feature then it doesn't stand a chance. Microsoft's strategy at the moment completely baffles me at this point because they seem to relish announcing reasons to never own an Xbox Series X.
 

Bandi

Banned
lol how can this be a bad thing? I still dont get it...

if it would be the other way around, people would bash microsoft and love SONY for that :D

same way people LOVE sony for putting microtransactions right into the games with a virtual ingame microtransaction store:


the image even says "BUY NOW!" and people here praise it as "great business sense" LOL
 
if it would be the other way around, people would bash microsoft and love SONY for that :D
Except it wouldn't be the other way around. Because Sony wouldn't do it.

The same way Sony wouldn't bundle PSVR into every PS4 by force. Maybe you need to realize that the two companies are different, made different decisions, and the different decisions are why the two companies are being treated differently.

"Why is the bank robber get bashed for robbing banks? I am sure if the cops start robbing banks, people would love cops for it!"
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
lol how can this be a bad thing? I still dont get it...

if it would be the other way around, people would bash microsoft and love SONY for that :D

same way people LOVE sony for putting microtransactions right into the games with a virtual ingame microtransaction store:


the image even says "BUY NOW!" and people here praise it as "great business sense" LOL

Oh cute, a what about Sony on something not even related to the thread at hand ;).
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
The business reason for cross gen stuff is to just provide a larger base to sell games like Halo Infinite too while the series X is building it's base. I wouldn't be surprised to see some cross gen stuff for beyond a year as well, especially if Series X sales are lagging. The business goal is to just sell as many games (and services) as they can.

They can maximize the sales of Halo Infinite, for example, by selling it to Xbox One owners, PC gamers, Xbox Series X early adopters and some revenue from people who sign up for Gamepass on either Xbox console or PC because they want to play it. I'm sure it will have some DLC or MTs etc. that they can sell to all those folk to.

So it's definitely a business move as they know there's a chance the Series X could fail to sell even as much as Xbox 1. Having games on PC, Gamepass on PC and Xcloud eventually on an array of devices is there long term hedging against that possibility/getting a jump on a future were dedicated hardware isn't as dominant a model any more. The cross gen stuff is just acknowledging they need to make as much money as possible right now and not have a huge budget game like Halo Infinite to a new console that will have a small base for a while even if it eventually succeeds. Sony has been hugely successfuly in selling PS4 hardware, exclusive games and PS+, so they can take the risk of having big budget exclusives while the PS5 base is growing--though if I were them I'd think hard about having some cross gen stuff too as it just makes sense to sell as many copies of software as possible. The early adopter base will buy up all hardware stock anyway and you can have big budget exclusives come out once that market is getting tapped and you need to get people off the fence and moved onto to next gen.

The issue is not launch units, it is momentum and transitioning of the old user base over intact. You want to keep them moving in your ecosystem and not wait until the competition to take hold.
Sony has always dedicated some of their strongest IP’s for the end of the current generation while they are launching the new one, so they are not wasting sales potential or screwing customers over as they make exclusive launch titles and second wave ones.

As a platform holder they have the responsibility to establish the market and ensure it is viable for third parties and healthy. Their software sales are important, but far less than their primary mission at launch: the software sales are important as far as how they drive console adoption/users transition and cultivate the new ecosystem.
There is a reason some of their strongest of strong IP’s are normally put in the second years of the console.
 

Sussoloc

Member
Didn’t an MS exec said no exclusive only for the 1st to 2nd year? I mean it’s definitely disappointing but the first two years of the current gen have been mostly cross gen as well so it’s not unprecedented.

All Microsoft games are coming to Pc. That's no news and i don't get all the crying about supporting the current gen till 2021. It should only affect a handful of games and the big ones will take advantage of the series X just like in the past. Look at Forza Horizon 2 on 360 and One. 3rd party games will supply the old generation anyways just look at all the games that were also released for Ps3/360 in 2014. Also it takes years to take advance of the full power of the new consoles. Just take a look at Forza Horizon 2 and Forza Horizon 4. Different as night and day.
 
Yes I member Osiris post.

It may be the case that Phill is getting increasing pushback from 3rd parties and may be slowly conceding on their mandate. Let be realistic, there is undoubtedly More work to crate a game up and down a console range vs one fixed spec. Not every dev will love the fact.

There is no 3rd party studio mandate to support older xbox consoles, and there never was. It was always about first party studios, which is the only thing team xbox team can control, their own internal studios or titles where they will control publishing.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
There is no 3rd party studio mandate to support older xbox consoles, and there never was. It was always about first party studios, which is the only thing team xbox team can control, their own internal studios or titles where they will control publishing.

So, no Xbox One X exclusive was by choice and not mandate? Not saying they have a mandate for XSX, but they have control as it is not an open platform like the PC.
 

Shmunter

Member
There is no 3rd party studio mandate to support older xbox consoles, and there never was. It was always about first party studios, which is the only thing team xbox team can control, their own internal studios or titles where they will control publishing.
They have complete and total control over the platform as platform holders. Everything that gets published on the platform goes through the gate keepers & their rules, as onerous or as basic as they may be. Simple example, you'd have porn games & apps, emulators, shareware further than the eye can see, etc.
 
So, no Xbox One X exclusive was by choice and not mandate? Not saying they have a mandate for XSX, but they have control as it is not an open platform like the PC.

That was entirely different, because it wasn't meant to replace Xbox One, it was meant to compliment Xbox One. Xbox Series X is an entirely new generation and studios who don't wish to work on the past gen will not be mandated to do so. If they do, and I suspect many will, it will be a choice they made for themselves, not one Microsoft mandated.
 

FranXico

Member
I've been waiting for something like this. There's still hope 3rd parties will make XsX games without being anchored by Xbox Once VCR
Most games will be handled in a risk-averse way and be cross-gen. But expect some publishers to try a few next-gen only titles.
 
Last edited:

sinnergy

Member
VR outside of the hardcore is a niche for now. I am hardcore and I don’t want a device with cables connected to trip over, I have animals and a little boy.. unless it becomes convenient wireless I see it as much for takeaway the next decade.
 

Sussoloc

Member
So, no Xbox One X exclusive was by choice and not mandate? Not saying they have a mandate for XSX, but they have control as it is not an open platform like the PC.
One X and Pro were mid gen. I don't think that any developer would have made a game for a low user base console even if Sony or Microsoft would have allowed it.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
That was entirely different, because it wasn't meant to replace Xbox One, it was meant to compliment Xbox One. Xbox Series X is an entirely new generation and studios who don't wish to work on the past gen will not be mandated to do so. If they do, and I suspect many will, it will be a choice they made for themselves, not one Microsoft mandated.

Microsoft could mandate it though, right? Not saying they will, just arguing the specific statement.
 
lol how can this be a bad thing? I still dont get it...

if it would be the other way around, people would bash microsoft and love SONY for that :D

same way people LOVE sony for putting microtransactions right into the games with a virtual ingame microtransaction store:


the image even says "BUY NOW!" and people here praise it as "great business sense" LOL
lol what about something that is just a patent and doesnt exist in real world. haha atleast sony games mostly dont have micro-transactions like MS games.
 

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
I totally understand his stance. It’s a good one, but...

Still think it’s wrong, mind you. It’s ok wanting you support your older console gamers. So a better thing to have come out and say would be something clear and open:

We want to continue supporting those legacy players who may not be able to afford to upgrade right away, so for the first year too the SX life we will be dedicating teams to support not just a new generation that visually sets the bar higher than ever before, but also supporting those same games ported to older systems. Of course there will be cut backs on the older generation to get things running smoothly, but it won’t impact the SX software at all. Third parties are of course open to doing this, or releasing games exclusively on Xbox one or SX only, it’s total dependant on what they want to do, but we would never take the power away from third parties. However expect third party games to support both from a cross generations stance as this is how it’s always been.”

See how easy that was? Simple speak that clears up so much bullshit, but no, he just keeps on saying shit that’s open to interpretation.

People are chomping at the bit for ANY information on these new consoles, and you’re coming out with shit like this?

As an Xbox fan: Its not good enough. At all. I just did your job for you better and clearer and in less words above. We know you won’t mandate third parties, but it needs to be explicitly said. We know the cross gen support is only for a year or so, but again needs to be said in basic English.

Enough with the bullshit Phil, just say it loud and clear.
 
They have complete and total control over the platform as platform holders. Everything that gets published on the platform goes through the gate keepers & their rules, as onerous or as basic as they may be. Simple example, you'd have porn games & apps, emulators, shareware further than the eye can see, etc.

But it has its limits. The app side, Microsoft can control that 100% with impugnity, because that's totally their domain, their storefront, their platform dashboard. In a new console generation for the kinds of games that can be made, and for what systems with an entirely different, much enhanced feature set, Microsoft can't force a third party studio to stretch their resources and budget that thin to the point where they need to support the much older, weaker systems.

They could issue a mandate that devs must support lockhart and Series X, but, again, that's quite different because Series X and lockhart will share so much in common with minor differences. Scaling down and up will be reletively easy. Same CPU, same SSD, same class of GPU architecture, just weaker, and presumably less RAM. This is why I'm not really concerned.
 

Sussoloc

Member
We want to continue supporting those legacy players who may not be able to afford to upgrade

So you think calling people poor is a smart move? :messenger_tears_of_joy: Most of the gamers are casuals and i bet 80-90% will never read what Phil said. Only core gamers like us do. He could say "I hate you guys, don't buy an Xbox" and the impact would be manageable.
 
Top Bottom