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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Xbox boss Response on Single-Player Games - Economics Are "Complicated"

This is complete utter bullshit.

Nintendo is an example of a developer who gives their franchises modest budgets in comparison to the competition, and delivers a quality experience while raking in the *most* sales for single player franchises in history. This isn't exclusive to Nintendo either. See: Persona 5, Nier Automata.

For those people bringing up Sony games, I want to bring up one point. While it is true that Playstation's first party titles have a history of selling less than Microsoft's or Nintendo's, this has been changing quite a bit this generation in favor of Playstation. Horizon Zero Dawn for instance, is on track to sell as much as Uncharted 2 by the end of the year. Uncharted 4 broke records, and there's a very real chance that with digital Lost Legacy will even beat out the first Uncharted game, which makes a lot of profit do to the reuse of engines and assets and less content. Beyond that, exclusive content is meant to sell hardware. Pretending like single player games can't bring in a revenue stream because they don't sell 10 million copies is missing the entire point. Exclusives are meant to *sell* consoles, the consoles are the extra revenue stream.

I remember one time a few years ago I said "Man, I want Sony to have a new multiplayer IP!" on a Playstation channel. And the content creator replied to me, saying Destiny and third party titles already have multiplayer covered. While I denied it back then, I have come to realize that to be the truth of the matter. Yeah, Microsoft might make more money on Halo 5 than Horizon, but which manufacturer is getting the hardware sales? The hardware sales that lead to games being bought? Those games being first party titles, or third party titles that get a massive cut given to Sony?



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That was a very carefully constructed statement that amounts to nothing more than "buy Xbox Game Pass". The statement about it making it possible to fund single player games is not honest.



Well I prefer multiplayer so I could care less if SP games died out.



Well, it seems like she is just throwing good news after good news for the community. Is she also a little confused on why they don't release many SP games?

And what an opposite side of the people that claimed MS warchest and infinite money would buy their lead this gen... now they don't even have the money to do SP games...

Next are they putting the blocks in lootboxes for Minecraft to recover those Billions?



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

She's right. Very few single player games go on to make the kind of money that multiplayer games do. BOTW, no matter how successful, won't even begin to make the revenue of COD and any other mainstream title that has tons of opportunities to make more money after the initial purchase.



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contestgamer said:
Nautilus said:
Oh please.What a load of bullshit.So how games like P 5 and Nier Automata can be already successful with 1 million unit sold?

Its simply a matter of budgeting your game right.Western studios either blow out of the proportion their budget in the development part or in the marketing.Or they just plain dosent know how to manage a project.

But being honest, the REAL reason why western studios are walking away from at the very least, single player focused games is because they cant charge extra with them, either by microtransactions or lootboxes.Its simply easier to make a multiplayer game and be done with it, then implementing a multiplayer in one game that already has a strong single player content(because these companies NEED to have microtransactions and the only way is through a multiplayer mode)

Its sad really.It also shows why MS is losing the war.

1 Million, wow, is the bar low or what. Why would a company bother working on a game to sell 1 million? That is an epic flop.

Up until this gen a 1M seller was considered a best seller.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Versus_Evil said:
Really shows how many people even read the article when they say "He" ....

Second thread on this woman interview and the second time someone post something as constructive as saying people is calling she a he... while failing to either see a lot called her a she and to also comment on the content itself.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

contestgamer said:
Nautilus said:
Oh please.What a load of bullshit.So how games like P 5 and Nier Automata can be already successful with 1 million unit sold?

Its simply a matter of budgeting your game right.Western studios either blow out of the proportion their budget in the development part or in the marketing.Or they just plain dosent know how to manage a project.

But being honest, the REAL reason why western studios are walking away from at the very least, single player focused games is because they cant charge extra with them, either by microtransactions or lootboxes.Its simply easier to make a multiplayer game and be done with it, then implementing a multiplayer in one game that already has a strong single player content(because these companies NEED to have microtransactions and the only way is through a multiplayer mode)

Its sad really.It also shows why MS is losing the war.

1 Million, wow, is the bar low or what. Why would a company bother working on a game to sell 1 million? That is an epic flop.

Wut?What are you blabbing about?

And what i meant is that a game can be profitable at 1 million, such as these examples I just gave.If a game requires 500k to break even but ends up selling 1 million, then thats great news.Not every game needs to sell 10 millions, otheriwse this industry would have crashed and burned long ago.

And just to you know, by this point P5 sold around 2 million units, while Automata long passed 1 million(I think its at 1.5 million now), both being the best selling games for Atlus and Nier respectively.If it makes money, why wouldnt a company not make such game?



My (locked) thread about how difficulty should be a decision for the developers, not the gamers.

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=241866&page=1

AlfredoTurkey said:
She's right. Very few single player games go on to make the kind of money that multiplayer games do. BOTW, no matter how successful, won't even begin to make the revenue of COD and any other mainstream title that has tons of opportunities to make more money after the initial purchase.

It dosent need to, since(at least from the hardware manufacturer perspective) the game will bring in hardware sales, which in turn brings more software sales(both third and first party), which brings more games to the platform, which brings even more sales, and so on.

First party games primary objective is to sell the hardware.And for Nintendo and Sony, they are doing the job exceptionally.



My (locked) thread about how difficulty should be a decision for the developers, not the gamers.

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=241866&page=1

Miguel_Zorro said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
This isn't the first time I've seen this weird dichotomy articulated. So it's either a super expensive story-driven game or a games-as-a-service multiplayer title?

Does Microsoft realize you can make a single-player game with a modest budget and without cinematic pretensions?

It's an interesting argument.

I'm trying to think of recent single-player games that didn't have a big budget, didn't have multiplayer, but still sold well.  They probably exist, but I can't name them.

Ratchet and Clank, Until Dawn, Hellblade off the top of my head.



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