DonFerrari said:
Well my memory got me then, because I do remember a claim of they having 5B of investment at the start of the gen. But if I was wrong sorry. And yes googling it I had just this https://www.polygon.com/2013/5/29/4375392/microsoft-has-1-billion-to-invest-in-exclusive-xbox-one-titles on the 1B you mentioned. Although I don't remember they having 8 new IPs and 15 exclusives on launch, but maybe some were smaller games that we just don't remember.
I don't think we will be free of Don having influenced the design of the nextbox because they start developing a new system as soon as the current one launches. On People saying Phill haven't promissed in the past https://www.polygon.com/2015/4/20/8456445/phil-spencer-e3-2015-first-party-exclusive-games and also don't remember there being that many 1st party on their E3 on that year. http://hardwareblitz.com/microsoft-invested-expanding-first-party-studios-says-phil-spencer/ http://fortune.com/2014/04/25/new-xbox-head-phil-spencer-discusses-evolving-games-industry/ and this one is funny when talking about the mistakes of the reveal he doesn't criticize the ideas they had on what Xbox should be nor the mandate Kinect, he said they could have made their vision more clear. So here also goes that defense of Spencer having fought back and nothing Don Mattrick done being also on his responsability.
You can consider all you want. But when all deals get closed/announced pig backed it is quite hard to believe they all started around the same time and finished together. Even more when we hear cases of one of the studios selling because they had a hard time on cash even with success of Senua, which is a recent game. Or devs that were from other company, got independent and them bought on a short time. Also it really wouldn't take 3 years to increase or open additional teams. |
You can believe all you want but without actually knowing you are just making an assumption on what you think happen not actually knowing anything. So until you actually know, why don't you table that opinion until you can find proof. I will be the first to say I have no clue and I will not form an opinion until I actually have more information then a gut check.
How do you know how long it takes to increase a team with talent then just filling it with a head count. Also how do you know how long it would take to get a quality team instead of just filling a position. Just wondering where you are getting your metric from because I know from my development house we have gone through many people over the years in interviews and only hired 2 people in 3 years.