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G2ThaUNiT on 28 February 2024
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Mnementh said:
Ryuu96 said:

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.

I fully agree (although I wouldn't call Pentiment or Psychonauts smaller AAA, I would call them AA or simply smaller games that part was on Avowed, I mixed it up in my head with the next paragraph).

The advantages go beyond what you listed. Yes, these smaller games are faster done and with lower resources, so they can help fill up gaps in the library. With their lower risk they are also great to take some risks and do something different (I think Pentiment and also HiFi-Rush are good examples for games that simply wouldn't exist on a big budget). And they are a good learning tool for new developers, as they can see what they do much better in the final product, instead of big productions where their contribution is dwarfed and they lose sight of the whole.

Funnily enough, Xbox is not the only who needs this and you are not the only one recognizing this. This tweet happened recently:

I still find it ironic that Shawn Layden is taking this victory lap of "I told you so" when he was literally in charge of SIE and greenlit all the games Sony has put over the past 5+ years and approved all the budgets for each game, which would have included unexpected rising costs for each game.

I don't think he should be acting like he wasn't part of the problem. 



You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind