One of the main problems of MS' first party games

[AG80]

sasquatchmontana said:

AG80 said:

All games don't take the same time to develop. Horizon is an open-world RPG and a new IP so it took a lot more time to develop than any KZ game. Hell KZ2 took a lot of time to develop, and that was in an existing IP. Guerilla has two teams and the KZ2 team has been working on Horizon since KZ2. KZ3 and SF had a different team working on them.

Uh no, Geurilla are not two teams (unless you're referring to Geurilla Cambridge whos doing a Morpheus game) . If Guerilla were 2 teams, there would be a Killzone game this holiday and Horizon next year, which according to you has will have a whopping 8 years development.

As there is no Killzone this year or next and Geurilla confirmed, they only started work on their new IP just before Shadow Fall launched, you'll have to explain where Killzone is and why it took one team 8 years to make a single game, not only that but how they managed to "start" Horizon on PS4 in 2009 and KZ:SF in 2011 and finish KZSF in 2013, but not Horizon until 2016.

Where are you getting these calculations from? Guerilla does have two different teams, I'm talking about their Amsterdam studio. Horizon was probably conceptualized in 2010 and began development early in 2011. So about 5 years of development, which is par for the course for an open-world game.

AG80 said:

As I said it began development before the meta started "tanking" with KZ: SF.

There were signs with Killzone 3, SF confirmed it. Odds are they saw it coming.

There are no "signs" of anything. And they can't foresee something which is entirely based on opinions.

AG80 said:

Uncharted 3's meta dropped by just 4 points from Uncharted 2, from 96 to 92. Halo 4's meta also dropped 4 points from Reach from 91 to 87. So tell me, which one looks worse here? Its definitely not Uncharted.

In 2011, Halo had dropped from a 97 to a 91 with Reach in 10 years. Gears had gone from a 94 to a 91 in 5 years. Uncharted went from a 96 to a 92 in a single entry in 2 years.

You completely ignored what I said. In 2 years Halo also fell by just as much as Uncharted, and from a lower score to begin with. If you're gonna talk about lifetime Uncharted increased from 88 to 92 in 4 years.

AG80 said:

 So tell me, which one looks worse here? Its definitely not Uncharted.

Hate to break it to you, meta wise, Uncharted 4 is their Halo 4, but won't sell like it. Do I really need to explain why Sony is carting it off to die in favour of a better selling higher scoring TloU? Now if Uncharted were selling 10-14 million, it certainly wouldn't be, regardless of score.

How is Sony carting it off to die? It has a sequel in development, doesn't seem it will cart off to die anytime soon.

AG80 said:

o you have any idea of what we're talking about here? Forza games sell about 2-3 million on average, that's not better than Killzone which you say isn't a "commercial success". Apparently Microsoft still forces them to work on it, but Sony doesn't do the same to Guerilla. Way better approach to it, I say, which Microsoft needs to learn from.

If it sold 2-3 million on average, the series wouldn't have hit 10 million in 3 games. FM did about 2 million. F2 in excess of 4 and 3 a little higher and 4 a little higher still.

Bullshit. You're just taking numbers out of your ass here. Forza 4 sold just a little more tahn 3 million, F2 didn't sell 4 million, F3 was the peak of the franchise due to excessive bundling.

AG80 said:

Apparently Microsoft still forces them to work on it, but Sony doesn't do the same to Guerilla.

Only a fool would allow Guerilla to keep making KZ games after SF, let alone force. You really want one of your studios to spend 3 more years on a franchise that sells meh and scores meh and profits meh. Thankfully, they knew when to quit.

Yet MS does the same with Fable. And one game scoring meh doesn't make Killzone a meh franchise,  one game which btw was constrained by a system launch.

AG80 said:

Way better approach to it, I say, which Microsoft needs to learn from.

A way better approach would be to never let it get that far.

Yet Microsoft goes even farther with Fable.

AG80 said:

Oh really? Fable: Anniversary has a 68 on metacritic, worse than scraping the bottom of the barrel according to your own logic. Fable III had a 9 point decrease from Fable II's metacritic fora  single game. That's not exactly the best example of a too successful to be true IP.

Yes, you seemed to have missed my sarcasm. Microsoft isn't allowing Rare and Lionhead to make new IPS because ...ohhh expression and art and la de da, it's because because Kinect Sports Resort and the last Fable didn't meet expectations.

So now we have Sea of Thieves and whatever LH bring out. Here's how it will work:

• Sea of Thieves/LH Game sells 5-8 million - sequels until you can fathom no more. 8+ years
• Sea of Thieves/LH Game sells 3-4 million - if constantly that high, a trilogy of games before steam runs out. 5+ years
  
• Sea of Thieves/LH Game sells 1-2 million - Not worth the effort., IPS abandoned, back to the drawing board. New IP...or old IP, just not the same IP.

All of the above have certain sway with metascores, if a game sells slightly under expectations, buy scores vastly better then anticipated, it can elevate its viability status and vice versa.

The bolded applies to the following Playstation franchises:

Motorstorm, Killzone, LBP, Uncharted (because of TloU being more successful) - hence Driveclub, Horizon, Dreams and TloU.

LBP sold 5 million +, Uncharted routinely sells 6 million +, the very basis of your claim is wrong. Hell Uncharted has a fourth game in the works, and doesn't really lack a huge fanbase. With uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection and PS4's success there is a good chance that Uncharted 4 will be the best-selling game in the franchise. LBP though, despite selling 5 million + with its first game, has clearly run out of steam. Its how you carry forward a franchise, not how well the first game sells. LBP 3 wasn't even developed by Sony's first-party but outsourced to a third-party developer.