Xbox Boss Explains Microsoft's Struggles With Game Quality This Generation

https://comicbook.com/gaming/2019/06/23/xbox-one-scarlett-microsoft-games/

"We did reach a time in our first party, where the number of games and studios that we actually had […] put a lot of pressure on everything," said Spencer while speaking to Kotaku. "And it became more difficult to manage a portfolio when you kind of needed everything […] to hit the date that it had picked three years ahead of time [and deliver a] very high level of quality. The support that we’re getting now and we’ve had over the last couple of years has allowed us to invest in our first party, adding eight new studios and really create room for us to focus on quality."

So more studios mean better quality, according to Spencer. Having more studios is one way to get more games, but better games? I'll wait and see. But glad they admit that they dropped the ball this gen game quality wise and are doing something about it.

Think you are misrepresenting him slightly. His not saying that quantity => quality directly. His point is that with more games coming out the deadline for each one is not as critical. So if one game needs a bit more time in the oven to improve the quality, there will be more room for that going forward. Which sounds reasonable to me.

As a side note I think it's pretty ugly the way the kotaku guy threatens to do a hit piece about working conditions...

I get the rationale. I just don't think that's always the case. Days Gone, a Sony first party game, had plenty of time and Sony had more first party resources during development. Turns out it released with bugs and got a 5 here. Another example, Activision used to rotate two devs for yearly COD releases. That meant that one dev had a little less than two years to build the next game. The threw in a third and devs now had an extra year to make their next game. The COD franchise has been in decline, sales wise, despite the change.

My point is, yes having more time is a good thing for sure, but I don't think it's the whole picture and anyone expecting massively improved quality from MS solely on this may end up being a bit disappointed.

The man says they have more support than before for their first parties and you equate that to more studios equal better games. Very strange deduction. Its almost like you have an agenda.

Phil talks a lot.

I heard people typically talk during interviews. How do you do interviews?

Does he do anything aside from interviews?

According to your implied assertion he only does interviews because that is a logical conclusion right? ;)

Ah ok then I agree with you pretty much. Biggest challenge for them is creating some new interesting IPs imo, which is always very hard. MS had pretty poor taste (from my pov). So I believe it when i see it.

Glad you're not slow on the up take.

He flies to Japan sometimes.

For a while, they were coming up with interesting IPs like Gears, Fable, Forza, and Sunset Overdrive. But outside of those and Halo, there really isn't much. They need to be creative and risky.

There's a reason he's known as cow_epyon lol.

There’s already a thread on this.

Xboxone controller is nice that's about it.

I guess you skipped the article?

According to Phil Spencer, more teams basically will mean more quality, because there's less pressure. A problem for Xbox first-party this generation has been that its studios haven't gotten enough development time because they have to hit deadlines.

Yes because games like Sea of Thieves and Quantum Break isn't risky and games like Ori and Recore isn't new or creative. Bleeding Edge isn't both. Can you all simply stop pretending as if you are objective?

I guess you skipped the article as well? Not surprised about you though.

I pray they just give these companies creative freedom and hope they come with some good games.

"there really isn't much" is not the same as "there aren't any at all"

I'm also not sure if QB even counts as a first party game. I think it's a second party title since MS doesn't own Remedy. Same goes for ReCore which was built by a Japanese dev and Ori which was created by an Austrian dev.

So for first party, we've had 5 Forza games (6 if you count Apex), 2 new Gears games and one remaster, and only one Halo with a Halo Forge PC version. We got a canceled Fable game, Crackdown 3, and Sea of Thieves in addition to that.

MS tried a strategy of having its first party studios work on current established IPs and then exclusivize new IPs through publishing deals. It failed. Now they're getting more studios so that they can work on newer IPs (hopefully) and take the pressure off their first party so that they're not stuck having to release yearly games to keep them afloat.

@Zero_epyon: None of what you stated changes the fact that they have been creative and risky. Also Gears was not a first party game until later and Sunset Overdrive is not a first party game and is not even owned by MS, making all of your counter arguments to my statement void.

Good read. Yeah they’ve had a few games with rough launches that could have used a bit more polish like Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves, and State of Decay 2 but they do already have a number of studios that make great games like The Coalition, 343i, Turn 10, and Playground Games. They’ve also recently acquired some very good studios that can definitely make quality games as well as creating a new studio in The Initiative which sounds very promising indeed. I have faith that they’ll have plenty of good talent that will make great games.

He drop the ball real hard after Scalebound downfall and the moment I saw that, the minute I knew MS wasn't gonna make it by not having quality exclusives if ever.

MS exclusives haven't been that bad this gen, just not as good as everyone expected to be. I've had fun playing Sea of Thieves, Gears 4, and my all time favorite Xbox One game is still Rare Replay. Hell, I even enjoy Quantum Break. Single player games have been lacking though for MS and that's kinda of a big deal to some gamers.

Again, their offerings haven’t been bad, MS doesn’t have anything that can directly compete with stuff like Persona 5, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Spider-Man, Bloodborne, & the upcoming Death Stranding etc. At least Phil acknowledge the problems and is now trying to correct this issue by buying lots of studios, he's future-proofing Scarlet much like Sony did with their PS4, the more studios you have, the more you'll get different exclusives each year.

What? Gears was acquired by MS in 2014. The Coalition, a MS studio worked on the remaster. Then Gears 4, 5 and Tactics. It's been first party since then. Yes, Sunset Overdrive was built by Insomniac and they own the IP so it doesn't belong to MS, but how does that help your argument? That's one less title to count for first party.

Seriously can you name more than 3 brand new IPs Microsoft's first party studios have created this gen, before a studio was bought?

Original Xbox had so many console exclusives this gens a friggin disgrace for xbox owners everyone realizes it

Your initial argument stated "They were coming up with interesting IPs like Gears, Fable, Forza, and Sunset Overdrive. But outside of those and Halo, there really isn't much."

You have Gears, a game they didn't come up with but acquired 8 years after it was made by Epic. Then you have Fable which was made by Lionhead studios and was acquired 2 years after it was made. Then you have Sunset Overdrive another game they didn't come up and didn't own. By your own admission you listed games you thought were interesting but were initially just funded by MS, not first party and one of them were ONLY funded and not owned by MS. I gave you games that can be classified as creative and risky because you claimed they needed to be. Now you are changing your tune to first party studios despite me listing two brand new IPs from MS coupled with other games MS has funded. :)

I actually think this gen wasn't that bad, they were able to bring games to the xbox that were very interesting to me that the playstation didn't get, or a lot later.

Games like magic duels, world of tanks, elite dangerous and pubg. The content for fifa icons/legends also originated on the xbox in 2013 and only came to playstation in 2017. The backwards compatibility was also quite interesting, because I always loved fight night champion, and there weren't any new boxing games this gen.

Of course I realize this caters only a select crowd and I found the xbox 360 obviously a lot better, especially now the xboxone is really starting to wither. Imo they should have put less effort in the xboxone x and more in games.

I can only hope next gen brings more to the table.

Ok so I was mistaken about those games, I'll admit that. However, that doesn't change the fact that Microsoft doesn't take enough risks. Their strategy is to acquire instead of create which is why they're games aren't as good. Sea of Thieves, for example, is their best attempt at a new IP and look at how that went. Like I said earlier, I'm glad he's doing something about it by signing on more studios. I just hope that they're making cool new IPs and note put on spinoffs or extensions of current IPs like Horizon.

PR bullshit.

Truth hurts cow_epyon. Not my fault you got called out on your BS.

Nah, that can't be it...

Lol.

He didn't explain anything.

All of these are first party games because MS funded it. There are only two types of games first and third party. Second party only refers to whether the development is done by the in house dev or outsourced to second party.

Of the big 3, your studios are the only ones having trouble, Phil. He said the same bullshit back when Jeff Gerstmann called him out about the Master Chief Collection.

It must really irk you guys that I'm not a fanboy. Always thinking there's some conspiracy or that I have an ax to grind when I've owned every system for the past three gens. Meanwhile at least one of you cries himself to sleep every night holding his Xbox and copy of Forza.

Nothing wrong with wanting better from the companies you buy stuff from. Even MS is admitting they dropped the ball on content and you guys are pretending that I made it up.

Again, from the article:

According to Phil Spencer, more teams basically will mean more quality, because there's less pressure. A problem for Xbox first-party this generation has been that its studios haven't gotten enough development time because they have to hit deadlines.

At least Pedro decided to back off of his point, but you two couldn't help yourselves.

You can't argue MS doesn't take enough risks when they have taken a lot more risk this gen than its competitor. You mentioned Sea of Thieves and that game has risk written all over it. Sony played it safe and it paid off handsomely. So, this false narrative that they have to take more risk or that they haven't is pure nonsense. Many Xbox fanboys WISH they didn't take risks. Lets not pretend that the Sony has not acquire studios (Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch,Guerilla Games) and that MS not have not created its own studio Initiative. Sometimes I wonder if you guys even try to be objective. You claim to be not a fanboy but you have a very selective memory and a very skewed perspective on situations.

Every first party VR title says hi. Plus the VR headset itself. MS was going to take the plunge on that as well and they got cold feet. Again, not saying they don't at all, but they don't take many and Sea of Thieves is the only one listed so far that's first party AND a new IP. I asked if you could name three new IP's from a first party MS dev this gen and you haven't supplied one. Heck I gave you one of them so all you need is two more.

Whereas Sony put out a VR headset, exclusive first party titles, and gave Guerilla Games the green light to make a game that's not an FPS this time around. The conversation is not about acquiring studios though. I'm glad they did. I'm talking about the games, which is what he's commenting on.

But sure. Imagine that this is all me and I have a skewed perspective because it seems to be a jab at MS. So I guess Phil Spencer himself has that same skewed perspective as he said this just last year:

Phil Spencer is frank about the reasons for this relatively sluggish performance. “We launched a box that was underpowered compared to the Playstation, and more expensive because of the inclusion of [motion-sensing camera] Kinect in every box,” he says. “Underpowered and overpriced was … not the right model for us. We had shipped some of our franchises too frequently, which had made them lose some of the anticipation that’s important in the entertainment industry. Our studios had lost leaders, which meant they were the studio that they had been before in name rather than in function.”

How can Xbox fix this? By focusing on actual games that people want to play, as well as on a box that lives under your television. Microsoft’s recent investment in game studios is the start of remedying situation, enabling Xbox to take more creative risks, says Phil.

“The entertainment business is a portfolio business,” he adds. “Most games don’t work. Most movies don’t work; most books don’t work. The worst thing you can do is say, I’m going to create a hit game: if you’re going to create one game, the maths says it’s not gonna work, though of course there are exceptions. When you’re trying to do new things with video games, or another entertainment medium, your hit rate is 20-30%.”

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/jun/11/microsoft-e3-xbox-maker-suggest-streaming-will-replace-consoles

I await your list...

Nah, they struggle with game quality because they thought they could make a lot of GAAS games with a bunch of MTX because people "aren't interested in single player games anymore" and it bit them in the ass.

Maybe now he learned he can't force a narrative that has no basis in reality?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_developer#First-party_developer

I'm using this definition:

"Second-party developer is a colloquial term often used by gaming enthusiasts and media to describe game studios who take development contracts from platform holders and produce games exclusive to that platform.^[8] As a balance to not being able to release their game for other platforms, second-party developers are usually offered higher royalty rates than third-party developers.^[7] These studios may have exclusive publishing agreements (or other business relationships) with the platform holder, but maintain independence so upon completion or termination of their contracts are able to continue developing games. Examples are Insomniac Games (originally a 2nd party for Sony), Bungie (originally a 2nd party for Microsoft) and Rareware(originally a 2nd party for Nintendo)."

Firstly I listed Bleeding Edge as another first party game. Secondly as I have stated before, your initial claim "For a while, they were coming up with interesting IPs like Gears, Fable, Forza, and Sunset Overdrive. But outside of those and Halo, there really isn't much." which contained games which was solely funded by MS and not just first party and I gave you examples of the same behavior happening now. You then blatantly moved the goalpost to be first party only despite the fact that it was not your initial claim and was not what I challenged you on. Now instead of conceding that your claim was misguided you are taking a standard fanboy re-route.

I already addressed that I made the mistake of thinking those were first party games or IPs owned by MS. I literally said "Ok so I was mistaken about those games, I'll admit that." I was under the impression that Gears, Fable, and Sunset Overdrive were originally MS IPs, not IPs they acquired. I didn't move a goal post as I believed they were first party games. But the point still stood that MS doesn't take risks when it comes to first party games and Phil Spencer's own words back up what I said, so I don't know what you're even trying to argue. I haven't changed my claim and I have direct quotes from the xbox boss to back it up and you're calling me a fanboy.

Also, Bleeding Edge was already in production before MS acquired Ninja Theory. So Sea of Thieves so far remains the only example.

Compare that to the entirety of Sony's VR lineup (btw you brought up Sony, not I), Sony allowing its first party devs work on new IPs like HZD and Ghost of Tsushima. I'd say Sony takes more risks than MS and they know that. Hence Spencer's actions and comments. They're going to try Sony's playbook and that's a great thing!

1. Sony takes plenty of risks with IP be it sinking untold amounts of time and money into a game like The Last Guardian or putting games out there like Gravity Rush 2. Nevermind rebooting tried and true IP like God of War or continuing to invest in new AAA IP like Horizon.

2. It is a fact that MSes first party has gone a full generation without delivering a single AAAAE game. Console companies just don't do that.

3. If they didn't just abandon games like Fable or Scalebound, this would be far easier to swallow, but that is how things went down and people defend it.

Oh no. You just wrote a post critical of MS and one Phil Spencer agrees with. This must be you!

I've been a Sony fanboy my whole life, but I can't believe I'm about to put up a half-hearted defense of Xbox here.

Really good 1st party games take LONG AS **** to make. TLOU 2 isn't even out yet and its development started pretty much right after the first game. God of War was probably in active development for at least 5 years. IIRC Horizon ZD technically started before the last Kilzone game came out. Uncharted 4 began development before this console cycle even started.

Keep in mind that this is all with Sony's pre-existing mature, established studios that already had a pedigree and relatively stable staff.

What did Phil Spencer have to work with? The Microsoft 1st and 2nd party bench were basically left as smouldering ruins after being desecrated by the Kinect era. Spencer basically had to both reconfigure the Xbox One as a piece of hardware and completely rebuild their studios from scratch after Don Mattrick basically left him a bag of shit to work with. Given how much time it must take to make a quality game title ON TOP OF trying to rebuild Microsoft's game development bench, yeah it really isn't surprising that they may not be able to deliver the goods until the beginning of the next console cycle.

And Spencer explains all of that in separate interviews between last year and this year. And I'm not trying to dig at Spencer for that. I'm just saying that having more time doesn't automatically mean quality goes up. With all of Sony's resources like you mentioned above, they still had some solid flops. Days Gone and Driveclub are a couple of examples. Time is just a piece of the puzzle and they've started addressing some of it like acquiring more talent and allowing devs to take more time to build games. The next step is to take more risks and let developers build what they want. Some might miss but those misses can turn into gold. Look at Uncharted. The first game was decent but it was far from perfect. Sony could have killed the series there but they green light the rest of the franchise and rest is history. MS needs that right now.

Turn 10 isn't making a new Forza for this year. What do you think they're working on? Likely it's Forza 8 for the next gen Xbox. But imagine what Forza could be if they had one or two more years. That's what Phil is talking about. But what's the problem? It's another Forza game. Turn 10 might be a bad example because Turn 10 does racing games. But what about The Coalition? Are they going to be stuck making gears games? What about 343 and Halo? Will it matter if these games get more attention from devs if the franchises get stale?

As I have stated before ( you conceded to being mistaken), your initial statement was misguided and it was the core of my initial response. You even went as far as saying they should create instead of acquiring despite the fact that Sony's core studios were mostly acquisitions(the skewed perspective I mentioned earlier). As for Bleeding Edge, its first party whether it was in development before or not is irrelevant. Sony offered one new IP from their first party (just like MS) with Horizon Zero Dawn, the rest were all pre-existing IPs. So, its odd that you praise Sony for new IP when they currently stand at one just like MS. Sony's playbook is playing it safe and I have stated before it worked well for them. So, its odd that you are recommending that MS be more risky when risk is what got them in this shitty situation to begin with. If you want more of the same from both companies good for you. I do not want to be playing the same third person narrative driven and lite on the gameplay games from both companies. Luckily that would not be the case because the core studios acquired by MS does not create generic third person games.

Microsoft simply doesn’t hire any one with talent. It’s why their games are constantly trash like Recore.

I am still baffled as to how that game ended up so awful.