My theory doesn't support the following idea that he's doing so publically. My assumption is that nadella told him in confidence that he believed more in growing the platform. Nothing Spencer said here would have betrayed that confidence, but rather brought the issue to light. 

Plenty of interesting games on the way...plus the beginning of 2018 wont be so barren as it was this year.

Ghost of a Tale (Game Preview) 6/30

Fable Fortune 7/11

We Happy Few 7/31

Tacoma 8/2

Conan Exiles (Game Preview + expansion) 8/16

Cuphead 9/29

Forza Motorsport 7

Super Lucky's Tale 11/7

Crackdown 3 11/7

Playerunknown's Battlegrounds ( Late 2017)

Sea of Thieves (Early 2018)

Black Desert (Early 2018)

State of Decay 2 (Spring 2018)

Ashen (April 2018)

That's honestly plenty of variety and to select from with Destiny 2, Shadow of WAr, Battlefront 2, CoD, AC Origins, NFS, Wolfeinstein 2: The New Colossus , South Park: The Fractured But Whole etc...running the last quarter of 2017.

Yeah, and I'm saying M$ should do the same. They don't necessarily have to build studios from the ground up to make their games. If a studio develops a hit IP for M$, they don't need to go and build a new internal studio to make more games in that series, they need only buy the developer. This wouldn't be a RARE situation. It'd be more like M$ buying up Playground Games.

Also, I dunno if it's fair to lump Ubisoft in with Activision, EA, and Microsoft when it comes to milking IP's. They're actually pretty good about bringing out new stuff, their problem is that a lot of their new ideas stick too closely to what is now known as the ubisoft formula.

You're wasting your time, people will always go for the low hanging fruit. Most are not even understanding what Phil is talking about here.

There's a big difference between something like the Tomb Raider deal, or even the CoD deal Sony has, and what Destiny does. When PS4 owners got to play Tomb Raider, it was the complete experience. In fact, it was a more complete experience than other platforms got at launch. When Xbox owners buy Calls of Doody, they might have to wait 30 days if they want DLC, but they at least get complete access to the full base game for their money.

With Destiny if you buy on PC or Xbone, for your same investment as PS4 owners you do not get the complete experience. And you won't get it for at least a year, if not longer, as was the case with The Taken King bonus content, I have read it's still not available on Xbox. And if you decide to buy any Destiny DLC on non-PS4 platforms, you even have content out of there that you just paid for, locked away for at minimum a year as well. So you don't even get the complete DLC you pay for. That's the type of shit he's talking about and I'm glad they don't support those shenanigans. I'm not supporting Destiny, not even on my PS4. And I wouldn't support any game with a MS deal that pulled that type of BS.

It's completely fair to lump Microsofts mentality with ea, Ubisoft and activision because they are just like them but less open to creativity (thus producing less). Once again, I hope spencer changes things. Their biggest issues with epic and bungie revolved around creative freedom and Microsoft getting in the way of them wanting to make new ips out of dependence. If bungie agrees to work with activision for ten years under contract (after Microsoft) you know Microsoft is more creatively stifling than activision. Microsoft had to buy the gears up and hire rod ferguson for a reason.

Agreed. Someone else said it best but MS always does this in almost every industry they enter into. They always go half way in instead of going all in. Not surprised to see it happening again. I loved my xbox 360 but nothing annoyed me more than getting Gear of War 4 prequel that no one asked for while PS3 was getting like three new IP exclusives all different game genre's. That's when I said to myself that when Ps4 and the new xbox come out I'm going to consider PS4 unless I see something amazing from MS. Well then we all know what happened after that.

Another one of my favorite quotes from Sony was how they said Last of Us and Uncharted paid for damn near every single exclusive they have released because they don't sell well enough to make money. Something a long those lines. I just loved hearing a company saying they are willing to take risk like that.

Yep nothing pisses off creators more than stiffling them and not letting them be creative and do things they are passionate about. Could you  imagine if MS had let Bungie make Destiny and stop halo? MS would have one more major exclusive on their system. Sony is really good about letting studios do other things that much is obvious and the benefit was a huge new franchise in The Last of us.

Nonsense used to justify Sony doing the same thing you bitch about Microsoft doing :)

Naughty Dog was already a great developer and didn't need any help from Sony. Also, they've gone on record multiple times talking about how they have a different heirarchy design in terms of staff and how they don't interact with Sony at all in terms of development and have complete freedom. Yet you're trying to say Sony bought them and groomed them into what they are today. Taking all the credit from the people actually doing the work and giving it all to someone who according to ND themselves, have zero influence on their game design.

Not to mention there are plenty of other studios Sony has bought that don't align with "cinematic/pixar like experiences". I can name for you one great developer who Sony influenced. Zipper Interactive. Sony made them turn SOCOM 4 into a CoD clone and then when the game naturally flopped, they killed the studio. This is all coming from actual Zipper devs on GAF. So please, just take the L, accept that all companies buy talent. Bitching at MS for buying studios is like complaining that an NFL team signs free agents. You're trying to tell us the Patriots only draft their own talent and don't sign players who are already good and established and we all know that's a load of crap :)

That's weak, Spencer. You need to step up your game. You aren't ready for the big time until you sign exclusives that won't be ready for 8 years or longer.

I know you were trying to be snarky but you hit the nail on the head. Unless MS is making deals with an already established dev and buying exclusivity for a game that's has already been in development for years it makes no sense for it to be coming out in 2-3 years. Starting a game now, making an engine (unless u wanna go the unreal route but the best first party devs make their own proprietary engines), it would take close to 8 years to get that game on store shelves. Horizon Zero Dawn took 6 years to make, and GG are one of the best devs out there and technical wizards on the level of Naughty Dog if not better. So unless MS is making indie level games they have to be just paying off devs to buy exclusivity for games already in development.