Microsoft is investing in their first party studios like never before.

[Joelcool7]

zarx said:

Jay520 said:

Joelcool7 said:

Look Alan Wake could not be made by a team of 60 from the ground up in 2 years. Just like Uncharted 3 couldn't be done, or Mario or Halo or Forza or Gears. In fact the big games all take teams of over 100 often up to 400 over a year to make. Even games like MW3 which recycle old NPC's, Buildings and material from the older games still took a massive team.

A team of 60 can make a good game, a great casual game like Kinect sports no problem. But a big budget block buster is out of the question unless they re-use existing technology completely and have a direction pre-determined which they do not sway from. Even if the developer doesn't scrap anything using the graphics engine without alteration and does the project as fast as possible. A team of 60 would still be very hard pressed to create a quality title.

You mind explaining how Sucker Punch (at team of about 75) managed to develop a high-quality, open-world game in about two years.

For clarification that Sucker Punch has 75 employees, find any article regarding Sony's acquisition of the team. Here's one article:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2011/08/02/sony-buys-bellevues-sucker-punch-video-game-studio/

It took them 4 years to make infamous (Sly 3 2005 Infamous 09) and 2 years to make a sequel (existing engine, pipepline, design and assets shortens dev time) plus they were an already established studio. A new studio will take longer as they need to set up pipelines, production proccesses etc. None of the 4 studios MS started this year will release a not Kinect/XBLA game for 3+ years.

Put very well, I was going to say the same thing.

Another factor you must remember Sucker Punch was a Sony aligned studio prior to their acquisition. They had a PS3 kit long in advance and had vast knowledge of Sony's systems and protocols. By the time Infamous 2 was coming they knew the system in and out and had all the tools. Now suggest that they could make Infamous 3 on the PS4 in less then three years?

Fact is nobody has given a single example of a studio under a 100 employees which made a high quality game from the ground up in two years. I specifically said high quality block buster title, not a game re-using all the assets of a past game. Even studios using the Unreal Engine and tampering with it to create a high quality experiance take massive teams and at least almost two years from start to finish.

If a studio was capable of pumping out Uncharted with under a hundred employees and within a two year period, do you honestly think Sony would be relying on Naughty Dog. Fact is for a block buster first party title 60 employees in fact much under a hundred and a two year dev cycle just isn't enough to produce.

Especially considering the next Xbox is what these games are coming for and the users suggesting these games could be ready also suggest Microsoft did not begin development till at earliest this year. Their is no way if development of first party content is only beginning now and that these studios will produce launch titles or new blockbuster titles for the console within a year of launch that the console could come in 2013, 2014 would be a stretch and 2015 would be the most likely if you put 60 man teams on creating next generation first party software other then Kinect games.

It would take around three years for a team of under 100 to develop a next generation title from the ground up. Assuming Microsoft didn't already build the engines and the basic ground work for the titles. You don't just make big blockbuster games in a year or two with less then 100 employees! If you do they aren't the quality of Uncharted, Halo, Gears, Mario etc....etc...