With recent events, Microsoft needs to stick to focusing on modest budgeted AAAs, I don't care if Avowed doesn't have the best graphics ever, I don't care if Hellblade II isn't 20+ hours long. Industry needs to bring back smaller, shorter experiences, most non-RPGs don't need to be over 30 hours long, or sometimes even 20, not every game needs the absolute best graphics, art-style is more important.
I hope Microsoft keeps the smaller experiences too, the unique titles, the Double Fine's of the world, the Pentiment and Grounded-like experiences, allowing developers to work on multiple projects, the reason why Obsidian and InXile aren't huge AAA studios is likely cause of them both being based in California which is insanely expensive.
We need to think about the health of the studios, I expect more layoffs from Sony and Microsoft this year alongside everyone else, I think Ubisoft will be hit soon. Thus far I don't believe any of the XGS acquired after 2018 were hit, Zenimax was minorly hit, it has largely been 343i and ABK, I think we'll see more layoffs to ABK before the year is over.
Just hope they realise the smaller games are important too, important to filling gaps, while the AAAs take years and they can become hits out of nowhere like Grounded for a relatively low investment or something crazy like Palworld. It'd be a mistake Imo to focus largely on the bigger projects and not allow some smaller experiences to flourish and try to breakout.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 28 February 2024
