DirtyP2002 on 01 May 2010
This thread is all about Microsofts exclusive games. I will go into details about some 1st, 2nd and 3rd party developers and what they might bring to the Xbox 360.
Here is an overview of the first party studios of Microsoft and the projects they are working on. Most of them do have unannounced projects, so let's speculate what they might be working on
First Party
- Lionhead
Lionhead was founded by Peter Molyneus and bought by MS some time ago. The studio established the best selling WRPG this gen (on a single platform) Fable II.
They have three projects in the making. One is Fable III, the sequel to one of the blockbuster games from 2008. Fable III will be mainly controlled via controller, but will see some Natal implementation later on. Furthermore there will be a working coop mode in the game.
The second project is Milo & Kate. We saw a video of this at E3 2009 and the reactions were very positive. So far, we don't know anything about it, just that it works with Natal and will probably see a 2011 release date.
The third project is completly unknown. Since we are talking about Lionhead and Peter Molyneux, it could be anything. The developer is not limited on one genre. An educated guess is hard to make.
- Rare
Rare once used to be a Nintendo owned studio, but MS bought them when they decided to enter the videogame industry. Rare made games like Viva Pinata, Banjo Kazooie Nuts n Bolts and Perfect Dark Zero
Rare seems to be THE Natal studio. They have up to four (!!!) projects running right now and we do not know anything yet. Months ago they said they were working on 4 projects, one of the projects turned out to be DLC for Banjo Kazooie and one was the Perfect Darl HD remake.
There should be a lot of casual games made by Rare, but the biggest rumor is another Killer Instinct title for Natal. A bunch of people would go crazy over this, but again: nothing is confirmed. One or two Rare games might actually see a 2010 release date.
- Turn10
Turn10 is another first party studio of Microsoft. Turn10 is the developer for exclusive racing games. Their biggest success is the Forza Motorsport franchise.
The studio seems to be working on Project Gotham Racing 5, which was leaked some time ago when someone twittered Turn10 recorded the sound of his car. That is the only source we have right now. Not too much, right? But PGR5 should be a safe bet, looking at the history of Turn10. Of course we don't know abut the controlls. Controller and / or Natal, everything is possible. Since Forza Motorsport 3 was released just 6 months ago, the next game will probably see a 2011 release.
- 343 Industries
(no official logo)
343 industries is the newly formed studio that will handle all sort of Halo related products after Halo Reach. MS hired some of the most talented people in the industry to make sure Halo will keep its high standards. A lot of former Bungie developers found their new home here, plus some guy working for iD (Doom), Kojima Productions (one of the producers of Metal Gear Solid 4), Gearbox (Brothers of Arms / Borderlands) and 3D Realms (Duke Nukem)
Sure thing, they will make a new Halo, but I doubt it will be out this generation. After Reach will be released this fall, there is not need for antoher Halo for some years as hard as it sounds for a Halo fan like me. Halo 4 would be a gigantic system seller for the Xbox 3. They will probably take over the balancing / patching of Halo Reach to get used to the Halo universe, the community and the gameplay.
On the other hand there are rumors that they are working on something else than Halo Waypoint and it makes sense in a way. MS hired incredibly talented people with great referrences in every aspect. This staff cost a lot of money. MS needs to pay them for 24 months before they actually start working on a new game. A MGS 4 producer and a winner of the national award of the U.S. Department of Energy for a nuclear physics research seem to be pretty expensive.
- Firebird studios
(no official logo)
Firebird studios is a newly formed studio. It is a studio that is suppoes to push the graphics to a limit. They are working together with other MS studios to help them with their games and the graphics, but a currently also working on another game we haven't heard of yet.
I think we can expect a big bugdet game that really pushes the hardware even further than before. I assume that it might be an action game they are working on. Genres like Plattformer or point 'n' click adventures are fun, but not the type of games you use to show graphical achievements. So I expect an Action Adventure like Uncharted / Tomb Raider or a good old FPshooter made by this team.
- Spawnpoint Studio
(no official logo)
Spawnpoint Studio is another newly formed developer by Microsoft. We know little to nothing about them, but we do know, they are working on a Natal game. The game they are working seems not to be a casual game. The souce for this is a job offering of MS. Here are some quotes from this job listing
"If you would like to be part of our internal development team then please keep reading. We are developing a studio from the ground up, made up of some of the industry's most creative, innovative, and technical minds."
"We have a very strong team, (formerly the Gears of War Pub / Dev team) starting a new project in a start-up like environment."
Sounds interesting to me.
- Xbox Live Productions
This is a smaller team working only on Xbox Live Arcade games. This team is two years old and made two games so far. The Fable II Pub games and South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! I am not sure, but I think they did 1vs100 as well.
They might publish another Arcade game this year. Sure they are probably working on something instead of having a nice tme getting paid and doing nothing, but we don't know what exactly. Let's hope for a fun XBLA title.
- BigPark Studios
BigPark Studios were bought by MS 12 months ago. They are the team working on JoyRide. JoyRide is an Arcade racer that will be free to play for any Xbox Live Gold user. The game should have been released fall 2009, but was pushed back for some unknown reason. Rumors are that BigPark will include Project Natal controlls for this game. That would actually make sense, because of the casual audience that will pick up Natal and JoyRide. Sure it won't be a Mario Kart Killer, but a fun addition for the Xbox 360 and Natal. I think we might see a 2010 release date for Joy Ride
We don't know anything about the games after Joy Ride, but we know there will be some games. MS wouldn't have bought BigPark Studios for one game only. Maybe we will hear something about them at E3 this year.
Second Party
Second party is a VERY hard term. We know first party and third party, so second party must be somewhere in between. You might find dozens of different definitions of this term, so I try to list some studios that I think are preferring the Xbox 360, but are not ignoring other consoles. I know ther will be some people saying they aren't second party, but you have to deal with this anyway.
So here we go:
- Mistwalker
Mistwalker is a studio founded by the creator of the Final Fantasy franchise Hironobu Sakaguchi. Microsoft helped them to start their onw studio and payed them some money to get things rolling. Therfore Mistwalker created Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey exclusively for the Xbox 360. Blue Dragon, even though MS ownes the IP, saw a Nintendo DS release later on, just to make the IP bigger in Japan.
Mistwalker is working on a new game and they should be really close to the state where they show the public what they have been working on. I think there was a deal with MS to publish three games exclusively on their platform for the foundation in the early days of the studio. So there is a big chance that the next Mistwalker game will be a Xbox 360 exclusive as well.
- Ruffian Games
Ruffian Games is a studio that rised out the "Realtime Worlds studio". Realtime Worlds developed the original Crackdown for the Xbox 360. MS did a pretty good job to establish the franchise with the Halo 3 multiplayer beta in Crackdown. For whatever reason Realtime Worlds lost a lot of their staff who are now working for Ruffian Games. Microsoft wanted to build up on the success of the original Crackdown and keep this franchise alive, so they asked Ruffian Games to make the sequel Crackdown 2, which will be released in the next 2-3 months.
It will be the first game from Ruffian Games. The game looks like a lot of fun. Check out the youtube vids. We don't know about other projects and a possible future with Microsoft. I think they will do one different game that might see a release on other consoles, before they will do a Crackdown 3 for the Xbox 3. But this is pure speculation.
- Ninja Bee
Ninja Bee is a sub-division of Wahoo games that is working on downloadable or portable games. So far they made 7 games for Xbox Live Arcade, 3 for PC and 1 for the Wii. This studio is not small, it is tiny. There are 3 people working on games and they probably bet the farm on every single game they create. They had some success with "A Kingdom for Keflings" as the first game to implement the Xbox Live Avatars. I think they did well with this one. Their games do have a casual focus, but are always unique in some ways.
Their two next games are "Ancients of Ooga" and "A World of Keflings" both games should see a 2010 release and they seem to be XBLA exclusives.
Plus they really have a kick-ass logo.
- Epic Games
This is the studio I had a hard time to relate to a type of party. I picked 2nd party just because they are not 1st party, even though they said they would be. (http://www.maxconsole.net/content.php?33385-epic-impressed-at-how-ms-are-expanding-xbox-lives-presence&nocache=1)
Epic Games and the Gears of War franchise, which will see the third game in April 2011, are heavily connected to the Xbox 360 and its success. The next game from Epic will take its time. After the release of Gears of War 3 and Bulletstorm, it will take a lot of time untill their next project will be released. It might even slip into the next gen.
I guess the Unreal Engine 4 and of course Unreal Tournament 4 will be their game for the next gen.
- Twisted Pixel
Another small studio that is focused on Xbox Live Arcade. They made two games so far and both were really successful for what they are. The Maw and Splosion Man were innovative, fun and offered hours of gameplay. Actually Twisted Pixel is my favourite XBLA developer. The studio was founded in 2006 and has 11 employees. Both games were published by Microsoft.
Their next game will be Comic Jumper and it looks incredibly fun. Most likley this will be a Summer of Arcade release this year. Check youtube to see the awesome trailer.
They are currently hiring to manage 2 projects at the same time. According to their job offering they need someone who is able Able "to demonstrate skills with reducing lag times in peer to peer games."
That really sounds like another Xbox360 exclusive title.
- Remedy Entertainment
I think everybody should have heard about Remedy these days. Their highly anticipated blockbuster Alan Wake is close to release. Microsoft is the publisher of the game and so it is a Xbox 360 exclusive.
Sure Remedy did different games for different consoles, but this one is the first one published by one of the consoles manufacturer.
Remedy is a small studio with only 45 employees and it really took a while to get Alan Wake out, so it is very hard to speculate what they will be working on after Alan Wake. There will be DLC for Alan Wake in form of different episodes and that will keep them busy for some time. MS as a publisher was very patient with Alan Wake and the marketing effort MS puts behind this is pretty big. I can see them working together for their next projects as well, but only time will tell.
- Feel Plus
This is a studio that was conceived initially by Microsoft Game Studios to aid Mistwalker in videogame development. It is composed of former employees of Nautilus, Square Enix and Scarab. There are 71 people working for feelplus right now.
They released Blue Dragon on the DS, No More Heroes: Heros Paradise on the PS3 and Ju-On: The Grudge on the Wii, but their main focus is on the Xbox 360. They did the visual production for Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean: The last hope. Furthermore they created Lost Odyssey together with Mistwalker and they will do Ninety-Nine Nights II for the Xbox 360, which will be released in Japan the following weeks I think. I think they are working with Mistwalker again for their next game. So we can look forward to that.
There are some other studios that I think might be somehow connected to the Xbox 360, but I don't have any information about it. Bungie is the most known studio. They did sign that Activision deal, but they are saying, that MS is and will be still a great partner for them. Other than that, there are still rumors or talks about a right that MS has to say, they want to publish a game. But this is where the official anouncements end and we have to listen to rumors. So we will wait and see how that turns out.
Valhalla Games is a brand new studio from Tomonobu Itagaki, the creator of Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden. He mentioned in some interviews that he has some friends at MS and wants to work with them. He made Dead or Alive 4 an Xbox 360 exclusive and the Ninja Gaiden games were released on Xbox 360 first, before Tecmo did a Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PS3. Plus there are rumors that he might appear at MS E3 this year. I wouldn't be surprised if his next game will be published by Microsoft Game Studios.
Imagine not having GamePass on your console...
