starcraft said:
Thats like saying Sony has never been spoken about as a top game developer outside of GT, Uncharted and...what...Santa Monica for the God of Wars of old maybe? Team Ico once upon a time? Microsoft develops, funds and publishes games of high quality on a consistent basis. As often as Sony does and then some these days. Praising Halo, praising Killer Instinct, praising Forza, praising Fable - all of these statements are praising Microsoft for its development, funding decisions and publishing skills. And no, others in this thread said that Rare sucked. Whilst I agree they have not been producing the unreproachable hits of old, they have had plenty of very good titles in the last few years - Microsoft more generally has had a tonne of them. The notion that Microsoft's first party publishing and development is somehow subpar is completely outdated. |
Have you seen Bonus Round, Giant Bomb, IGN (IGN are the biggest fanboys too) and other sites actually actively talking about games? The expectation is never high for Microsoft to create games but rather to publish. With Sony when they are low on games all you hear is compaining until Sony gets to where they need to be. Case in point last gen when Sony had no games for like two years because they were mostly developing themselves co-developing (or with second party) so it took a while (ans new IP's tend to). MS had a great first three years of games because they moneyhatted a good amount of third party to add to their ranks ontop of Rares games only to be topped off by Halo 3, Gears, Fable and Forza on rotation. I mean its like Sony admitting that they actively made Uncharted as an answer to the shooter hype that was being created by Microsoft after they got Epic to make the game for them so they stopped Naughty Dog from making a Lord of the Rings action-adventure game and they came up with Uncharted. Microsoft then admitted to buying tomb raider because they are not of the developmental prowess as Sony to develop a game of that calibur internally. Hell Sony has helped so many developers develop games on second party that its a wonder how they pump out their own first party. Sony Santa Monica alone must be wondering when their time will come to have their own true new IP. Helll its probably happening as we speaking and I just don't know about it. They've been trying to help Ready at Dawn with their game though. Sony Santa Monica to me is like the Rare of Sony because they just have a wealth of ideas and rarely ever let down. This is why they are considered one of the best devs in the biz right alongside Naughty Dog.
The expectations are not high on an internal level outside of maintaining Halo, Forza and possibly Gears now (sad that they couldn't even make a freaking new IP with Black Tusk...ugh cop out). On an external level...definitely. They have a great eye for outside developers.
