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Xbox exclusives sell extremely well. Why doesn't MS bankroll/publish more exclusives?

S

Salvor.Hardin

Banned
- Since 2001, MS has sold over 50 million Halo games.

- The Gears of War games sold around 6 million copies each.

- The Mass Effect games sold around 3 million copies each on the 360 (I'm including these here because the first was published by MS)

- Fable 2 sold about 3.5 million, while Fable 3 sold around 5 million copies.

- Alan Wake has sold more than 2 million copies

- The Forza games have sold over 10 million copies. Forza 4 itself sold around 4 million.

They're clearly making a decent profit from these games. So it begs the question - why aren't they green lighting as many new projects as they can? Are they just extremely picky over what they do and do not want on their console?

I understand that not every game has the potential to sell well. But I don't think it would be very hard for MS to find, like, 3 more studios working on AAA projects than they're currently working with.

The company certainly isn't shy of showering money on this division. So why were they so conservative on the 360 and why does it look like they might be equally as conservative on the XB1?
 
For some strange reason it seems like they can't multitask. As soon as they ramped up Xbox One development 360 exclusives faded out. I think they get surprised when one of these does well and they take a while to react?
 
Well they tried to do Ryse on 360 but clearly it didn't go to plan then got moved to Xbox One… I agree with your point although I think that its a case of transition for Microsoft own studios, FASA/Ensemble shut down etc then opening Black Tusk, Victoria etc and they perhaps didn't want to invest in new franchises towards the end of the generation.

They also did some stuff with Kinect (Kinectimals) but I think they're trying to build their owns studios and properties rather partner with as many outside developers as they have in the past.
 
Seems to me because it is seriously expensive.

They paid 50 Million for timed exclusive DLC, from a third party.

That is mega bucks. Imagine the cost of ten games.
 
They're risky investments. Early into a consoles lifecycle you spend the money, then let them taper off until the next console releases.
 
Thats the one thing you can hold against ms, they really lack first party catalog. It doesnt really stand up to ninty or sony, they should go nuts again like they did launch of 360 and pile on the exclusive games, it will sell boxes better than get map packs first bollocks theyve bought.
 
JeffGrubb said:
It doesn't bankroll exclusives because multiplatform games also sell extremely well on Xbox 360.
Click to expand...

Exclusives move consoles and they add a lot to the brand. The Xbox association to Halo, Gears, Fable and (for a not insignificant amount of time) Mass Effect made it the go-to console for loads of people in the early years of the current gen.
 
How much did the last Gears game cost them I wonder?
Did they make money from it?

This may be an example of why. They are a gamble. With a large bet.
 
They did this during the original Xbox era and it didn't get them very far. No one remembers games like Brute Force, Blinx, Voodoo Vince, Azurik, Phantom Dust, etc. despite a few of them being quite good games.

So now they just have a few mega franchises with massive marketing budgets. Easier to manage I guess.
 
JeffGrubb said:
It doesn't bankroll exclusives because multiplatform games also sell extremely well on Xbox 360.
Click to expand...

With 360 that was all well and good because it was seen as the go to box for third party they dont have that this time infact they might have it totally flip on them, so they need to go balls deep like sony does and toss money at first party.
 
madmackem said:
Thats the one thing you can hold against ms, they really lack first party catalog. It doesnt really stand up to ninty or sony, they should go nuts again like they did launch of 360 and pile on the exclusive games, it will sell boxes better than get map packs first bollocks theyve bought.
Click to expand...

At launch it makes sense but over time games become entrenched and gamers go to the brands they like. No point in spending $50 million on a "COD killer" that nobody who plays COD will even look at. Ask THQ if you don't believe me. So, really, 5 years into an 8 year gen it does make more sense to spend the money on map packs first.
 
I think there were quite a few 360 exclusives in those first few years. They only kept bankrolling the ones that sold though. So over time they became fewer and fewer.

Hard to say exactly how things will play out with the XB1.
 
One of the reasons they sell so well is that they don't have that much internal competition in those genres. They can focus their marketing to less games.

How much did the last Gears game cost them I wonder?
Did they make money from it?

This may be an example of why. They are a gamble. With a large bet.
Click to expand...

Gears games are extremely cheap to me. IIRC Epic Gears games only cost like 10 million per title and the last one was made in Poland where wages are tiny so I bet it's like half of that.
 
They like to stick to "easy" money and they already have enough shooters and racers. Any pressure they get to have more exclusives is only from internet people like us, the media doesn't call them out for it and the general public doesn't either so where's the motivation for them to do more?
 
Maybe the exclusives sell extremely well because they are so conservative. Trying to promote too many titles and they'll lose their focus.
 
I think they injected so much money but enough profits also they rely on doing the same exclusives games and it loooks like they didnt allow the developers to new things to the franchise.
 
BruiserBear said:
I think there were quite a few 360 exclusives in those first few years. They only kept bankrolling the ones that sold though. So over time they became fewer and fewer.

Hard to say exactly how things will play out with the XB1.
Click to expand...

With Xbox One being $100 more and PS4 probably having better graphics for multi-platform games, I'd assume MS will have to keep the exclusives coming.
 
Salvor.Hardin said:
- Since 2001, MS has sold over 50 million Halo games.

- The Gears of War games sold around 6 million copies each.

- The Mass Effect games sold around 3 million copies each on the 360 (I'm including these here because the first was published by MS)

- Fable 2 sold about 3.5 million, while Fable 3 sold around 5 million copies.

- Alan Wake has sold more than 2 million copies

- The Forza games have sold over 10 million copies. Forza 4 itself sold around 4 million.

They're clearly making a decent profit from these games. So it begs the question - why aren't they green lighting as many new projects as they can? Are they just extremely picky over what they do and do not want on their console?

I understand that not every game has the potential to sell well. But I don't think it would be very hard for MS to find, like, 3 more studios working on AAA projects than they're currently working with.

The company certainly isn't shy of showering money on this division. So why were they so conservative on the 360 and why does it look like they might be equally as conservative on the XB1?
Click to expand...


Ninja gaiden

Ninja blade

Chrome hounds

Tai feng

Kameo

Lost odyessy

blue dragon

Tales of vespee
Vina pinata

Banjo kazioe : Nuts and bolts

PGR

Dead or alive 4

Nighty nine nights

Kinect games outside of adventures
 
MS is a very big organization with many internal conflicting forces, and as a result of that they have severe problems staying focused.

Take a look at General Motors for an extreme example of the same syndrome.

MS really seemed to have figured out how to market their games last gen. Trailers for both the Bungie games and Gears of War were fantastic and they generated immense hype.

Some games were sent to die though (PGR4 *tear*).

It also help that they seemed to have figured out what was most important, at least last gen. Most of their AAA-titles had a very heavy MP and community focus and that might be the reason that they have sold a large amount of copies.
 
Gears of War is on PC.
Alan Wake is on PC.
Fable is on PC.
Mass Effect is on PC, and the other Mass Effect games are on PS3 as well.

These are not exclusives in any sense of the word.
 
It's easier to sit back, do nothing, and count all those CoD licensing fees. Life is about to change for them now that they're no longer going to be the go-to console for multi-plats. Maybe now Phil Spencer will at least pretend to give a shit about exclusive beyond the launch of the console.
 
That's what happens when you sell your systems as gaming devices which MS did very well with Xbox and 360. I don't think this will continue with XB1 because of the blunder, people still think of it as an entertainment system so games sales will fall accordingly in favor of PS4. MS needs to fix this.

As for why they don't backroll more exclusives... I have no idea. Wait, they are spending a billion on XB1 software/development so there's that.
 
Microsoft did create more exclusives. They kept making sequels to the ones that sold well.

Let's not forget:

Kameo
Perfect Dark
Blue Dragon
Lost Odyssey
Viva Pinata
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
Shadowrun
Crackdown (which got a sequel, but it was junk and didn't sell, so they didn't make more. )
Too Human
Chromehounds

edit - I see someone beat me to it
 
wapplew said:
Because MS only bet on the money?
Click to expand...

You know, unlike every other public company on earth. *rolls eyes*

Xbox also had a lot of exclusives through Summer of Arcade, related XBLA programs. Most have since gone multiplat but a ton of the big ones debuted Xbox at least.

You gotta figure having exclusives makes more sense when the platforms are more dissimilar to dev for. Gears essentially was Epic's proof-of-concept for Unreal, which wasn't ready for primetime on PS3 as early as it was for Xbox. If there's already a barrier to entry on making your game cross-plat, exclusive bucks are more appealing.
 
MS published quite a number of "bomba" exclusives in the first half of the gen as I recall (Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, about 3 or 4 different Viva Pinata games... probs others I forget) and even Alan Wake was widely regarded as a flop initially, until the price got slashed and the PC version came out at least. Then of course more recently all that Kinect shovelware that failed to make even a blip on NPD consistently.

They only make so much money on exclusives now because they basically stopped putting out any games that weren't Halo/Forza/Fable (Gears being an Epic series).
 
Dragon said:
Gears of War is on PC.
Alan Wake is on PC.
Fable is on PC.
Mass Effect is on PC, and the other Mass Effect games are on PS3 as well.

These are not exclusives in any sense of the word.
Click to expand...

Video Games Live, you know the Xbox live branch for PC ? Except for ME
 
StuBurns said:
They're a hundred people, MS funded it for four years, it took a long time to hit two million. Maybe it broke even, but 'sell extremely well', it did not.
Click to expand...

They're only 100+ now, they doubled their employee amount after AW. They were pretty small during AW's development.
 
Brashnir said:
Microsoft did create more exclusives. They kept making sequels to the ones that sold well.

Let's not forget:

Kameo
Perfect Dark
Blue Dragon
Lost Odyssey
Viva Pinata
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
Shadowrun
Crackdown (which got a sequel, but it was junk and didn't sell, so they didn't make more. )
Too Human
Chromehounds
Click to expand...

The fact that there's no Banjo 3D platformer on that list is just pathetic and sums up exactly why people hate that Microsoft bought and ruined Rare. Crackdown 2 wasn't junk because of the developers. It was junk because Microsoft rushed it out the door. For the amount of dev time it had, it was actually good.
 
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