Cliff B. Not Sold On The Xbox Scorpio

"Cliff Bleszinksi, the creator of Gears of War, has never been one for diplomacy. if there is something on his mind, something that he feels strongly about, he makes it known- tact be damned. So it should come as no surprise that, in spite of his previous association with Microsoft, he is apparently not a fan of Microsoft, and he is making that loud and clear.

Speaking to Kotaku, he discussed how schizophrenic the entire strategy seemed to him. “Is Microsoft going full Sega 32x and Mega CD right now?” he said. “I think it’s weird. The way the branding’s going, it feels like the way Mercedes name their cars in the United States, y’know; the S class! The SOK! The SK! Which fucking one is this? Consumers only have enough time and attention for that. It’s like dude, are you trying to turn the Xbox into a PC? What’s going on right now?”

He feels as though the Scorpio may just be an ‘apology move’ from Microsoft’s part to make up for what he feels has been a less than stellar showing from then with the Xbox One. “I think it feels like an apology move for them for not making the console as powerful as it should have been in favor of making sure the Kinect was boxed in with it. So now they have to play catch-up. In a way, you can trace this all the way back to their well-intended E3 from a few years ago — where they were trying to go fully digital, etcetera, etectera, and the internet backlash made them back pedal.”

He concluded with his thoughts on the entire thing- and honestly, he seems to be one of the people who simply aren’t sold on this idea: “Look, I have a lot of friends over there so I wouldn’t criticize them unless I was pretty positive about it…If Phil Spencer was here right now I’d tell him he back peddled to his face. And he’d say “you’re a dick, but you’re right!”

I imagine he feels similarly abut the PS4 NEO as well, and would have similarly strong thoughts about that if asked about that. It’s a shame, because I feel a response like this is myopic- I truly feel that iterative console hardware is the future of gaming consoles. The sooner everyone sees that and jumps in, the better it will be for everyone."

http://gamingbolt.com/gears-of-war-creator-isnt-sold-on-xbox-one-scorpio

Cliff Bleszinski isn’t a man to mince words. At E3 2016, we asked him what he thought of Microsoft’s new console strategy; specifically relating to the Scorpio and Xbox One S. He proceeded to talk a blue streak — with emphasis on “blue”…

Cliff Bleszinski was at E3 to promote his upcoming multiplayer FPS for PC, LawBreakers. (You can read his take on Lawbreakers cosplay here.) During our interview, Cliff discussed Microsoft’s bold new Xbox gamble.

For those who missed the memo, Microsoft announced not one, but two new consoles during its press briefing: the miniature Xbox One S and the enthusiast-level Project Scorpio. Both consoles will be sold alongside the existing Xbox One and they will all play the same games thanks to backward-and-forward compatibility.

As the former design director for Epic Games and the driving force behind Gears Of War 1, 2 and 3, Bleszinski has been heavily ingrained in all things Xbox for a huge chunk of his career. It’s therefore unsurprising that he has pretty strong opinions on the platform. Here are the key points he raised in our discussion:

On the multiple console strategy: “Is Microsoft going full Sega 32x and Mega CD right now? I think it’s weird. The way the branding’s going, it feels like the way Mercedes name their cars in the United States, y’know; the S class! The SOK! The SK! Which fucking one is this? Consumers only have enough time and attention for that. It’s like dude, are you trying to turn the Xbox into a PC? What’s going on right now?”

On Scorpio: “I think it feels like an apology move for them for not making the console as powerful as it should have been in favour of making sure the Kinect was boxed in with it. So now they have to play catch-up. In a way, you can trace this all the way back to their well-intended E3 from a few years ago — where they were trying to go fully digital, etcetera, etectera, and the internet backlash made them back pedal.”

On being “VR ready”: “The thing about setting up VR is that it’s a bit of a pain in the butt. I’m from the generation where your parents got the VCR, plugged it in and the clock was blinking twelve forever. Getting any home electronics installed shouldn’t be a lot of work. So it’s another one of those things that is almost making it like a PC, or going full circle.”

On Scorpion-enhanced games: “When you do that, you genuinely tend to see games that don’t fully shine on the high end. Like we saw with this past console generation [publishers] were hedging their bets with a chicken-and-the-egg thing. They were putting the games on PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One and basically you get higher resolution textures but it’s still a masked texture instead of being dynamically generated. So they’re kind of hobbling themselves in regards to that kind of scalability. It’s trying to have your cake and eat it too.”

On potential effects on multiplayer: “If you make a game and it’s on the cheaper console and it’s 30 frame per second and 60 frames on the other console, that could affect the performance in a twitch shooter, for example. It’s the same thing with Cross Play for action games which I don’t understand the desire for. I can understand with co-op games but if you have a shooter and one player has a controller and another player has a keyboard and mouse and the controller person is at 30 (fps) and the mouse-and-keyboard person is at 60, most of the time the keyboard person is going to completely dominate. So good luck with your match making.”

On keeping it real: “Look, I have a lot of friends over there so I wouldn’t criticise them unless I was pretty positive about it…If Phil Spencer was here right now I’d tell him he back peddled to his face. And he’d say “you’re a dick, but you’re right!”

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/06/cliff-bleszinski-isnt-a-fan-of-project-scorpio/

I think MS saw what Sony was doing with the Neo and said we have to out do that. So they make an E3 announcement with greater specs in a attempt to steal Sony's E3 thunder. Why would you announce a console that is over a year and a half away. MS may success with this strategy, but only time and gamers will tell.

Wow who knew Cliff was such a prick. He must be stupid if he can't keep up with different SKUs.

Cliffy B always bitches about platforms for which he isn't developing games anymore. He used to bitch about PC, now he bitches about Consoles.

It just an opinion, his next game will be on Neo and Scorpio.

Industry gobshite sounds off again. Come on this is Cliff.

I tend to go with the opposite of what Cliffy B says in everything, the man is a tool.

I'd be super anal bleeding buttsore bitter like him too if I let a once in a lifetime killer app like Gears of War slip through my fingers into someone else's control and be left to make cruddy free to play MOBA games.

Lol, seems that way.

Maybe he's right. I don't really understand why sooo many gamers can be sooo satisfied with power like it's the be all, end all for everything. Never mind the fact that Microsoft keeps pumping out more Gears/Forza/Halo, or that they depend entirely too much on third party.

I mean Cliff hasn't been sold on either the Xbox or Playstation since he last made Gears. He's more towards making games on the PC so it's not a surprise he doesn't think that highly of the new Xbox, although I still think he makes fun games, wish Lawbreakers was on a console.

Oh shiz, I thought oculus rift and xbox teamed up? Wonder why he's not a fan of xbox having a box that can actually run the thing.

This guy cliffyb firing shots everywhere, next time just cash your microsoft and facebook checks and keep your mouth shut cliffyb.

@Bigboi500: Yet Sony drones have been spouting how PS4 is more powerful than X1 for the last 3 years. Power mattered to them, now it doesn't... Odd. Also: Sunset Overdrive, Dead Rising 3, Rare Replay, D4, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Superhot, Ryse, Quantum Break, Titanfall, Cuphead, Sea of Thieves, Dead Rising 4, Scalebound, Recore, We Happy Few, and Phantom Dust. :)

Look at the lems turn against the man who gave M$ 1 of their only 3 games. What an ungrateful fanbase.

@primorandomguy: It just shows how ignorant both cows and lemmings really are. They can't see merit in games that don't compete for highest pixel counts, but praise games like Ryse and Destiny and The Order and Knack and The Crew.

You guys have no gaming souls, and only care about one-uping the competition instead of caring about good games.

He's just trying to keep in the news. Always bitching about something.

@NathanDrakeSwag: No worse than when cows threw a hissy fit when DMC, FFXIII etc were announced for Xbox360 last gen. All gamers and fanboys like to voice their opinions, no big deal..

I dont like this prick but he got some point there tho.

Wow that's a book of DC

No one cares what Cliff B is sold on. To me he has always been overrated and he just needs to go somewhere.

@hrt_rulz01: yes the guy is a major dick.

@Bigboi500: You're an idiot if you think I'm a lem or a cow,

He's not wrong though, Xbox has never really had sense of direction, stable growing list of IPs, right now it's a completely optional console. For example every single game announced at E3 is coming to pc, the point of making a console is to compel consumers to buy it and that it is necessary in order to play the games hey wanna play. But Xbox isn't holding onto any games or making any, they'll just buy IPs as if they have no creativity to do it themselves. It's why I've never felt the Xbox is a dependable brand they are literally incapable of standing on their own two feet. It's miracle that they dug up KI from the grave or made Rare Replay. They're usually satisfied letting third party do all the work

I fail to see what he said is incorrect. The Scorpio is a glorified reboot because the Xbox One has definitely been a poor showing for Microsoft. It's absolutely taking consoles in the direction what PC's are, but it won't have the benefits of being completely open like a PC is. Could this iterative consoles improve console gaming? Maybe, maybe not. But this gen as a PC gamer I would argue has been more an argument for why you might as well just get into PC gaming over consoles. The consoles themselves have been ghetto PC's since second 1 it feels like.

I know PC dweebs give him a lot of shit for all the things him and Epic said about PC about a decade ago, but at the time a lot of people besides Cliffy B were thinking that about PC. There is a reason triple A development doesn't have exclusives for PC like they used to, and there is a reason nowadays, other devs act like Steam is the thing that really changed PC around and created a new paradigm on that platform. And for a good while after Half Life 2, steam was sort of successful, but it wasn't close to what it was by say 2011, much less what it is today.

Given the man's design chops - Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal 1, Unreal Tournament, Gears of War all being good games, and Lawbreakers shaping up nicely, and his success business wise, I'd say maybe, possibly, he might sort of know what he's talking about.

Back at you.

Is this the guy that was bitching about Neo too?

You should have been here when Final fantasy 13 was announced at E3 for the xbox360.

only then will you truly know what an ungrateful fanbase looks like. The cows backpeddled to the final fantasy 15 so fast it was hilarious

@Bigboi500: Never said you were either one. Don't care really. Bye!

My question is why is Scorpio as overwhelmingly powerful as they say it is if all the games will be made playable on Xbox One?

Everyone has an opinion...that's his.

MS has to do something! For better or worse MS made a move and it caused a ripple. Now imagine if MS had the same E3 and they didn't have the new hardware announcement would anyone be talking about xbox now?

MS is trying to stay relevant, I can't fault them for that.

My guess is PC level graphics and performance customization options will start being seen in upcoming games similar to what the new DOOM has for PS4 and xbone.

He must be a cow jealous that Xbox scorpio will have no exclusives LOL cliffy b!

It's his personal opinion, it's quite obvious what strategy Microsoft are using, they are using the yearly phone model thinking people are going to re-buy the Xbox to have a slightly better experience, I think a lot of people will do that and people will come to accept it over the next few years.

People keep talking about the PC market, but what's the problem with using the same strategy, people mostly buy pre-built systems and this is what that is. I think Microsoft missed an opportunity not releasing the console as a full Windows PC, you could build in a dual boot operating system or at least a virtualised one and still have the copy protection if you designed it right.

Design it so only limited GPU features are available to the full OS.

why can a 5 year old mid tier gaming PC play the same games as a new high end one? and if it does why buy the high end one?

Short answer, different product for different people. XB1 is a mustang, XB1 Scorpio is a mustang GT. some would go the cheaper less powerful one some with pay more for more power. Options are never a bad thing

@ten_pints: "it's quite obvious what strategy Microsoft are using, "

Will it be quite obvious that he's promoting his game by creating controversial talk?

Time for you guys to join the Xbros club!

@FireEmblem_Man:

Xbros?

Bros with Xbox One's

If at the very least predetermined and optimized presets, a 4K High preset, a 1080p 60 FPS Max preset etc.

Not true at all. Those are not the games Xbox and PlayStation fans generally talk up. I'm more of a PlayStation fan than Xbox or Nintendo this gen, and I care about games first and foremost. There are plenty of great games for me to play on PS4, mostly multi-plats, but some exclusives too (certainly not The Order or Knack though). If there was an exclusive to come to Xbox One which I felt I had to play, I'd get one, but it seems the Xbox One games I may want to play will be coming to PC. I'm still thinking about getting a Wii U for Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, but the price needs to come down.

I'm not seeing the Sega 32X and Mega CD as a good comparison, because they had games which couldn't be played on the base Mega Drive, unlike the concept of Scorpio and Neo. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

We may not agree much or like each other....but on this you couldn't be more right.

The guy antagonizes a lot.

Hang on, when was the last time cliffy b released a AAAE title?

Cliffy B? is the B for Bitch???

"hissy fit"? They made f*cking petitions to try and stop it!! And someone tried to make one to have a 4/10 score for Uncharted 4 removed from its Metacritic recently. Like freedom of the press doesn't count anymore? Now that's pathetic fanboy shyte.

No, the point of a console was and is to make money. That is all any product has been about. You seem to think "consumers" = PC gamers. They do not. When consumers go to the local Gamestop and ask "is it true all these Xbox scorpio games are on my PC?" and the guy behind the counter has an option. He can say "yup" and Joe consumer will go home and try to download Scalebound and then play it and it will run at 3 fps on his basic desktop that runs with intel integrated graphics.

Or that Gamestop employee can tell the truth. "Yes they are on PC sir. What are your PCs specs?" And he will see that face I have seen a thousand times when I ask that question. The face that says "what are specs?" Because "consumer" doesn't = PC gamer. So consumer, rather than have his brain swim in tech mumbo jumbo and discover he has to spend money and learn how to build a gaming PC or spend even more to have it done for him says "**** that. Give me that console so I can go home and play the games". You people fail to see the real world isn't us.

He's not really saying anything MS hasn't pretty much admitted though. No shit the Xbox One was a **** up. No shit consoles are becoming more like PCs, in fact, that was pretty much MS's entire E3. No shit VR is a hassle, thats why they have a S model. No shit console and PC muliplayer are different, thats why gears is only co-op cross play and Halo Wars 2 has no cross play. You do that shit for titles and modes that make sense like Rocket League. Sure, he knows what he's talking about but he's not really saying anything.

@lamprey263: He has more money than your entire family will see in their lifetime, maybe even future generation. He won.

You don't have any money. Don't lie.

Why create and announce two new iterations of the One at the same time? Not good business sense.

I didn't realize he was in competition with me. And "he won"? Sure he's got his economic affairs in quite a secure state but some people aren't so much fixated on that but on growing, achieving more, creating a legacy. It's a mindset that keeps people going even after they've achieved even unfathomable amounts of wealth. I think maybe he resents cashing in his chips early.