Tbf it isn't like the whole of Crystal Dynamics is on Perfect Dark, Matt Booty said, "a hundred something" which is about the same amount as Skybox Labs on Halo Infinite but 343 also calls Skybox Labs a "true development partner, not just an outsource studio" and it isn't really anything new, The Coalition and Splash Damage for example, Splash Damage has been a vital part for Gears 4/5.

One issue is that hiring as many have been saying lately is becoming harder, raw talent is becoming scarcer and there is a large demand for hybrid work, a lot of developers don't want to move across state now for a single developer, let alone country, they want the option to work where they want and not every studio is set up for that still.

The way I see it is at the end of the day, every single AAA nowadays requires over 1,000 employees minimum, and I don't really see much difference between hiring 3 studios with 100ish employees between them or just straight up hiring a very talented AAA developer with 100ish employees freely available, the Xbox Studios still lead the creative aspect.

And it has worked out well for them so far, Booty gave the examples of Flight Simulator, Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, Age of Empires IV, etc. There is Gears of War 4/5 as well. It's sort of how Activision operates and Ubisoft as well except they do it internally because they have a fuck ton of employees, Microsoft doesn't want to take too much away from internal production to support other studios.

So, if a talented developer like Crystal Dynamics is free and they want to work on it then why not?

This has me gone weak . I can literally see the avatars now of the users i know who will be saying this it fits them perfect .

I really like what Matt booty is saying about State of decay 3(great visuals, animations).
My dream for SoD is a game that plays like SoD 2 with RE3 remake's visuals.
I know SoD3 wont look that good but any step towards that direction is a good thing.

Here's some interesting reading on the Co-Development stuff from actual gaming studios that do it.

The world of gaming is huge, and it gets bigger every day. And Co-development is quickly becoming the answer to that growth.

With the growth, there are great expectations from players for a satisfying and fulfilling gaming journey. These expectations only grow alongside the world of gaming as huge studios release sprawling experiences that can fill hundreds of hours. And if not massive games, other developers deliver dense, polished, and entertaining ones that challenge players in any number of ways.

With all of this expansion and growth, it’s becoming more likely that any AAA game you’ve picked up in the past five or more years had more than a single studio at work. Co-development is becoming a mainstay in the game development pipeline.

Co-development is the collaboration and cooperation between the core studio creating the game and one or more other assisting companies. These companies could cover any aspect of the development in any level of depth.

Unlike outsourcing, which is the offloading of a project entirely to a third party, co-development is a meeting of the minds. It’s the combined contribution of several studios delivering a tremendous final product.

The strength of co-development is buried in its nature. As mentioned, it’s not like outsourcing. There’s no handoff of projects and a delivery in the time after. Co-development is where creativity and innovation from two sides meet in the middle. The core development team is expanded with the teams they bring on for the co-development project. And from our experience, the real benefit is in a direct stream of communication between all involved. Knowing your teams is integral in the process. Game development is a hugely complicated process and any bumps in communication or collaboration can spill over into a potential disaster.

What is Co-Development and Why Should You Care? – Ringtail Studios

We wanted to talk a bit more about exactly what it is we do at Studio Gobo and what it’s like to work at a AAA co-development studio. Often referred to as “co-dev”, co-development is collaborative cooperation to develop an idea or project. When a project, feature or anything is worked on by multiple parties in collaboration with each other, that’s co-development. As with the movie industry, much of a production is distributed among many different and varied specialist teams. As AAA games continue to increase in size and scope, a distributed development model has been emerging. This allows a Lead Team to take advantage of different time zones and the wealth of talent pools in different geographical locations.

Usually there will be one studio that owns a project, and they’ll hire a co-development studio to work with them if they need or want to put more people onto that project.

Sometimes it’s big companies who want to expand the project they’re working on, sometimes it’s smaller companies with ideas but not enough technical experience to be able to implement their ideas by themselves. If a studio owns their own work, they might not want to simply contract out a feature of that work, but instead keep being very involved on a day-to-day level and hire a co-development studio to quickly integrate into their teams. It’s like immediately getting a full or partial team of people to fill in the gaps. If a project ends up being expanded or over-estimated in terms of how many people or how much time it will take, that’s when it’s useful to work with a co-development studio.

There are a few types of co-development studio. A co-development studio could offer a broad range of disciplines or an emphasis on one or two. Some co-development companies offer one service, such as sound design or programming, for example; others can adapt to whatever it is that the hiring studio is looking for.

With co-development there’s much more of a focus on communication. It’s not simply a case of being assigned a task and completing it – when we work on a project, we integrate into the teams. We are still tied to a contract, but we have a lot of control over our production planning and scope management.

What is Co-Development? | Studio Gobo

They want passionate and diversely talented teams that can drive a project as hard as any internal development team and become an integral part of the organization and projects.

This is especially true for parallel development projects where it is not just about making art assets, weapons, vehicles, and buildings, but about true co-development, where creative input and strategic decision-making is a collaborative process between games companies and their external developers.

These companies now make it clear from the beginning that they aren’t looking for a flexible talent pool, but an extension of their own development team — namely, a partner just as dedicated as they are to making the best game possible. Trust is a must as the depth of the relationship reaches new levels, and with access to proprietary engines and pipelines deeply integrated between the two parties.

At the end of the day, AAA studios who want to make their games bigger while increasing their ROI will rely on major partners for their expertise in specialized game development services as well as flexible development work.

Expert Talks: A Producer’s View on How Effective Co-Development Makes for Better Games - Virtuos

I think that it's actualy somewhat of a dark side of gamepass. It is relied upon to be it's own marketing machine. And as a result they're less focus on maketing outside of it. It's sad in a way when Xbox have been known for some of the best marketing campaign in the industry. Like the I love bees, or the believe campaign, or gears of war mad world ad.

Now they've dial all that down and let gamepass do it's thing.

Res 3 Remake will be 4-5 years old and a generation outdated when SoD 3 releases. It better look at least as good as Res 3 Remake, people have AAA expectations for SoD 3.

Yeah, Game Pass means less marketing because Game Pass is a pretty effective marketing tool in its own right, but the issue here is there's no brand synergy or whatever, how hard is it for the Xbox Twitter's to be in sync at least? We're not expecting ads on TV for Pentiment but for social media, Xbox marketing is significantly worse than PlayStation.

PlayStation could get a timed exclusive and every single PlayStation account will tweet about it at the same time, Xbox meanwhile feels like you're lucky if you get an Xbox Wire post and Xbox Wire Twitter has 300k followers compared to Xbox Twitter's near 20m. Least Xbox US and Xbox UK RT'd the Pentiment stuff I suppose, that's something, Lol.

But then it becomes a problem with Bethesda too, their marketing feels disconnected, like Bethesda will post something and Xbox will post or RT about it hours later, I'm assuming that's because Bethesda and Xbox marketing teams don't plan with each other since they're two separate divisions, but they should.

Anyway, on a positive note, I think Pentiment would have utterly bombed without Game Pass, no matter how much marketing it received, so it's nice that it can have some sort of audience now, but I don't expect it to be a large one, it's going to be niche on niche, Lol. Question if Obsidian would have even greenlit it without Microsoft.

It actually wouldn’t have been greenlit. Sawyer’s been wanting to make this game since Obsidian was Black Isle Studios lol. But it was turned down multiple times over the years, even after Obsidian was founded, due to lack of funding. Which is why I’m so excited for this game! 

Makes sense, since Obsidian was cash strapped and Feargus threatened to fire Sawyer and Brennecke during production of Pillars of Eternity, Lol. In hindsight, that would have been a disastrous move, Sawyer is arguably Obsidian's most talented employee and Brennecke went on to create a massive hit for them which will likely become Obsidian's most successful project of all time in terms of players.

I'm not a JRPG fan but that list seems good to me?

Aside from fucking Pokemon, Wtf? Miles Pls