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Phil Spencer: We're upping our investment with first party and committed to innovate

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leeh

Member
On commitment to first party:
Phil Spencer said:
”Right now the focus is really on the content that we're building," he says. ”I know I get some community pushback on our first-party [slate], and what position we're in, and I want to say to people: that same level of commitment you felt from myself and from the team as we've evolved platform over the last three years – as we've evolved service over the last three years, as we've evolved and innovated hardware over the last three years – is going on with our first party. I don't want to go and pre-announce a bunch of things, but we are upping our investment, there's no doubt about that."

On large story-driven single player games:
Phil Spencer said:
”The audience for those big story-driven games... I won't say it isn't as large, but they're not as consistent. You'll have things like Zelda or Horizon Zero Dawn that'll come out, and they'll do really well, but they don't have the same impact that they used to have, because the big service-based games are capturing such a large amount of the audience. Sony's first-party studios do a lot of these games, and they're good at them, but outside of that, it's difficult – they're become more rare; it's a difficult business decision for those teams, you're fighting into more headwind."

On micro transactions & paywalls:
Phil Spencer said:
”But if I was playing a single-player story-based game and all of a sudden there was a paywall in the middle ... I mean, I'm old enough I remember horse armour, right? People had this view of, ‘Wait a minute, this is not that kind of game.' We want to open up the opportunities for developers to do what they want to go do. But I also think we have to be able to support, as an industry, all kinds of games. I hear from gamers, ‘I don't want microtransactions in all my games. I don't want paywalls in all my games,' and I think they're absolutely in their right to voice their opinion. I do think there are models where that makes sense, and there are other models where it doesn't."

Way more at the Guardian article:
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-episodes-subscription-downloads-phil-spencer
 
Trust, but verify. Not only am I hoping for MS's best E3 in years, but I think it's vital for the Xbox brand that it is.

I would agree with Spencer though, great progress has been made in the platform, services, and hardware. Xbox One has probably become my favorite console I've ever owned due to those improvements and innovation. I want to believe a similar effort has been made with regard to games.
 
Wow, that is a whole lot of words to say effectively nothing, specifically around microtransactions.

Talk is cheap, E3 is the time to put up or shut up.
 

Jawmuncher

Member
Hopefully we don't get a E3 of new IPs that all become cancelled later. Unless they reveal and have a tease date along with them, im not trusting anything MS reveals at E3.
 

sense

Member
That sounds like sp story driven games may not be part of their plans and they are going to double down on gaas games. That's good because sp story driven games are what interest me and I don't have to buy their console. I understand their business reason though.
 

StereoVsn

Member
Yup both more services and more forgetting about SP.

Indeed. I mean he outright says to stick to Sony and Nintendo for that:

"The audience for those big story-driven games... I won't say it isn't as large, but they're not as consistent. You'll have things like Zelda or Horizon Zero Dawn that'll come out, and they'll do really well, but they don't have the same impact that they used to have, because the big service-based games are capturing such a large amount of the audience. Sony's first-party studios do a lot of these games, and they're good at them, but outside of that, it's difficult – they're become more rare; it's a difficult business decision for those teams, you're fighting into more headwind."

He is saying that in 2017 when so far this year Horizon, Zelda, Nier, Nioh, P5 all sold well and all were story heavy SP RPGs. Before that FFXV sold pretty well and MEA for all its faults probably didn't do too badly.

Edit:
Then they'll never see a dollar from me again.
I want more ReCore, Quantum Break (without TV), Ryse and Sunset Overdrive type of games from them.

To be fair to MS, none of those were particularly great (maybe Sunset), and none sold well. The games were underwhelming and perhaps SP audience is not on the Xbone anymore, don't know.
 

wapplew

Member
More than 1 billion investment with first party? That's a lot of money.
That's like 20 Horizon ZD with some change.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
On commitment to first party:

Originally Posted by Phil Spencer

”Right now the focus is really on the content that we're building," he says. ”I know I get some community pushback on our first-party [slate], and what position we're in, and I want to say to people: that same level of commitment you felt from myself and from the team as we've evolved platform over the last three years – as we've evolved service over the last three years, as we've evolved and innovated hardware over the last three years – is going on with our first party. I don't want to go and pre-announce a bunch of things, but we are upping our investment, there's no doubt about that."

HYPE!!!!.....

On large story-driven single player games:

Originally Posted by Phil Spencer

”The audience for those big story-driven games... I won't say it isn't as large, but they're not as consistent. You'll have things like Zelda or Horizon Zero Dawn that'll come out, and they'll do really well, but they don't have the same impact that they used to have, because the big service-based games are capturing such a large amount of the audience. Sony's first-party studios do a lot of these games, and they're good at them, but outside of that, it's difficult – they're become more rare; it's a difficult business decision for those teams, you're fighting into more headwind."

...deflated. The lack of large story-driven SP games is pretty much cementing my decision to move away from this brand in the future. I really enjoyed Recore, and I want more games like that.
 

Oersted

Member
What does upping our investment mean here? Bigger budget for the first party titles? Buying studios? Investing in existing studios?
 
Indeed. I mean he outright says to stick to Sony and Nintendo for that:

"The audience for those big story-driven games... I won't say it isn't as large, but they're not as consistent. You'll have things like Zelda or Horizon Zero Dawn that'll come out, and they'll do really well, but they don't have the same impact that they used to have, because the big service-based games are capturing such a large amount of the audience. Sony's first-party studios do a lot of these games, and they're good at them, but outside of that, it's difficult – they're become more rare; it's a difficult business decision for those teams, you're fighting into more headwind."

He is saying that in 2017 when so far this year Horizon, Zelda, Nier, Nioh, P5 all sold well and all were story heavy SP RPGs. Before that FFXV sold pretty well and MEA for all its faults probably didn't do too badly.

For Honor and Wildlands also sold really well and Overwatch continues to dominate. This is an interesting venture for Xbox.
 

leeh

Member
What does upping our investment mean here? Bigger budget for the first party titles? Buying studios? Investing in existing studios?
Think you hit the nail on the head. Probably just been given a larger pool of money to play with overall. Where that goes is Phil's choice.
 

AzerPhire

Member
I think his reasoning is that its not worth 4-5 years of development time for a single player only game that players purchase once, beat the 10-20 hours story and then shelve the game and forget about it.
 
What does upping our investment mean here? Bigger budget for the first party titles? Buying studios? Investing in existing studios?

It's either funding more games or bigger investment to re-innovate their existing IPs to be GAAS-centric which needs bigger long-tail investments than one-and-done games.
 
Sounds like they are chasing the money. Single player games are rare so they plan to make less of them. HUH? I guess they can't really say much else, since Xbox first party is pretty thin compared to the competition. I guess my Xbox One S will stay a UHD player mostly.
 

gamz

Member
I think his reasoning is that its not worth 4-5 of development time for a single player only game that players purchase once, beat the 10-20 hours story and then shelve the game and forget about it.

Not to mention the cost and need to sell x amount to be profitable.
 

Admodieus

Member
As somebody who wants to to see XBox be great again, that single-player game quote is troubling to me. My favorite games of the last few years are Horizon and Zelda. Destiny is great fun, don't get me wrong, but nothing it came close to matching the thrills of Zelda this spring.
 

Toni

Member
Open World, MMO-lite with friends is where the cash is at, at the moment.

Overwatch-type games and loot boxes with a bunch of add-ons, cosmetics, live events and active multiplayer is where the cash is at for the first person shooter crowd.

He was extremely reluctant to expand 1st party output before. It seems he's realised that strategy wasn't going to cut it in the long run.

So, if Phil expects to excel after taking the plunge in upping investment, the safest bet for him and his Xbox team would be to focus on this 2 factors when grouping talent for a big project.
 
I think his reasoning is that its not worth 4-5 of development time for a single player only game that players purchase once, beat the 10-20 hours story and then shelve the game and forget about it.

People don't forget about them if they are good games, they anticipate a sequel. How many Halos, Uncharteds, Gears, Forzas, GOWs, and many other game with re-iterations and sequels of franchise do we have. These are just excuses for them having a thin first party lineup.
 
I think his reasoning is that its not worth 4-5 of development time for a single player only game that players purchase once, beat the 10-20 hours story and then shelve the game and forget about it.
You can have DLC and expansions for those SP games. It doesn't have to be one and done.
 
As somebody who wants to to see XBox be great again, that single-player game quote is troubling to me. My favorite games of the last few years are Horizon and Zelda. Destiny is great fun, don't get me wrong, but nothing it came close to matching the thrills of Zelda this spring.

Unfortunately for us online games is where the money is at. It's the console version of the mobile platform. SMDH.
 

Admodieus

Member
I think his reasoning is that its not worth 4-5 years of development time for a single player only game that players purchase once, beat the 10-20 hours story and then shelve the game and forget about it.

Yeah, and I can see where he's coming from - once that game is launched you have a consistent revenue stream for years instead of a short launch window plus some more sales down the line as the price decreases. But as somebody who loves single-player, story driven games, I'll vote with my wallet.

Unfortunately for us online games is where the money is at. It's the console version of the mobile platform. SMDH.

Yeah, I get that. But I'll keep buying single player games as long as they keep making them. Sony's been killing it this generation with Bloodborne, Horizon, Uncharted, etc.
 
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