Papa Phil: "Xbox has to mean quality games"

[DonFerrari]

LudicrousSpeed said:

DonFerrari said:
You already refused to reply on if you consider Xbox mean quality games.

If you want a proper response, take the time to word your questions in a coherent manner. I don't have a problem saying Microsoft can do a better job of making quality games, as can Sony. I do have a problem trying to decipher the nonsense you asked me, so I didn't bother. Hope that helps.

That is as generic as possible, since any company can do better. So the question remains if currently Xbox does or does not mean quality games.

DonFerrari said:

And you always deflect to "others" making console wars as someone on a higher ground... but is one of the users that most goes to war.

You can try to spin all you want but the only person in this thread trying to go to battle for their favorite toy is you.

Yes sure, you can believe that if you want and won't change the true that you are a console warrior that deny it among some others.

DonFerrari said:

You ignore that MS truly don't focus on SP, denying their own interviews.

See this one is tricky, because the first part of this is subjective, and the second part is nonsense.

For the first part, there is no black and white answer as to what their games "focus" on. Here are the Microsoft games I have played recently, lets say the last couple years:

Halo Wars 2 - What would you say this game focused on? It features a long campaign with a meaty story and a fantastic villain. But it also has pretty in depth MP with multiple modes. To me, this was a high quality SP title. I barely touched the MP, as is the case with virtually all strategy titles. There's plenty of meat on the bone for a SP gamer.

ReCore DE - Strictly a SP experience. No MP of any kind. A solid but pretty repetitive title, play through it just for the platform dungeons.

Cuphead - Another strictly SP title. Amazing game, hope it comes to PS4/5 some day.

Forza 7 - Another tricky title. It clearly has a large online following and a deep online experience, but it also has tons of SP content and can provide you with tons and tons of hours of entertainment without ever touching the MP. What is this to you? To me it's a quality SP offering.

Sea of Thieves - Complete GAAS title, similar to Destiny in that you can play it by yourself, but you're always online, and the core component of the gameplay experience is meant to be played socially.

State of Decay 2 - Another title that while it has a MP option, you can play through the entire thing in single player. Which I did. I have a lot of time in SoD2 and I've never done a co-op session. They did release a MP horde type expansion, but they also just released a meaty SP expansion. Another quality SP title.

Horizon 4 - Amazing racer with just a stupid amount of SP content. Where this one gets social is that every race and event and cup and challenge etc that you can do in SP, you can do in MP. But, you can just play alone. Which is what I do 95% of the time. This is a GAAS title with ever changing landscape and content, yet it's an amazing SP title. What would you say the focus of this title is? SP or MP?

Ashen - An RPG with a small element of MP, which is optional. A decent title, I didn't find it to be that good, but it is focused on SP.
Below - See above, although it has no MP at all. Wasn't too impressed but it's still installed, will get back to it. SP focused.

Crackdown 3 - Great title with strong emphasis on the SP. The tech behind the MP was a big deal but the actual content and gameplay itself was more of an afterthought, with the campaign getting most of the focus.

Void Bastards - Not a MS title, but they did a deal for day one on GamePass. Great SP only shooter type title.
Outer Wilds - See above. Exploration title, on many lists for GOTY.

I probably missed some on this list and the list below, but my point has been proven. Below are games they released or were involved in that I didn't play or didn't play enough of to make any opinion, and are SP focused:

Voodoo Vince remaster
Phantom Dust remaster
Super Lucky's Tale

Plus there are loads of SP games in the GamePass service. Bard's Tale Trilogy just launched. Slay the Spire, my GOTY so far, launches in tomorrow. You can continue to twist words and look for hidden messages in interviews to arrive at the opinion that they're abandoning SP titles, I'll continue actually playing the games and using the services they're offering and arrive at a different opinion.

Now, when it comes to "ignoring interviews", that's a bullshit statement because it assumes what you're claiming they say in interviews, is actually what they're saying. Because if we remember earlier here, you linked to an interview where the head of MS studios literally said there will always be a place for first party games but still tried to twist it around to secretly mean they're abandoning first party titles.

At the end of the day you have your own biased opinions and biased hopes of what MS does, and abandoning SP titles is clearly one of those hopes, because otherwise it makes no sense for you to ignore all the evidence to the contrary. And I didn't even mention the slew of studios they just bought, almost all of them having worked on loads of great SP titles.

I have no hopes of MS abandoning SP games, since that is what I play. And yes the games you listed contain or are SP games, but you gone to inflate the list with games that MP is the focus and what most people play or talk about; You could include CoD that have SP campaign that many love, but won't change the fact that it is MP focused.

I have put one interview, but I can put another

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/single-player-games-are-not-dead-but-the-economics/1100-6454339/this ties very well with the one that they will only make a game they can get content for 2 or 3 years which is part of their GAAS philosophy, Gamepass and streaming in the future. As it will be much better to get revenue on a subscription for a game that keep getting new content so player have to keep subbed to play then than a game that you play once or twice in full.

To deny MS focus on MP is to deny Sony focus on cinematic. Of course they have games that go to other experiences, but those are the minority of their output.

DonFerrari said:

You deny they had been promising more studios since the start of the gen, and just got to say they have more studios after they bought them.

Who promised to buy more studios? When? Microsoft has said a lot of stuff this gen and went back on a lot of stuff. That's kind of what happens when you reveal a product with one vision, have to change that vision to appease customers, the product fails to meet sales expectations and you have a complete shift not only in the Xbox division but in Microsoft itself. Lets not forget that not only did the leadership in the Xbox division get shuffled around, but Microsoft itself changed leadership.

Furthermore it's not as if Phil can say on Monday "yeah we need more studios" and then Wednesday go to StudioMart and snatch up five or six studios. These things take months and years to happen. Either way, they needed more studios, they got them. Not sure why you're upset about it?

Not upset at all that they bought studios, the more game they can provide the better. And I don't think of any giant IP lost on other platforms that would bother me because of it.

I won't hunt links again for you as I did in the past to show MS promising every year for like 5 years to improve their first party output. Which they are going to do now after buying several studios. And sorry but I won't buy the idea that they have started the conversation with all these studios 3 or more years ago and coincidentally closed the deal on all of them very near one to another.