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Forums - Microsoft - Microsoft is investing in their first party studios like never before.

selnor on 04 December 2011
Millenium said:
They've never owned Bioware , although it would definitely have benefited them, if they had purchased them.

Some thing to keep in mind though when talking about their letting studios go at times, sometimes they just want something new like Bungie, Bungie wanted to do new things, Microsoft wanted Halo, they both got what they wanted in the end.

So hopefully 343I will be a suitable replacement, tough shoes to fill...


Quite a few top Halo devs left Bungie and are at 343. 

Bungie hav had hire. 

 

So the 343 team isnt jut a bunch of devs with no Halo experience.



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Millenium on 04 December 2011
selnor said:
Millenium said:
They've never owned Bioware , although it would definitely have benefited them, if they had purchased them.

Some thing to keep in mind though when talking about their letting studios go at times, sometimes they just want something new like Bungie, Bungie wanted to do new things, Microsoft wanted Halo, they both got what they wanted in the end.

So hopefully 343I will be a suitable replacement, tough shoes to fill...


Quite a few top Halo devs left Bungie and are at 343. 

Bungie hav had hire. 

 

So the 343 team isnt jut a bunch of devs with no Halo experience.


Never said that did I :) Between Certain Affinity (Which also has a fair few ex bungie members) likely helping them with multiplayer, and 343I hiring top talent, they have a chance.

But still, they're not Bungie, they never will be, Bungie is proven top talent over the course over 10 years, 343I is going to have to prove itself first before we can even compare the two.



selnor on 04 December 2011
Millenium said:
selnor said:
Millenium said:
They've never owned Bioware , although it would definitely have benefited them, if they had purchased them.

Some thing to keep in mind though when talking about their letting studios go at times, sometimes they just want something new like Bungie, Bungie wanted to do new things, Microsoft wanted Halo, they both got what they wanted in the end.

So hopefully 343I will be a suitable replacement, tough shoes to fill...


Quite a few top Halo devs left Bungie and are at 343. 

Bungie hav had hire. 

 

So the 343 team isnt jut a bunch of devs with no Halo experience.


Never said that did I :) Between Certain Affinity (Which also has a fair few ex bungie members) likely helping them with multiplayer, and 343I hiring top talent, they have a chance.

But still, they're not Bungie, they never will be, Bungie is proven top talent over the course over 10 years, 343I is going to have to prove itself first before we can even compare the two.


Here here.

I expect top class though. An after Anniversary, ( It is awesome ) I have no worriies.



Icyedge on 04 December 2011
selnor said:
OMFG. I cant believe some sad people on this site.

The OP is pointing out that M$ are heavily investing in 1st party. Which WILL benefit Xbox in the new generation.
Halo, Fable, Forza are all games at the top of their genres in quality and reviews. In fact Fable doesnt have any real competition.

The fact that M$ have teams and studio in place to produce core games for new generation is fantastic.

IMO I dont particularly like Nintys direction of its first party games, and Sony's are not focused enough on gameplay IMO. Ive never been enthusiastic about Sonys FP. To much riff raff imo.
I hope M$ adds to its current FP franchises with series of the same gameplay quality.

Halo is the best story in videogame history along with Mass Effect IMO. Much better than the over generic undertones of other series or the twisted mess that is Metal Gear series.

M$ already win for me, because they have less but more involving games. IMO
Yes Sony fans and ninty fans wont understand how can I can say that. But the only games that remotely interest me on other platforms are Uncharted, Killzone and OOT 3ds. Other than that, the rest couldnt exist for all I care.

Halo, Forza and Gears are in a diferen league of involvement and fun IMO.
More of that quality and friend focus please M$. ALso Please dont follow Sony down the take player control away to do x,y,z scene look good. Thats where Uncharted is really frustrating.

I prefer M$ angle on game develpment.

IN MY OPINION.

Over.

 

I agree MS is doing the right thing and I dont understand the amount of negativism in this thread. But, "IMO" doesnt excuse not being objective. You said  "I cant believe some sad people on this site.", it would be a good idea to not act the same way they does then. IMO



Lucas-Rio on 04 December 2011
Scoobes said:
Lucas-Rio said:
Mr Puggsly said:
Lucas-Rio said:
Microsoft has by far the worst first and second party studio among the 3 manufacturer.

They don't care about developping games. They closed their best studio, Ensemble Studio without any reason. They turned Rare into a joke.

It will take a very long time until they are taken seriously as a developper.

Nonsense, Halo a lone puts them over Sony in my book.

They closed down Ensemble because they didn't need them. Ensemble's best days were behind them. If MS feels the need to put out more strategy games I'm sure Robot Entertainment would be glad to help.

Rare has played a pretty big roll in the 360 appealing to casual audiences. Something PS3 has been struggling to do. So I'd hardly say Rare is a joke.

It only takes one great game to be taken as a serious develeloper.

Rare is a joke. They went from an universally acclaimed  developper on Suoer Nintendo and Nintendo 64 to a very average developper to xobox, to a bad developper to Xbox 360.Now they are done. They are doing some Wii sport copies that any studio could do. They are dead.

Halo is a big franchise, but Bungie is not even with Microsoft anymore. And the diversity of Sony developpers annilates Microsoft.

Ensemble Studio was better than any studio Microsoft still has. The way they threated them was digusting. They forced them to make a dumbed down RTS for 8 years olds kids (Halo wars) then they closed them eventough it outsold pretty much all of the Rare shovelwares titles.

Ensemble were closed because they started to cost too much money. They were due to create a (rather expensive) Halo MMO which was canned. With MS shifting focus onto 360 development they felt Ensemble were less relevant and didn't bother to wait for Halo Wars to be released before announcing the closure.

MS handled the whole affair wrong. They could have made some changes to the studio, cut the staff etc. but they just shut them down in a knee-jerk reaction. A pretty stupid decision imo as they then decided to make Age of Empires Online (which is quite good actually) and ended up using the ex-Ensemble guys at Robot Entertainment anyway.

 

Age of empires Online good? What?  If you never played any real RTS maybe...

By killing Ensemble Studio, they killed their best PC developper and lost the unique skills that this team had. There are not a lot of good RTS maker, so losing one of the best (which produced one of my favourite game ever, AoE2), was awful for all the fans of the genre and even beyond.

 

Microsoft clearly told "F*** Y**" to all the players.



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Millenium on 04 December 2011
selnor said:
Millenium said:
selnor said:
Millenium said:
They've never owned Bioware , although it would definitely have benefited them, if they had purchased them.

Some thing to keep in mind though when talking about their letting studios go at times, sometimes they just want something new like Bungie, Bungie wanted to do new things, Microsoft wanted Halo, they both got what they wanted in the end.

So hopefully 343I will be a suitable replacement, tough shoes to fill...


Quite a few top Halo devs left Bungie and are at 343. 

Bungie hav had hire. 

 

So the 343 team isnt jut a bunch of devs with no Halo experience.


Never said that did I :) Between Certain Affinity (Which also has a fair few ex bungie members) likely helping them with multiplayer, and 343I hiring top talent, they have a chance.

But still, they're not Bungie, they never will be, Bungie is proven top talent over the course over 10 years, 343I is going to have to prove itself first before we can even compare the two.


Here here.

I expect top class though. An after Anniversary, ( It is awesome ) I have no worriies.


Agreed, I also expect top class for Halo 4, they seem capable. :)

As long as they don't bungle up the MP though, Halo:CEA is pure awesome, except for the new MP.



selnor on 04 December 2011
Icyedge said:
selnor said:
OMFG. I cant believe some sad people on this site.

The OP is pointing out that M$ are heavily investing in 1st party. Which WILL benefit Xbox in the new generation.
Halo, Fable, Forza are all games at the top of their genres in quality and reviews. In fact Fable doesnt have any real competition.

The fact that M$ have teams and studio in place to produce core games for new generation is fantastic.

IMO I dont particularly like Nintys direction of its first party games, and Sony's are not focused enough on gameplay IMO. Ive never been enthusiastic about Sonys FP. To much riff raff imo.
I hope M$ adds to its current FP franchises with series of the same gameplay quality.

Halo is the best story in videogame history along with Mass Effect IMO. Much better than the over generic undertones of other series or the twisted mess that is Metal Gear series.

M$ already win for me, because they have less but more involving games. IMO
Yes Sony fans and ninty fans wont understand how can I can say that. But the only games that remotely interest me on other platforms are Uncharted, Killzone and OOT 3ds. Other than that, the rest couldnt exist for all I care.

Halo, Forza and Gears are in a diferen league of involvement and fun IMO.
More of that quality and friend focus please M$. ALso Please dont follow Sony down the take player control away to do x,y,z scene look good. Thats where Uncharted is really frustrating.

I prefer M$ angle on game develpment.

IN MY OPINION.

Over.

 

I agree MS is doing the right thing and I dont understand the amount of negativism in this thread. But, "IMO" doesnt excuse not being objective. You said  "I cant believe some sad people on this site.", it would be a good idea to not act the same way they does then. IMO


;)

Point noted. :)



Icyedge on 04 December 2011
Bristow9091 said:
smroadkill15 said:
Bristow9091 said:
Basically, you named shovelware, unannounced games, and Halo 4 in that... there's nothing great about anything you've put there so far, you've even listed dev teams that haven't even STARTED making a game yet...

Sorry if I sound like a troll or anything, since I'm really not trying to be, but in my opinion, Microsoft have the worst first party, it's always been like that for me, infact, the only half decent franchise they own is Halo, and I don't even think it's as special as people make out, I mean, sure the multiplayer is fun, but the story isn't anything revolutionary, and for some reason the lack of iron sights bugs me on those games... (But damn if Grifball isn't fun on Reach!)

I don't don't understand the negative comment. All the thread is implying is that MS has been investing a lot into 1st party developers recently. Just this year MS has created 4 new studios and bought Twisted Pixal. Obviously we wont see anything from those new 1st party studios until probably next year, but it just shows MS is dedicated to making more 1st party IP's for the 360 and their next system. Then somehow you turn it into a negative thing. Congratz you derailed the thread on the first post.

No, I wasn't derailing the thread, I was giving my opinion on the subject at hand, just because it differs from yours doesn't mean I'm derailing it, lol.

Anyway, the reason I said those things is because I'm sure most of us known, in the back of our heads, that these new studios will just be used to make more Kinect shovelware or DLC for existing games...

Really?!? What basis made you came to that conclusion? I mean, yeah it can, but it can also be the other way around. They can also release both types of game. All in all, it cannot be a bad news that MS is creating new studios from the ground up. Its exactly to fix the real problem you were stating in your first post "Microsoft have the worst first party...(the least amount of developing ressources)".

Beside, you missed the point: "Basically, you named shovelware, unannounced games, and Halo 4 in that... there's nothing great about anything you've put there so far, you've even listed dev teams that haven't even STARTED making a game yet...", the point was that Microsoft would pump more first party games in the future, not that what is currently announced is amazing.



selnor on 04 December 2011
Bristow9091 said:
smroadkill15 said:
Bristow9091 said:
Basically, you named shovelware, unannounced games, and Halo 4 in that... there's nothing great about anything you've put there so far, you've even listed dev teams that haven't even STARTED making a game yet...

Sorry if I sound like a troll or anything, since I'm really not trying to be, but in my opinion, Microsoft have the worst first party, it's always been like that for me, infact, the only half decent franchise they own is Halo, and I don't even think it's as special as people make out, I mean, sure the multiplayer is fun, but the story isn't anything revolutionary, and for some reason the lack of iron sights bugs me on those games... (But damn if Grifball isn't fun on Reach!)

I don't don't understand the negative comment. All the thread is implying is that MS has been investing a lot into 1st party developers recently. Just this year MS has created 4 new studios and bought Twisted Pixal. Obviously we wont see anything from those new 1st party studios until probably next year, but it just shows MS is dedicated to making more 1st party IP's for the 360 and their next system. Then somehow you turn it into a negative thing. Congratz you derailed the thread on the first post.

No, I wasn't derailing the thread, I was giving my opinion on the subject at hand, just because it differs from yours doesn't mean I'm derailing it, lol.

Anyway, the reason I said those things is because I'm sure most of us known, in the back of our heads, that these new studios will just be used to make more Kinect shovelware or DLC for existing games...


How do you know?

M$ used Rare to push Kinect. 

Other than that Lionhead, Turn 10, 343 etc have been and are workng on core titles.

Yeah 1 or even 2 of the new studios maybe working on titles for Motion controls. But with the aount of new studio and talent since last year, i would be seriously shockedif M$ didnt have at least 2 of the new studios woring on new core IP's for next gen. SInce last year M$ has added 7 new studios. 5 of which are uilt from the ground up. 

No way M$ have every new studio working on Kinect games. 

343 own Halo.

Turn 10 own Forza

Lionhead own Fable, Black and White

TwistedPixel one f the best XLA devs now M$ exclusive.

Maybe M$ have a new studio working on one of Rares old franchises. Seeing as M$ owns all Rare IPs now, M$ actually have a HUGE list to choose from of existing IP's. Killer Instinct? Blast Corps? Battletoads? Conker? A proper Banjo title? 

Who says M$ have to have Rare do the game?

They have hired some highly respected devs for these new studios. They mean business.



Reasonable on 04 December 2011

They've definitely improved their position, although they are still in third place next to Nintendo/Sony 1st party capability.

But to be honest MS strategy has never been about developing exclusives themselves to a great extent. They want enough 1st party to drive certain franchises (Halo for example, Forza being another) and to push certain directions they want to take (Kinect mainly at the moment).

Beyond that MS are clearly more interested in leveraging third party developers via deals/conditional exclusives and pushing Xbox as the platform of choice to have in your living room for entertainment (which ironically was where Sony started the gen but at that point the message was too early).

I'd say they probably have enough 1st party now to meet their needs. I don't ever expect to see MS match the 1st party of Nintendo/Sony TBH - not saying they couldn't before the usual crowd misinterpret, but because they don't need to and it's not their strategy.



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...