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Forums - Microsoft - Phil Spencer: Fewer 3rd party exclusives, focus is on 1st party

S.T.A.G.E. on 01 August 2015
Mr Puggsly said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:


It's not luck. It's called having qualities most studios on their level of budget don't have.

Well other studios have arguably better games but fail to achieve the same level of success. Sometimes arguably inferior games trounce Naughty Dog numbers.

I'm merely pointing out success isnt as black and white as you feel. We can both agree successful games arent always the most notable. Sometimes it just depends on what appeals to many gamers at the moment.

For example, I think Rare games sucked on the N64 and thats why they didnt age well. But for some people... that was gaming at its prime.



Only a simple mind calls the world black and white. There are many shades of gray and too many variables. Too many controls to an experiment and too many options in life. The fact that people choose Uncharted over other AAA games says something about the game and the developers ability to understand what people like and can successful implement it into a game. This ability to access that type of pleasure can be accessed from many games, but again....the larger games provide spectacle and a lot of people like that. I'll throw another variable into the mix.....and that is a marketing budget which is apart of why AAA's sell so much. Their budget is designed to be just as agrand as the development.



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Eddie_Raja on 01 August 2015
fireburn95 said:
He's starting to become what I don't like, too much talk and little action. There's no evidence of a focus on first party when two of your first parties were not given the freedom to work on their new IP's and became a gears/halo factory, and so far apart from forza where have all the first party games been? Not one retail exclusive this year, not one!


Exactly.  When Sony had trouble in 2006 and 2007, they bought up and pumped money into first party studios to compensate - and because they knew it would also help them a ton in the long-term.  

It just doesn't seem like MS is doing this.



Prediction for console Lifetime sales:

Wii:100-120 million, PS3:80-110 million, 360:70-100 million

[Prediction Made 11/5/2009]

3DS: 65m, PSV: 22m, Wii U: 18-22m, PS4: 80-120m, X1: 35-55m

I gauruntee the PS5 comes out after only 5-6 years after the launch of the PS4.

[Prediction Made 6/18/2014]

Goatseye on 01 August 2015
-CraZed- said:

So what was your problem with his statement then? He is correct that they cannot pay for third party exclusivity going forward because it is cost prohibitive and developers are more likely than not asking for larger sums of money to do so. It's that simple. Take my example of Batman AK. The PS4 version is reportedly selling roughly three times the number of copies of the XB1 version. Could WB afford to forgo those sales for an upfront payment from MS? And would it make good business sense for MS to pay enough to make it worth it? Doubtful. It's dollars and cents here. 

I'm talking AAA first party titles which pretty much consists of Halo/Forza and Gears of War. Plus, we are discussing current events and right now MS's first party lineup is woefully incapacious. Granted, those are great franchises but they could use more and have the necessary resource to stand up/buy new studios to continue to create new ip. Look at MS 'best first party lineup ever;' Halo 5, GoW 4 and Forza 6.

Besides, when was the last time XBox Live arcade was actually  great? It'd be nice if MS got back to that as well but they seemed to lose that focus years ago. But not really germaine to the topic.

-MS 1st party is woefully incapacious but what about the competition's? Until Bloodborne, none of the AAA set the world on fire. Even the latter didn't sell enough to be considered a blockbuster.
-Xbox best line up ever is not what you convinently mentioned to fit you view. Let me remind you what within the next 18-20 months Xbox lineup will be approximately:

-Forza 6 and possibly Forza Horizon 3 in 2016

-Recore/Scalebound/Sea of Thieves/Quantum Break, I can tell you that none of those are Halo, Gears and Forza. All new IPs

-Halo 5, the most ambitious take on any modern FPS campaign

-Fable Legends

-ROTR

-Crackdown

How can you guys even downplay this?  



Goatseye on 01 August 2015
Shadow1980 said:
Goatseye said:

MS was pumping out Arcade games/ budget games consistently throughout X360 era.

Yeah. That's nice and all, but it's not the same as retail-release AAA output.

Rare was re-structuring as a studio since they shipped Perfect Dark on N64. This myth of them getting mediocre after being bought by MS is a fallacy.

Regardless of the reasons, their ouput post-Nintendo is nowhere near as good as it was when they were partnered with Nintendo.

Nintendo forewent Rare stakes. If they thought Rare was good at the time they wouldn't have let them go. Especially when Rare was making games better than they did.

Yeah. And Nintendo was stupid to let Rare go. But Nintendo's actions from the early 00s don't really have any bearing on MS's first-party output.

MS Studios can concentrate on making their holy trifecta and leave 2nd party contractors do the rest. It's much more cost-effective and less time consuming.

Except that Remedy is really the only notable second-party studio partnered to them that's developing AAA titles. And by "second-party" I don't mean a third-party studio that has exclusivity rights purchased for just one of their games. I mean a real second-party, an independent studio engaged in a long-term exclusivity contract to the console maker. Dead Rising 3, Ryse, Titanfall, Sunset Overdrive, Rise of the Tomb Raider, ReCore, Scalebound, and formerly Gears of War were/are all third-party exclusives because Capcom, Crytek, EA, Insomniac, Square-Enix, Comcept, Platinum Games, and Epic never developed games exclusively for MS. Now, it's possible that a couple of those might never have been made if it weren't for MS's backing, but even if that's the case MS has been far too reliant on simply throwing money at third-party developers in order to pad their library of exclusives. Some of those games would have come out on PlayStation as well had no exclusivity deal been reached. Sony and Nintendo have their fair share of third-party exclusives as well, but they've put more emphasis on their own output to grow their library of exclusives.

Third-party exclusives simply aren't sustainable in the long run, especially in a generation like this one where the PS4 is outselling the XBO by a 5:2 ratio globally. Fewer and fewer third parties will consider it worth their while to ignore the sales potential of releasing on PS4. Even last generation it was clear that this strategy wouldn't yield a strong selection of exclusives in the long run. After 2009 the 360 had essentially been reduced to Halo, Gears, Forza, and Fable as major exclusives, with Alan Wake and Crackdown 2 thrown in for good measure. Within another year or two the situation will likely be the same for the XBO. That's why MS needs to invest more on in-house first-party development.



MS doesn't invest in 1st party  and they need it to push consoles. What did Sony bring from 6th gen to 7th to push consoles?

If you take Gran Turismo out of the equation... you'll have a barren wasteland with an ok God of War.

Please don't lump Sony and Nintendo in the same sentence when it comes to 1st party output. They're in a different ball games as much as you say they're not.

MS doesn't need in-house 1st party to own or to make them sell their consoles. Everything else is forum's cannon fodder.



Jimbo1337 on 01 August 2015
sasquatchmontana said:
*snip*
Jimbo1337 said:

 

So I would like to ask why you think Driveclub deserved their low review, while Halo rightfully deserved their high score. 

Well as I stated, both games were reviewed on the basis their online modes did function. But even then, MCC has 4 amazing remastered campaigns . Too much for Driveclub to have one?

There is no point in arguing over opinions.  I say that I enjoyed playing Driveclub and is considered a top-tier racing game while you claim that it wasn't up to racing standards.  

A closer inspection of the reviews on Halo: TMCC shows 60 reviews over 70 with THIRTY FOUR published after the game released.  Just look at the review of 93 that clearly states all of the issues with Multiplayer in this article:

http://www.insidegamer.nl/recensies/114390/halo-the-master-chief-collection-multiplayer-review

They claim to have spent six to seven hours in matching over a span of ten hours and then score it a 93.  How on Earth can you or anybody else defend this crap?  

Polygon also reported in their review that "their impressions of multiplayer in The Master Chief Collection are based on previous experience with the titles involved and a daylong play session hosted by Microsoft at its San Francisco-based loft".  

http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/7/7076007/halo-the-master-chief-collection-review-xbox-one

 I can imagine that people who reviewed the game prior to launch were also invited to this daylong play session.  A game that was beyond broken for approximately 100 days doesn't magically work days before the game release.  Just because the reviews don't mention the match-making issues doesn't mean they weren't there in the first place.  

 

 



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sasquatchmontana on 01 August 2015
Goatseye said:-Forza 6 and possibly Forza Horizon 3 in 2016

I don't really think you need to suggest this as a possibility. It's going to happen. It's astonishing how MS has been running rings around Sony in the racing space in development terms.

Goatseye said:

-MS 1st party is woefully incapacious but what about the competition's? Until Bloodborne, none of the AAA set the world on fire. Even the latter didn't sell enough to be considered a blockbuster.
-Xbox best line up ever is not what you convinently mentioned to fit you view. Let me remind you what within the next 18-20 months Xbox lineup will be approximately:

-Forza 6 and possibly Forza Horizon 3 in 2016

-Recore/Scalebound/Sea of Thieves/Quantum Break, I can tell you that none of those are Halo, Gears and Forza. All new IPs

-Halo 5, the most ambitious take on any modern FPS campaign

-Fable Legends

-ROTR

-Crackdown

How can you guys even downplay this?  

It is puzzling. If Microsoft is relying on 3rd parties (and by that is inferred, IP microsoft owns, made by studios they don't) too much, what does it say that Bloodborne, The Order, Until Dawn, Ratchet and Clank are all made by external studios and MLB isn't their IP? Because that means between October 2014 - Uncharted 4 release (March 2016?) there has been no new internally developed games for Sony IP? 18 month gap is a good gap?



fireburn95 on 01 August 2015
Eddie_Raja said:
fireburn95 said:
He's starting to become what I don't like, too much talk and little action. There's no evidence of a focus on first party when two of your first parties were not given the freedom to work on their new IP's and became a gears/halo factory, and so far apart from forza where have all the first party games been? Not one retail exclusive this year, not one!


Exactly.  When Sony had trouble in 2006 and 2007, they bought up and pumped money into first party studios to compensate - and because they knew it would also help them a ton in the long-term.  

It just doesn't seem like MS is doing this.

In that interview, he is talking about the first party support for this year. But when you think about it, it's sequels of the four titles they were mocked for for constantly having on xbox 360. The fables, the halos, the gears and the forzas. Yes they need to make those four, but they severely lack in first party prowess, it just doesn't seem like the studios are given the freedom to create what they want. 343 is now gonna be a halo factory, and black tusk were working on a new ip and have had to scrap that for gears. Where are the titles that actually give a reason why this console is better than the 360 when the 360 was released.



sasquatchmontana on 01 August 2015
fireburn95 said:

In that interview, he is talking about the first party support for this year. But when you think about it, it's sequels of the four titles they were mocked for for constantly having on xbox 360. The fables, the halos, the gears and the forzas. Yes they need to make those four, but they severely lack in first party prowess,

Problem? You saying if Sony had Uncharted, God of War, Gran Turismo and The Last of Us all releasing in the same holiday they wouldn't emphasise that as their best lineup? Certainly would be best for PS4 thus far.

And if they were mocked that those aren't neW ips. They might defer to new IP developed externally like Bloodborne or The Order? And for future new IP they wouldn't bring up Horizon and Dreams.



-CraZed- on 01 August 2015
Goatseye said:
-CraZed- said:
 

So what was your problem with his statement then? He is correct that they cannot pay for third party exclusivity going forward because it is cost prohibitive and developers are more likely than not asking for larger sums of money to do so. It's that simple. Take my example of Batman AK. The PS4 version is reportedly selling roughly three times the number of copies of the XB1 version. Could WB afford to forgo those sales for an upfront payment from MS? And would it make good business sense for MS to pay enough to make it worth it? Doubtful. It's dollars and cents here. 

I'm talking AAA first party titles which pretty much consists of Halo/Forza and Gears of War. Plus, we are discussing current events and right now MS's first party lineup is woefully incapacious. Granted, those are great franchises but they could use more and have the necessary resource to stand up/buy new studios to continue to create new ip. Look at MS 'best first party lineup ever;' Halo 5, GoW 4 and Forza 6.

Besides, when was the last time XBox Live arcade was actually  great? It'd be nice if MS got back to that as well but they seemed to lose that focus years ago. But not really germaine to the topic.

-MS 1st party is woefully incapacious but what about the competition's? Until Bloodborne, none of the AAA set the world on fire. Even the latter didn't sell enough to be considered a blockbuster.
-Xbox best line up ever is not what you convinently mentioned to fit you view. Let me remind you what within the next 18-20 months Xbox lineup will be approximately:

-Forza 6 and possibly Forza Horizon 3 in 2016

-Recore/Scalebound/Sea of Thieves/Quantum Break, I can tell you that none of those are Halo, Gears and Forza. All new IPs

-Halo 5, the most ambitious take on any modern FPS campaign

-Fable Legends

-ROTR

-Crackdown

How can you guys even downplay this?  

Scalebound is not a first party game nor is the developer. Recore is still a CGI trailer and again not first party. Crackdown is a ways off. ROTR is a timed exclusive and again not first party. . And yes they are all very interesting titles, but again not really relevant to the thread topic.

Look no one is downplaying the quality of titles here. People are getting off track in the discussion I think.

I'm simply addressing how MS must turn its focus from how it has been very reliant on third party exclusivity deals, which was pretty easy since they could afford to pay off developers to skip or delay the release on competing consoles on a regular basis because they were the leading platform. MS has fewer studios working on console exclusive IPs than their competition so they relied heavily on third and second party exlcusivity deals. Now they are looking to change that around because they aren't the leading console and it just isn't cost effective. I like the shift in focus by MS and hope that it devlops into more diversity in their first party line-up.




DerNebel on 01 August 2015

The point when your bias goes so far that you try to pass off Driveclub as a game looking worse than an early 360 title.