Microsoft: You don't need to own studios to make great games

What he said.

No amount of sugar coating will change the fact that Sony has, and always will be, a profit-focused company. If they can appease their consumer base in the process, they'll do it, but only if it doesn't hinder sales potential.

They're set up to make a lot of money in the coming year. The large audience they gain at launch will help them immensely.

Eh. If that were all, I doubt games like Proteus would have ended up on the PlayStation. Games like that are a really tough sell (can't even imagine what it would like to try pitching that game). If the indie angle were just a gesture to make up for Sony's own lack of exclusives at launch, they wouldn't pursue such obscurities and treat them as equally big parts of their lineup.

@BranKetra said:

lol you guys dont trust me (Or Sony). I am disappointed. :(

Sony announced a 14 day PS+ trial for all PS4 owners at gamescom.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/20/gamescom-2013-playstation-plus-free-trial-announced-for-ps4

Since the 14 day trial is Free for all PS4 owners in November, we can say that all PS4 owners get those free November games. If you are clever you can start your free trial on November 30th and get both November games AND December games without paying a single cent for PS+.

Give that a watch. It's pretty spot on, definitely makes you wonder why some games get marketed by Sony and others don't.

Ok, finally a decent reply.

No, I am not mis-remembering anything. Sony greenlit that project in 2003 after Getaway came out and poured in $20 million of their own money on a 3 year project that after 2+ years was nowhere closed to being finished. I can hardly blame them for canceling it. Judging by the fact that it took another 4 years to come out and the studio was instantly closed down by Rockstar, it's safe to say it was a good decision. You cant take someone's money for 2+ years and have absolutely nothing to show for it. The teaser Rockstar released in 2006 was done by an outside company and was CGi. They didn't have shit.

Yes, Rockstar was nice enough to see it through to the end. But they did get the game practically free since at first they promised exclusivity for PS3 then made it multiplatform and sold The Agent to Sony as an exclusive. Since we know The Agent was vaporware, we can assume this was basically free for Rockstar. It was a good deal for them. But if we are giving them credit for putting in $20 million of their money to finish it, let's give Sony credit for green-lighting such a project for three years as well.

I dont think you know what cultivating means. Sony funded all of Media Molecule's games. 100%. Same with Evolution Studios, Sucker Punch and Guerrilla Games. They made their internal resources available to them. The same as Ready At Dawn right now with Sony Santa Monica helping them out right now. Just as they did with Journey. So if after Order comes out and they buy Ready At Dawn, are you going to say Sony was not with Ready At Dawn every step of the way? Of course not. You invest in these studios and put them through the ringer and if they respond like Sucker Punch, MM, Evolution Studios and GG did then you offer them to join you.

Again, you make it sound like these studios were taken over by Sony as a hostile takeover. Nope, they WANTED to be bought by Sony. If what you say is correct and Sony waited until LBP, Motrostorm, KZ and Infamous were success to buy them, it makes no sense financially because after their successes these studios would be worth a whole lot more, no? Sorry, but it doesn't work like you think works. these studios could've gone to ANY third party publisher and make a helluva lot more money making multiplatform games but they CHOSE to stay with Sony. They obviously had an understanding with Sony that if they prove themselves, they will be bought out by them and do whatever they want to do as shown by TLOU. Sony gave the leads of Uncahrted 2 their own second team to let them make whatever they wanted to. What did Microsoft do with Bungie? Bizarre Creations? They let them go and had Rare make Kinect games. Again, they are not all the same.

As for your Kinect paragraphs, you are right. MS is not forcing me to buy an X1. I dont have to purchase the Xbox One. WHere you are wrong is claiming that people did not criticize Sony for releasing a $600 console with a needless $200 bluray player. I, myself, have criticized Sony a million times over the past 7 years for doing that. So has everyone else on this board at one point or another. And it is a valid criticism. Just like Kinect's forced inclusion is a valid criticism whether you agree or not. Now I want to buy the Xbox for Ryse, Project Spark and TitanFall. Just like the bluray was shoved down my throats by Sony execs who dont care about gaming, the MS execs have shoved kinect down my throat. It's really that simple.

Selling a much weaker box with a product I will never use for a profit is greedy in my book. Make a thread on any board, make it a poll. Let's see how many term it greedy or not-greedy. Take this as a challenge.

I bought the PS3 in spite of the $600 price tag because I wanted to play MGS4. When I bought it, I bitched about spending $720 on it and one game. Hell, I recently bitched about it in another thread. When my PS3 got the YLOD, I bitched about it. I still do. Again, you dont know the history. our history. You make claims about us with a very limited knowledge of us. PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Wii U, 3DS, PSP, Vita, PS4 and The X1 have all been trashed here at one point or another. But this finger pointing and name-calling hasn't started until now when we started shitting on the X1.

I appreciate you taking the time to come up with a coherent response with no insults. This is progress. Even though i disagree with you on what cultivating a studio really is and what really went behind L.A Noire's disastrous development cycle, we can at least say that we discussed this like gentleman and dont hate each other's guts for disagreeing with each other.

Sony regardless of their market position, has always been pretty enthusiastic about risky/obscure titles (publishing games like Aquanaut's Holiday and Carnage Heart in North America, funding games like Ico and Parappa the Rapper) and often willing to let its talent drop franchises and make something original (most of its studios cook up new franchises every generation).

I think they do it for the same commercial reason restaurants tend to offer a broad range of food, because the more variety you have the higher the chance people will find something they like.

@S0lidSnake if we keep directly quoting one another, our posts will grow to be 10 miles long.

Your examples just don't have enough solid facts in them to convince me. Both Microsoft and Sony fund/help cultivate/develop first and second party studios. I truly don't see much of a difference in their actions.

Sony cares Microsoft doesn't. Its that simple. At least in his eyes. :p

They both want your money and would do what is necessary to get it. At the moment they are doing an excellent job in convincing folks into purchasing their incomplete machines.

I am going to tackle both of you here. First, let's assume ALL corporations have profits and nothing else on their mind. Let's start with that. Their main goal is to make profit for the shareholders.

Now with that said, there are companies that do it the right way and companies who do it the easy way. They are not always the same. For instance, Walmart keeps their employees near minimum wage, has awful health care benefits and is generally regarded as a Welfare Kings since most of their employees end up turning to government aid. But they make a lot of profit for their shareholders and are one of the most profitable companies in the world.

Now on the other hand, you have Costco which has amazing Employee benefits. The CEO genuinely cares about his employees. Pays them almost twice as much as Walmart employees and gives them full health benefits. Costco is also a profitable company. By your logic, both Costco and Walmart are the same. No, they are not. That kind of false equivalency undermines the efforts of the CEO of Costco and Kaz Hirai who went on record TO HIS SHAREHOLDERS and INVESTORS telling them the PS4 is designed as a gaming machine first and foremost. On the other hand, MS spent 50 out of the 60 minutes touting their TV deals.

Again, look at the bigger picture and stop with the false equivalency.

firefox, Sony IS taking a loss with each console sold. Please show me a link that sources a Sony exec saying otherwise. I dont care about what other forums say. I am not concerned with their opinions. If you can find me saying this then ok, let's talk about my hypocrisy. But I never have so let's not mention stuff like that.

Carnage, vader, myself, Shameus, Grammaton, and nearly every regular of this board for the last 13 years have preferred Sony consoles over the other at one point or another. Just because you are fan of a console's library, does not make you an irrational fanboy. If you find actual false claims from any of us then feel free to bring them to light. You haven't so far. All you guys have done so far is accuse us of being fanboys just because we rightfully criticize Microsoft. We are hardly even the only ones. 90% of the internet was against MS after E3. PS4 preorders tell their own story. Are you saying 90% of the world is full of Sony fanboys?

The funniest thing is that Grammaton and Shameus were HUGE 360 fans. Huge. I spent years arguing with these guys. You two accusing them of being fanboys is hilarious and sad because you are passing judgement on these guys simply because they criticized your favorite console.

lol what a Pedro response. First you accuse me of making misleading comments and then go ahead and make a claim I never made.

I don't see any quotes in my response. Hmmm,.Interesting.

@S0lidSnake I've never accused Grammaton of being a fanboy. Shameus is, hands down, no questions asked. You aren't, and I haven't claimed you were.

With that said, the bit about Kaz Hirai really exemplifies your naivete. Seriously though, I'm not preaching Microsoft is better than Sony, nor am I preaching the X1 is better than the PS4 -- but your ability to be fooled is unreal. "A games machine."

The two consoles are essentially the same, feature wise. Both have several non-gaming features.

You've got to stop taking anyone at their word. I've seen you quote Mattrick when he said, "Buy a 360," and now you're quoting Hirai. These people are liars, plain and simple. Trust statistics, trust facts, and nothing else. It's precisely why, when you say a place like WalMart has awful health care benefits, I don't believe you. Not particularly, in this case, because I know otherwise, but because you didn't provide evidence. You just claimed it. Stated it in a sentence. The same way I could say: Most elephants have bright pink tusks.

There's no evidence. A lot of people on this board don't seem to understand that. If I give you an opinion, I'm going to have a few references that at least assert as much; now, maybe they're wrong too, but it's a lot better to have a founded opinion than an unfounded one.

But again I repeat, these are just claims made by people who's job it is to make money. Kaz and Mattrick might be different when the cameras aren't on, but when there's a journalist nearby, they're going to be pretty much the same person. One might slip and say something controversial while the other might say the right thing, but at the end of the day, they both want one thing: your money.

And that's all that matters to them. Sony and Microsoft want your money.

Another troll. You mean to tell me you weren't talking about me? Even though you replied right after experience_fade replied to me? You seriously expect me to believe that?

Even if you weren't, you were obviously talking about someone else without naming them which qualifies as trolling. And then you half-deny it in your reply.

That's like a troll within a troll. That's trollception.

You guys have made a lot of blanket statements regarding the users here and grammaton fell under that umbrella since he has been a very vocal critic of the X1. lol at your Shameus reply. I got nothing else.

Kaz Hirai isnt just some Sony Playstation exec. he is the CEO of Sony corp. The guy who has to answer to investors and stockholders every quarter. He came out and told reporters literally 20 days before his next meeting with investors that the PS4 is a game console first and foremost. He cannot lie to his investors. He does not want to tell his investors that the billions of dollars they are investing are going straight to making a games focused machine, but he did. Because he believes that this is the path to success. Even his biggest detractor and the investor who wanted Sony to spin off its Electronics branch bought into it by saying Sony has regained its competitive edge with the PS4.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-19/sony-rides-win-streak-on-loeb-proposal-ps4-into-meeting.html

I thought Trollception was the moment a Trollsperm penetrated the wall of a Trollegg?

I am so surprise that you would call me a troll. I really did not see that one coming. :gasp: Where is you partner in crime? Cause I know you folks normally rely on re-enforcement. :)

I am not denying I was referring to you. My point;which typically escapes you, is that I did not paraphrase or rephrase anything you said. So it was rather bizarre that I am some how place "words" in your mouth. Quite unusual. And then you are playing some odd victim card in which I stated you are misleading. When did this happen? Are you thread jumping again?

It has become rather standard practice for you to believe that the irrational posting is not emanating from you and that its someone else. I am seeing it in your response to experience_fade. What is also tickling to read is your Walmart (evil) and Costco(good) in relation to MS and Sony. But, I don't want to put words in your mouth, I would hate to be implying untruth or troll worthy behaviour.

The point that you conveniently missed in my last response is the nutshell of anything I would continue to say in this thread. But don't let me hinder the usual tirade.

Okay.

I missed that. Sony has made some good decisions for this generation I did not expect them to because of last gen. I did not know you did because I was not paying attention to the video game industry for a while this year. It was not a lack of trust, but of attentiveness.

I dont know Pedro. It's past midnight, i am tired and you are right I have no clue what you are talking about.

You said you did not paraphrase anything I said and are implying that you were referring to what I said verbatim. This is your post:

"Sony cares Microsoft doesn't. Its that simple. At least in his eyes. :p"

So now since you did not paraphrase or rephrase, you must be saying that I specifically said Sony cares, MS doesn't. Where did I say this?

This is where you called my comments misleading:

It is misleading to call these games Free. Free does not require purchase and in this case the purchase of PS+ is absolutely required.

You replied directly to BranKetra who wasn't sure if PS+ would be free for all PS4 customers like dvader and I had suggested.

I thought Pedro was referring to Sony.

I am going to sleep. lol

I am just going to leave this here. It's definitely not the first time an MS exec has tried to spin this resolution stuff. Albert Panello ran an incredible PR campaign on gaf that damn near convinced me. But this is the kinda shit that is simply dishonest and needs to be made fun of/criticized.

@S0lidSnake said:

I am just going to leave this here. It's definitely not the first time an MS exec has tried to spin this resolution stuff. Albert Panello ran an incredible PR campaign on gaf that damn near convinced me. But this is the kinda shit that is simply dishonest and needs to be made fun of/criticized.

Did you see what he was referring to?

Why not learn something, instead of trolling what I assume to be gaf?

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/10/op-ed-why-im-not-too-worked-up-about-the-next-gen-console-resolution-wars/

lol @Shame-usBlackley being a fanboy. Oh man, that's a good one. Carry on gentlemen, I have to go laugh some more at the idea of him being a fanboy.

I like that I'm providing all of you with a chuckle over my observations of Shame-us. From what I've seen, he's a fanboy. I'm happy that all of you have been on these forums for forever, and have a historical impression of him. That has to be your reasoning, because given what I've seen over the past two months, it's damning evidence.

If only we extended that "historical" view courtesy to companies, huh? All of this Sony love would be non-existent, if so!

That's the gist of it, right? If you're fair and balanced (or equally as insulting towards a different company) three years ago, that's how you'll always be. Everyone stays the same, no one has ever become a fanboy, ever.

Ever.

Here's the punchline: I really don't care one way or another. As previously stated, I don't find being a fanboy that much of an insult. And if you find it to be insulting, I suspect his opinion of me isn't that high either, so, who cares?

I've made the argument before that these particular forums have the least amount of bias among other similar places on the web. Plenty of people here have their preferences but arguments are often backed up with sound logic and worthy discussion. I would say Shame-us always backed up his thoughts, both current and in the past, with exceptional, if not sometimes vulgar, logic. I won't defend him, since he can himself, but yes I do find the idea of him being a fanboy funny, regardless of your personal definition of the word.

If we were to extend historical view company to company that just means Sony would have more love than normal since we'd have to take into account the PS1 and PS2 era. During the initial Xbone reveal Microsoft took a lot of flak and people often combated that with Sony's obnoxiously arrogant PS3 launch. Why does that matter? Why does Microsoft get to practice bullshit policies because Sony tried some stupid shit with the PS3? Sony turned it around, what they're doing now is great. Now before I get called a fanboy, keep in mind I had no interest in an Xbox One after E3 but as MS reversed policies and had a more focused direction I'll be buying one after a price drop.

In that regard, yeah, it is the gist of it. If someone is outspoken and vocal about things they dislike, they're likely going to be outspoken and vocal when those things happen again, regardless of company.

Here's the thing: if you respond to a three sentence joke post with multiple points and paragraphs you care at least a little bit :P

I am not going into a long-winded pissing war over who's a more noble company because quite frankly, I don't care that much. But I'm sure that someone could make a similarly long pro-Microsoft bulletpoint list, half of which nobody really cares about.

As for the other stuff, I am not attacking you. However, I will say that it's beyond obvious that you don't view these two companies in the same way. You love Sony and when you talk about them, it's with passion. Even when you criticize them (which often rings hollow to me, to be perfectly honest), it's because you're rooting for them to be better. And that's your prerogative that you're fully entitled to.

This is correct.

@S0lidSnake

As for the misleading part. It literallyhad nothing to do with you. I was commenting on the notion of "free" stuff. Companies claim stuff to be free when purchase is required.

Carnage, while Steam is mostly digital download, there is a large number of Steamworks titles available to be purchased on discs (mostly big publisher titles such as Civilization V, Rome II, Football Manager, BioShock Infinite, Batman: Arkham Origins, etc.).

Areez, the difference is the execution. Valve did it the right way and made people want Steam whereas Microsoft did it the wrong way and tried to force it on people.

I did not state anything about OWNING IP. I clearly stated you purchase the right to use. Fair use is part of the law. It was not their because of some loophole you are claiming it to be. The stripping away of this right to use is bonded by the law however, digital only facilitates the circumventing of the law by providing a service instead of the notion of the right to use.

While that is not incorrect, it's not all sunshine and rainbows either. Polyphony Digital has done nothing but churn out Gran Turismo for almost 20 years now. They haven't even been doing a particularly good job with it, but Sony doesn't seem to care. Why? Because it's huge. Santa Monica has been doing nothing but God of War for two generations now which has caused several lead designers to quit the studio. Naughty Dog kept making new games each generation because nothing they've made was really that big or it was big but started to decline. Same thing for Sucker Punch, Evolution, Team Ico and Insomniac.

It's also interesting you mentioned Carnage Heart which was, what, 20 years ago, but don't seem to remember how Sony walked away from Demon's Souls which would never get released in the west if it wasn't for Atlus and Namco.

Walking away from mediocre franchises to try and make something new (and possibly big) and sticking with big franchises isn't really all that risky to me. That's pretty much what everyone does.

Letting people change doesn't mean forcing them to change. By all accounts Kazunori Yamauchi is obsessed with cars. He made an extremely detailed sim at a time when racing sims were niche (I remember reviewers stating 'Nice game, but its so involved that people will stick with the more accessible Ridge Racer) and now Sony gives him carte blanche to do the thing he loves to do (model cars). Last but not least Polyphony Digital made Omega Boost on the PS1 and a motorcycle racing game whose name escapes me on the PS2.

As for Sony funding Demon's Souls but not publishing it in the West, that was a mistake, but they are normally pretty good about bringing games over. *Shrugs* At least they didn't stand in the way when Atlus took an interest in it.

To put it as diplomatically as possible, your tastes and mine are at variance, so I won't get into an argument about quality with you, but I will point out that the list of companies that don't chain developers to profitable franchises is a very, very short one and doesn't include MS (who gave Bungie the boot because Bungie wanted to work on a game not named Halo).

Ah. Good to know.

I wasn't talking about quality, the mediocrity comment was referring to sales. As for the earlier Gran Turismo comment, it's widely regarded by its fans (not me) that it isn't as good as it once was. But it wasn't a particularly important observation either way. It's just interesting to ponder how would Polyphony Digital end up throughout the years if Gran Turismo didn't become what it did. And I don't think it'd be the same at all.

As for Bungie, you like to repeat that, but I don't think we'll ever know what really went down back then. Not giving your, hands down, biggest developer creative freedom doesn't make much sense to me. Personally, I think this was more about Bungie than Microsoft. Bungie has always been a developer with their heads up their collective asses plagued by a "larger-than-life" syndrome. Bungie just couldn't stand being in a corporate structure and wanted out. If Microsoft wanted to get rid of Bungie because they were being disobedient in refusing to work on Halo, they could've just shuttered down the studio instead of releasing them (which was and still is unprecedented). My theory is also backed by the fact that Bungie made TWO Halo games after becoming independent, so obviously Halo wasn't the issue at all.

Your sales criteria is strange. Sales should be looked at in the context of a game's budget. For example, Heavy Rain only sold 3 million copies, but it made 130 million dollars (roughly two and a half times the 52 million Sony and Quantic Dreams spend making and marketing it).

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/04/21/heavy-rain-cost-52-million-but-made-130-million-you-do-the-ma/

There are a lot of companies who make games with bloated budgets which need to sell vast sums of money to be profitable. Sometimes Sony has been among the guilty (bloat is the difference between the commercially successful Warhawk and the commercially unsuccessful Starhawk and don't get me started on Twisted Metal) but generally speaking they've been pretty good about budgeting (for both game development and advertising) realistically. By way of contrast, MS often spends vast sums of money advertising its games. Such spending increases awareness (not necessarily appetite) but raises the sales bar that games have to leap to be commercially successful.

The full terms of the deal were never released, but the two post-separation Halo games can be probably be explained by the fact that Bungie wasn't fully independent when they parted ways with MS, for a while MS was still their publisher.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2003928945_bungie06.html

At the same time, Bungie is keeping a link to Microsoft: For the foreseeable future, it will develop titles for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the personal computer. Microsoft Game Studios will publish those titles.

In addition, Microsoft will continue to invest in Bungie, which is expanding — at Microsoft's expense — to an adjacent building in Kirkland.

Microsoft did not disclose financial details of its 2000 acquisition of Bungie, and specific terms of this week's separation were not disclosed, leaving analysts and observers to speculate.

If anything, this further points away from the direction that Microsoft wanted to cut Bungie loose because they didn't want to do Halo. Why didn't they just shut them down? If Microsoft was willing to let them go AND finance them in the process, why on Earth wouldn't they let them do a new IP? It would be so much simpler for them. It doesn't make any sense whatsover.

Being independent and having a publisher has nothing to do with one another. Bungie is independent since 2007. They made two Halo games since then (and who is going to publish Halo if not Microsoft?). Are they not independent now that Activision is their publisher?

While we'll never know the terms of the deal, all of the rumors (leaks?) and Bungie's actions once fully freed indicate that they wanted to work on something besides Halo.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/49310-microsoft-bungie-divorce-was-inevitable

"Apparently MS just wants Bungie to make Halo for the rest of their natural days, and Bungie doesn't like how MS is constantly trying to "handle" everything they do; the way they market their games, the way they interact with their fans (basically the fact that they do appreciate their fans), and how stingy they are with the profits (comparable to the rest of the industry). So as of today they are their own independent entity. They'll probably make Halo 4 for Microsoft, however hey are also free to create new intellectual properties for whatever system they want. (Even though they prefer the xbox platform)"

Microsoft didn't give Bungie the boot.

Bungie wanted to return to their independent roots, and Microsoft allowed them to do it. If they were malicious, they could have royally screwed them over. They owned Bungie outright. They could have just kept the Bungie name, absorbed it into the company proper, staffed it with new people, and told the original team to piss off (like Activision did with Infinity Ward). And frankly, from a business standpoint that probably would have been the wiser thing to do. That would avoid Sony "scoring points" at E3 with Activision bringing Bungie out on the stage to rallying cries from fans.

And at the time that they allowed this to happen, Halo was one of the biggest game brands in the world. It was pre-Modern Warfare when Halo was still the critical darling and the gold standard for console Online shooters. It was quickly supplanted, but that has nothing to do with Bungie and Microsoft parting ways. It's true Bungie wasn't eager to make more Halo titles at the time. I've heard they even planned to kill the Master Chief at the end of 3. And Microsoft did want more Halo and asked them to leave the cliffhanger, but at the time not wanting to make more Halo games was about like wanting to change the formula for Coke to New Coke. So they brokered an amicable deal. Nothing more, nothing less. Halo's IP went to Microsoft, Bungie split into 2 internal teams; one to work on Halo titles while Microsoft setup 343 and the second team started working on Destiny. You can choose to not believe this if you like, but a big portion of 343 Studios is made up of former Bungie employees. Unless there is some new kind of stockholm syndrome I'm unaware of, people who feel oppressed likely would not be eager to continue their work under the oppressor. Especially when they had a viable alternative (sticking with Bungie and leaving)

The playground mentality that if they left, it had to be some big conspiracy where poor Bungie was being mistreated is a logical fallacy. It makes zero sense. Bungie, literally, handed Microsoft a presence in the console gaming market. Without Halo on the original Xbox, there would be no Xbox brand. And Microsoft knew this. If you look at how other publishers in recent years have dealt with studios, Microsoft's actions seem practically altruistic. Look at EA who buys a company that is already proven itself, guts it, and leaves a shell in place so they can slap BIOWARE or CRITERION on every game hoping to dupe you into buying it on brand recognition. Or Activision and the Zampella fiasco (can't remember the other guys name, apologies). Ubisoft and the guy who made Assassin's Creed. He had to bail out from under the Ubisoft umbrella twice in fact. The gaming industry is full of companies pulling malicious deals like this. But there are very few stories of a company pulling away from a publisher, heck their owner in fact, unscathed and still eager to work for their former bosses. In fact, there is only one I can think of. And it's Bungie.

There are plenty of nits one can pick from Microsoft. And they are rightly deserved as well. I was the first to jump ship when they started blathering about 24 hour check-in and killing the used game industry through poorly implemented online "features". But there's no need to romanticize Bungie into some tortured creative who desperately longed to escape the slave owner who whipped them. If that were the case, Destiny could have easily been a Playstation exclusive with a quick stroke of a pen.

Well, I'm sure that Bungie wanted to do something besides Halo, Destiny itself proves it. There's just very little indication that it went down the way you think it went down. Even what you posted here indicated that there were far important issues going on and that Bungie just wanted out, no matter what. There are just so many ways Microsoft could have resolved this that would either see Bungie completely submit to them or outright destroy them that it really doesn't make any sense. Bungie had no leverage and still got what they wanted. Like Zzombie13 said, there are plenty legitimate things that you can complain about Microsoft, but this just isn't one of them. Microsoft did what no other company did. Ever. And why on Earth would they do ALL THAT instead of just simply saying "alright, do a new IP" if that was really all it was about. Makes no sense.

It would be rather silly of me to deny the fact that 343 includes many Bungie employees. Your evidence supports my claim though. As happened with Infinity Ward, those that were content to keep working on the a safe franchise (for what I'm sure is a lot of money) stayed behind in 343 Studios (which like Bungie under MS is dedicated exclusively to making Halos), those that wanted to work on something new left.

The difference between what happened between MS and Bungie and Infinity Ward and Activision is probably due primarily to the way Infinity Ward and Bungie sought independence). Activision claimed (credibly IMHO) Infinity Ward was negotiating a partnership with EA and planning to take a bunch of talent with them (which probably only happened after Activision vetoed their attempts to get free).

By way of contrast Bungie and MS negotiated Bungie's exit. No lawsuits, nobody badmouthing the other guys to the press or the internet. Ironically, Infinity Ward/Respawn and Activision wound up in the same place MS and Bungie sensibly decided to go from the start (prevented by legal agreements from discussing the nature of their parting).

As I've mentioned before in various contexts, many gamers don't even know who the creators of their favorite franchises are, they just know the franchises (otherwise the two studio annual franchises that have become so common would be impossible) so there's really no harm in letting creators go. Miyamoto is the creator of Mario, but I guarantee that Koichi Hayashia's Mario 3D Land on the Wii U will sell far more copies than Miyamoto's Pikmin 3.

Bungie wasn't tortured (I'm sure MS was paying them lots of money to work in a very plush office) but cranking out Halo after Halo after Halo after Halo and being forbidden from making any radical changes (you mentioned MS forbidding them to kill Master Chief) must have been trying for creative people unless their creative spark died with the birth of Master Chief.

That's not true. A TON of people hated Steam when it first came out. They didn't understand it. The difference was there was no competition and when people realized they could get games really cheap they accepted it. MS on the other hand obviously has Sony to compete with. And since Sony took up a strong stance that was basically the complete opposite of MS and won, everything backfired horribly.

I'll admit I took a break from these boards but experience is right. Every time there is a thread that is vaguely Sony vs. MS, Shameus comes in an posts what is usually a short "fanboyish" response about how Sony is amazing and then leaves. Is he just messing around? Maybe he isn't a fanboy at heart but I have never seen him post anything that implies Sony isn't kissing babies and curing cancer before our eyes.

Yes...and MS was attempting to create the ecosystem that we find with Steam....

I understand what you're trying to do by making a comparative analysis between companies, I just think how much companies pay there works is a poor example. It's fine if you think Sony is a better company than MS, but just admit it. Kaz told his investors that because that was there attack strategy and it's worked so far. I don't see how him telling investors the truth is anything noble.

I admitted that Sony put out a new statement claiming the PS4 would be sold at a loss, but it was initially stated each console would earn a profit. I couldn't find the article I saw in June but Sony did say it. The only thing I found was Sony speculating it would make a profit on each in May and Pachter insisting upon it. He's usually wrong so I'm not going to post that link lol.

The thing is, you still avoided my main point. You guys seem to bend the facts towards your favor and twist facts about MS against them. I mean, there are a lot of obvious items to discuss both pro and con for both companies.

I don't have a favorite console btw. I haven't played either of them. I just don't like misinformation.

Digital download doesn't require robbing people of the rights traditionally associated with disks. Just give consumers the retailer's cut when buying digitally and the overwhelming majority would buy digitally network connection and hard drive permitting (as I've said in other discussions, full next gen games are big).

Crucially, MS talked a lot about their planned restrictions but said nothing about savings. Speaking of restrictions, I no longer am abroad, but a lot of the young guys (in and out of the military) serving abroad had to be pissed about the proposed restrictions (if you're not in one of the 21 designated countries, your system won't work). Its not often official military newspapers denounce videogame companies.

I agree with you, that they could have done a better job with the restrictions and so forth. What they were trying to do though, was transition to digital on the console platform. To get the wheels moving in place and to create a market demand for digital consumption in the way Apple did with the iPod and iTunes. Let us also keep in mind that technically we do not own the material on a physical disc, and that the value is truly in the IP on said disc. What we pay for is a license that grants us access to the content on a specific disc. So do we really have the right to do what we want, with something we technically do not own? It is not the same as owning a car, house or TV.

Personally...... I was ok having digital as I do not go to Gamestop to trade in any of my games. I feel that doing so is a slap of the face to the developers who lose out on the billions of revenue GS generates from this business model. The digital convenience factor, the ability to share games and pieces of my gaming library with friends was very appealing to me. And it added a lot of additional value to my overall gaming experience. For the first time, I was excited to see that I could now purchase games, and have access to them, the way I do with other entertainment medium.

Now I am not entirely convinced that even if we did go digital, that we would reap the benefits of reducing pricing right away. Gamestop has way to much influence in pricing, as they will remove stock of any game being sold at a reduced price digitally. For example, if MS offered Forza 5 at $49.99 through digital download, but priced the retail copy at $59.99, Gamestop would pull all of MS Studio games from their store shelves.

By the way Carnage, I had no idea that you currently served in the military. Thank you for your service to our country. We definitely appreciate it.

First of all, thank you for a reasoned response. I honestly almost deleted the entire thing for fear of someone taking it the wrong way. So please know that I appreciate the respectful reply. I've been to a lot of forums over the years and you never know what you're going to get when you drop your line in the water, so to speak. I enjoy discussion and debate, but never seek to argue if you take my meaning.

As outsiders, we will never know who did what to whom. That much is certain. And no one understands the theory of "A gilded cage is still a cage" more than I. It just seems, as a Bungie fan and a fan of the industry, that this could have worked out much worse for Bungie if there were some real sinister machinations behind the scenes.

The things the public knows for sure are that Bungie was once independent, then they were wholly owned by Microsoft, now they are independent again. That is pretty unprecedented. That article linked above was mostly supposition on the part of whoever this guys supposed source was. And even it didn't paint a really horrible picture, though I couldn't read the second page without signing up so I have no idea how the article ended. There may be more I'm unaware of. The article was a bit inflammatory though. Saying things like "Way to say thank you" to Microsoft for keeping the Halo IP. One could easily flip that around though. "Way to be thankful to the owner who took you from a small Chicago slum and helped you grow from a 30 man team to a world renowned developer".

As a Halo fan, I was sad to see Bungie move on. But as a fan of their work in general, I'm also happy that MS let the bird fly free to do it's own thing. A vindictive partner would have, or at least could have, left them in a much less favorable position.

We are in total agreement on the Miyamoto thing and the fact that most people don't even know who makes their games. And even if we see the Bungie thing from different perspectives, the things you say about that are 100% true. This industry is founded on brand recognition. And keeping a strong brand going versus funding something new can be a scary proposition, especially when we're talking about the big trademark franchise like Halo. And while we know now that Destiny looks amazing, I can only imagine and speculate how that staff meeting went back in 2007 or whenever. "I know you want more Halo, but how about instead of that, we do an online MMO style FPS in a huge living world that we support for the next 10 years instead?" Creative types vs Bean-counters encapsulated in one sentence. lol

Bungie has always been that unique kind of developer though. They interact with their fans, they support the online community, they've cultivated a relationship beyond just being a developer. Their fans feel fiercely loyal because many of us have been with them before Halo was even a thing.

I will happily concede though, that Microsoft missed a huge opportunity with this one. There are a lot of other ways it could have played out. They could have tried the route Sony took with Naughty Dog, or something like that. Something where they split into two teams or something. I dunno, that's just speculation of course. It's entirely possible that Bungie just wanted to be the captains of their own destiny... heh.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion. :)

MS cut down the list of launch countries to 13. Then denied they were having yield issues.

Its one thing to objectively compare and contrast the offering of two products. It is another to consistently take your own points of view, as Solid, and the rest of his crew do, (I do not lump in Gram, as he is reasonable) and pass them along as the absolute gospel of these forums.

And when you do provide counter-arguments to their opinions of things, you are called a Troll (they do this with Pedro) or a blind MS homer as they have with me. Although I have probably have a greater appreciation for what both MS and Sony are doing collectively.

Take for example, what Solid said in this comment above....He is using Costco and Walmart as examples of how corporations differ, and than suggest that Kaz Hirai going to the share shoulders and saying "Hey guys the PS4 is designed as a gaming machine first" somehow proves that Microsofts Xbox One is not?? Where is the rational in that argument? Their is none, because the idea that somehow during the reveal of the Xbox One, where new features outside of gaming were discussed suggest that this device is otherwise a console second is just absurd.

It is absurd because the argument is also flawed as it completely and conveniently forgets that at its core, the XBOX brand does indeed play video games and always has. If you follow the industry as we do, you absolutely know coming into the reveal event what the Xbox does at its core as a device. All of the additional stuff they mentioned in terms of TV, Kinect etc....are value added features. Was the original Playstation a CD player? Was it any less of a gaming console than say the Nintendo 64 because you could play CD's? Is my Samsung Galaxy S4 a phone second because Samsung advertises its multi-media functions first? No. At its very core it is still a phone. A very smart one at that.

And this goes to the heart of what you are saying here. The bending of facts to favor what game console you are a fan of. If we look at the features on both consoles, objectively look at them,, and disregard all of the marketing crap, we essentially have two devices that ARE THE SAME. That DO THE SAME THING.

I do not mean this as a flame to anyone here. But I often wonder if some of the folks in the forum, are ware of the technological evolution we are witnessing today. Devices are now becoming more than just TV's, Tablets, phones and game consoles. Game consoles by no means are immune to this change and so long as they are connected to the net, we will continue to see a shift from hardware to who can deliver a variety of services on top of gaming. The manufacture who can do that, effectively and consolidate a comprehensive entertainment experience will dominate the market (which further illustrates how little the graphics debate actually means in the long run) Somehow all of this seems to fall onto def ears when objectively speaking of the next gen game consoles.

All in all, I agree with what you are saying here too. Both consoles absolutely have their pros and cons. Just wish the focus was more on how awesome it is have two rock solid game consoles launching this month. In all seriousness, and a raise of hands, who really gives a f$ck about Al Panello and his tweets...Or the resolution difference of CoD.....Or about Flops and 1.1 gigawatts of power...Not sure about you, but I am ready for some Ryse, KillZone, and Forza 5. F&ck the other bull shit.