Xbox and Bethesda Showcase 2022 | Showcase and Extended Stream links in 1st post

[Majora]

35 minutes ago, LaveDisco said:

I think the Hot Take of a badly managed MS games division is spot on I'm afraid.

 

Last gen, 

MS ran Bungie into the ground and they left, and gave their crown jewels to 343, who at best have diminishing returns. And MS never stopped them releasing that trailer. They ran Rare into the ground with kinect, and then stuck them on a GaaS. They took Lionhead, and ran it into the ground, so that everyone left, then after successfuly ousting youknowwho they switched them to make a GaaS and then shut 'em down.

 

They bought FASA in '99 and shut them in 2007, they bought Anvil in 2000 and shut them in 2006, bought Ensemble in 2001 and closed them in 2008, bought Twisted pixel in 2011 and they split in 2015, Bought Press Play in 2012 and closed them in 2016, 

 

Nintendo and Sony, for all their, many, many flaws, give off a far better sense of fostering their talent. 

 

 

These examples are absolutely ancient at this point. I don't think anyone would disagree their First Party management went through a really bad patch but none of what you've mentioned seems to have much relevance to post-billions of dollars of acquisitions Microsoft except maybe 343.

 

It's also really insulting to Rare to say MS 'stuck' them on Sea of Thieves. It's been a huge success, seemed to be a passion project for them, and Rare have since been given the freedom to do something like Everwild (which also seems years out but that's another issue entirely). Just because Sea of Thieves isn't the type of game many seem to want from Rare doesn't mean it's something they've been 'stuck on' by MS. 

[Nick R]

41 minutes ago, LaveDisco said:

I think the Hot Take of a badly managed MS games division is spot on I'm afraid.

 

Last gen, 

MS ran Bungie into the ground and they left, and gave their crown jewels to 343, who at best have diminishing returns. And MS never stopped them releasing that trailer. They ran Rare into the ground with kinect, and then stuck them on a GaaS. They took Lionhead, and ran it into the ground, so that everyone left, then after successfuly ousting youknowwho they switched them to make a GaaS and then shut 'em down.

 

They bought FASA in '99 and shut them in 2007, they bought Anvil in 2000 and shut them in 2006, bought Ensemble in 2001 and closed them in 2008, bought Twisted pixel in 2011 and they split in 2015, Bought Press Play in 2012 and closed them in 2016, 

 

Nintendo and Sony, for all their, many, many flaws, give off a far better sense of fostering their talent. 

 

I am suddenly feeling very worried about Double Fine.

[MidWalian]

46 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

 

2022 has Pokemon: Arceus, Kirby: The Forgotten Land, Bayonetta 3, Splatoon 3, and Pokemon: Scarlet, and that's with BotW 2 getting delayed to 2023.

 

None are remakes or rereleases.

 

And best of all Xenoblade 3. 

 

[Boothjan]

2 minutes ago, Majora said:

It's also really insulting to Rare to say MS 'stuck' them on Sea of Thieves. It's been a huge success, seemed to be a passion project for them, and Rare have since been given the freedom to do something like Everwild (which also seems years out but that's another issue entirely). Just because Sea of Thieves isn't the type of game many don't seem to want from Rare doesn't mean it's something they've been 'stuck on' by MS.

 

Totally agree with this.  It's been a huge success and is a great example of how games can evolve and improve when the developers are given the time and creative freedom.

[Isaac]

Yeah, whoever made this was having a ton of fun:

 

 

I think Rare are loving what they are doing.

[Uzi]

LOL. Do you do more in it now then go cage a chicken on a barren island?

[Boothjan]

4 minutes ago, Uzi said:

LOL. Do you do more in it now then go cage a chicken on a barren island?

 

Yes.

 

Sorry, arrrrr.

[Wallace]

7 minutes ago, Uzi said:

LOL. Do you do more in it now then go cage a chicken on a barren island?

 

I don't, but that's just me.

 

Apologies - Pigs, not chickens. I'm going to be naming my ship The Pork-Chop Express

[thesnwmn]

30 minutes ago, Nick R said:

I am suddenly feeling very worried about Double Fine.

 

Aren't they a good indicator of the improved management since all the 6 year old examples given?

 

Left pretty much to their own devices and continue to make Psychonauts 2 which was fantastic.

 

I guess the real proof is what they come out with next. But so far it seems like all good for them doesn't it?

[sandman]

I keep waiting for the games from all these companies they keep purchasing. They bought Ninja Theory in June 2018 yet there's still been nothing from them. 

 

Sony just keep on making the type of games I like whereas MS seem to want to make everything multiplayer. Why can't the Series S/X  have its own God of War or spiderman?

 

 

 

 

[SaintAnselm]

4 minutes ago, sandman said:

I keep waiting for the games from all these companies they keep purchasing. They bought Ninja Theory in June 2018 yet there's still been nothing from them. 

 

Sony just keep on making the type of games I like whereas MS seem to want to make everything multiplayer. Why can't the Series S/X  have its own God of War or spiderman?

 

 

 

 

You could reverse your last point to state why can’t Sony make its own, Forza Horizon or Halo?

[monkeydog]

2 minutes ago, sandman said:

They bought Ninja Theory in June 2018 yet there's still been nothing from them. 

 

They were involved in Vadar Immortal (2019) and released Bleeding Edge (2020). The latter didn't work out but was an interesting idea.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Hellblade 2 is a second half of next year title.

[LaveDisco]

"Saying Microsoft have problems managing devs is a hot take!"

 

"Obviously, historically, they had problems managing devs, but the past is behind them, they're great now."

 

One of the reasons they've undertaken all these acquisitions is because they've failed at least to some extent at fostering talent internally*. I think that is a fair take.  Whilst, Sea of Thieves has turned opinion around in the 4 years since launch, that's not the greatest flex. It never should have launched how it did.

 

They've bought Bethesda, who have fantastic management through ZeniMax. But Activision is in chaos and collapsing, with a truly rotten management who have embedded gambling and exploitation at the centre of their business model, that would be hard to fix for anyone, let alone MS.

 

Microsoft's Gamepass is incredible value. I want them to succeed. but you are fooling yourself if you try to pretend their internal output since the launch of the Series X hasn't been lacking. Especially for a company their size. I get COVID, but the whole of last gen, the argument was they we're saving up for the relaunch and it's nowhere to be seen.

 

If you look at MS's out put over Xbox One and Series era, and compare that to the Wii U/Switch and PS4/5 era, they've been out performed by companies a fraction of their size. The counter-argument that MS have beaten their problems with getting good games launched, comes down to "Gamepass is great, and I want them to succeed".

 

It is, and I do, but we need to see those games, and we aren't yet.

 

 

 

* the other reason being MS operating strat being 'become a monopoly'. 

 

 

 

[RubberJohnny]

1 hour ago, Isaac said:

Making the largest acquisition in video game history 'because you had no games in 2022'. A take brought to you by the guy who said that Microsoft 'is not a well managed company'.  I think business analysis isn't your forte mate.

 

I mean it's a pretty bad state of affairs to get to the point where your game company has no games, right? Yeah they made a big move to correct the problem, but it's bold to use that as a claim of great management rather than an urgent and slightly desperate attempt to right the ship (maybe a year later than they should have, judging by this showcase).

 

None of the other better-managed platforms have ever needed to do something similar (Sega arguably did with 2K Games after EA Sports ditched DC, but no one ever claims Sega had their shit together).

[Stanley]

I honestly thought that show was pretty bad. Yeah Forza looked good, Starfield was underwhelming but at least it was there. 
 

But Microsoft haven’t released a biggish title since Halo Infinite and they have nothing for the rest f the year, unless you count Deathloop, whenever that arrives. 
 

 

[TehStu]

I think there is conflicting advice in this thread, cumulatively over the years and specifically about this show. Bearing in mind these are annual events, months in the making (like, coordinating dev teams), I don't think they can be as agile as people are demanding. And then the last two years. If you're not confident about the Xbox's future at this point, I don't think you ever will be. Sell up or don't buy-in, best way to vote.

[RubberJohnny]

I don't think it's agility though, like, there's no problem with the the recent turnaround of the Bethesda deal, that was a mere year ago and it's already showing fruit - Bethesda actually was most of the presentation, the stuff that didn't show up with anything were the core XGS studios:

• No Everwild or anything that isn't four years old from Rare
• No Coalition Next Project
• No new project from Compulsion Games
• Nothing from 343 for the period up to 20 months after release beyond the promise to finish Infinite
• No Ninja Theory with Hellblade or their other project
• No Fable from Playground Games
• No State of Decay 3 from Undead Labs
• No The Initiative with Perfect Dark, which is reportedly in trouble
• No Obsidian with Avowed, which is reportedly in trouble

Many of these acquisitions were from 2018, and shipped their last project years ago (i.e. We Happy Few - 2016, State of decay 2 - 2018), also they're supposedly working on smaller AA games where we really should have seen something concrete after 4 to 6 years of development.

 

Yeah yeah covid has caused an increase in delays, but competitors still seem able to ship first party titles, Turn 10 aside (and the last mainline Forza was 2017), Microsoft are now almost entirely reliant on Bethesda or external studios for their releases, I think it's fair to ask what's going on with them internally.

[TehStu]

Like I said, you're all asking for conflicting things at this show, and across previous shows. We've previously asked for actual games and not future vaporware, and now we're hobbled by "here's the next 12 months" only. Etc. It is not possible to do everything feedback in this and previous E3 threads demand.

[thesnwmn]

1 minute ago, TehStu said:

Like I said, you're all asking for conflicting things at this show, and across previous shows. We've previously asked for actual games and not future vaporware, and now we're hobbled by "here's the next 12 months" only. Etc. It is not possible to do everything feedback in this and previous E3 threads demand.

 

That's fair. And I think they did exactly what was asked. It's absolutely the right move.

 

But they'll have to take a little poking as they transition. It means some of their teams won't have anything for a while having mentioned them in passing a while ago. In the end they also need to start spacing out their content delivery cycles too. A massive year every 3 years isn't good. Ideally they want something notable every month I think. That can be a mix of first/second party as well as big third-party titles but ideally it's not shadow drop. Those are nice but you want to look a slate which shows where all these studios fit in.

[RubberJohnny]

50 minutes ago, TehStu said:

Like I said, you're all asking for conflicting things at this show, and across previous shows. We've previously asked for actual games and not future vaporware, and now we're hobbled by "here's the next 12 months" only. Etc. It is not possible to do everything feedback in this and previous E3 threads demand.

 

No, I'm asking why we don't have any footage of the actual games after 4 or 6 years of development? We've been hearing "next year is the big year" for these studios since 2018! 2019, 2020, 2021, now 2022 and now learn they're not here until late 2023/2024 (which we don't even know for sure)?

 

It feels like a bunch of these like State of Decay 3 or Compulsions next project should be delivering in the next twelve months with how long they've been in development and their more modest AA scope, but we don't even have footage for the former or even an announcement for the latter. That this is a pattern across all of their internal studios and that MS are almost fully reliant on external studios or acquisitions for stuff that's actually releasing implies quite a few of their projects are maybe in development hell right now.

[TehStu]

I don't know why those studios don't have games launching in the next 12 months, which is why we didn't see footage at this particular show. Hopefully it's not stuff like the overhead of dog-fooding internal development toolsets and so on. I honestly don't know how mergers typically go. Something completely steady-state and money printing like Minecraft updates were delayed though, so who knows.

[footle]

4 minutes ago, TehStu said:

I don't know why those studios don't have games launching in the next 12 months, which is why we didn't see footage at this particular show.

 

Apart from the ones that do (I saw games from both Playground and Obsidian in that presentation).

[Boozy The Clown]

I think that MS basically furlowed their own staff and developers for 2 years and essentially shut down any production outside of the offices due to security concerns. 

 

You can call that bad or good management depending on which arguement you want to make but one of them will put you in the same boat as Rees Mogg.

 

 

[Ry]

Is there a Sony conference coming up?

[ilpostino]

1 minute ago, Ry said:

Is there a Sony conference coming up?

I think it already happened last week.

[TehStu]

20 minutes ago, Boozy The Clown said:

I think that MS basically furlowed their own staff and developers for 2 years and essentially shut down any production outside of the offices due to security concerns. 

 

Where did you read that? Not sure I've seen the same of the OS teams, although admittedly different stakes. 

[Lovelyman]

26 minutes ago, Boozy The Clown said:

I think that MS basically furlowed their own staff and developers for 2 years and essentially shut down any production outside of the offices due to security concerns. 

 

You can call that bad or good management depending on which arguement you want to make but one of them will put you in the same boat as Rees Mogg.

 

 

That's terrible management. Loads of industries with sensitive subjects managed to find a way. 

[deerokus]

Sea of Thieves is the best game Rare have made this century.

 

And Sony have already saturated the market in Sony-style games. The closest thing from a MS-affiliated team* is the Plague Tale series, but I'm glad they've never really gone heavily into that style cause I don't think they'd do it very well (and it's already a pretty boring style of game to me even though I keep buying them). The fact everyone knows what a 'sony-style' game is says everything.

 

*They're independent but it's surely a matter of time until MS buys them.

[Flanders]

38 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

 

No, I'm asking why we don't have any footage of the actual games after 4 or 6 years of development? We've been hearing "next year is the big year" for these studios since 2019! 2020, 2021, now 2022 and now learn they're not here until late 2023/2024 (which we don't even know for sure)?

 

It feels like a bunch of these like State of Decay 3 or Compulsions next project should be delivering in the next twelve months with how long they've been in development and their more modest AA scope, but we don't even have footage for the former or even an announcement for the latter. That this is a pattern across all of their internal studios and MS are almost fully reliant on external studios or acquisitions for stuff that's actually releasing implies quite a few of their projects are maybe in development hell right now.

I honestly think that the Bethesda and Activision deals are partially driven by a realisation that Microsoft fundamentally didn’t have the in-house expertise to grow their own internal first parties or the smaller 2018-2020 purchases to the level necessary to sustain the Game Pass strategy.

 

And that’s fine, it’s just weird that there’s a general reluctance to admit that Microsoft maybe aren’t very good at nurturing games developers. It’s like people think all the big three platform holders have access to exactly the same skill sets and just aren’t doing certain things for the hell of it. 

 

Its like how people get annoyed that Sony don’t have the same back-compat capability as Microsoft as if Jim Ryan is burning 4k upscaled copies of Vib Ribbon in his back garden for fun, when the simplest reason is that Sony literally do not know how to replicate what Microsoft can do in that department because Microsoft spent millions of dollars and manpower and adjacent software knowhow at being really, really good at it. 
 

Or like how Nintendo’s online services are crap because they genuinely don’t understand how broadband works.

 

 

[TehStu]

5 minutes ago, Flanders said:

And that’s fine, it’s just weird that there’s a general reluctance to admit that Microsoft maybe aren’t very good at nurturing games developers. It’s like people think all the big three platform holders have access to exactly the same skill sets and just aren’t doing certain things for the hell of it. 

 

I think Microsoft are terrible at managing consumer-facing products and services. Sure, right down in the weeds you can see that they'll take feedback on a specific button and maybe move it elsewhere in an app, but holistically, they generally don't understand the consumer space. There's a book's worth of examples, but the long and short of it is that it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't know how to manage the gaming stuff. They seem to have got their shit together on hardware. Well, Xbox anyway. The Surface stuff still caters primarily to corporate land, arguably.