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Microsoft Studios (& Partners) Current and Future Landscape

B

Banjo-Kazooie

Member
Steverulez said:
2018 going to be a de facto ok year because by sheer dumb luck or just poor planning they moved so many games into 2018 it ended up being spread moderately ok
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Like, makes me wonder if anything that was originally scheduled for 2018 a year or two ago is getting pushed out too, or if there will be more unannounced games releasing next year. I doubt it, but just amazing to see how weird this is for someone only 4 years into a new console
 
S

Steverulez

Member
blakep267 said:
Sucks but a perfect storm of bad things happened. Fable legends didn't work out and was cancelled. Scalebound was cancelled(although that probably would've been delayed as well). Press play was closed and their 2 games (the dwarves and BR game) aren't exclusive anymore
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Bad things being decisions Microsoft willingly took?

Fable Legends was their fault for greenlighting it then shutting down the studio.

Banjo-Kazooie said:
Like, makes me wonder if anything that was originally scheduled for 2018 a year or two ago is getting pushed out too, or if there will be more unannounced games releasing next year. I doubt it, but just amazing to see how weird this is for someone only 4 years into a new console
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Outside of ori 2, halo 6 and forza Horizon 4 are we sure they even had anything else planned for 2018? I suspect not personally
 
L

LordBaztion

Member
I really find hard to believe that MS didn't really anticipate in 2015 that they had nothing by this year. 2015 and 2016 E3s has been basically barren, it's imposible that they didn't saw it.
 
P

PanicFreak

Member
Steverulez said:
Outside of ori 2, halo 6 and forza Horizon 4 are we sure they even had anything else planned for 2018? I suspect not personally
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With the way 343i is talking, Halo 6 may not be a 2018 game. Personally, I think their 2018 line up will be:

Spring: Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves
Summer: Ori
Fall: Forza Horizon 4, State of Decay 2
 
C

Chris1

Member
PanicFreak said:
With the way 343i is talking, Halo 6 may not be a 2018 game. Personally, I think their 2018 line up will be:

Spring: Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves
Summer: Ori
Fall: Forza Horizon 4, State of Decay 2
Click to expand...

Nah Halo will come out next year cause if that gets delayed then Gears 5 will have to get delayed aswell. It's a snowball effect they won't wanna get into.
 
B

blakep267

Member
Steverulez said:
Bad things being decisions Microsoft willingly took?

Fable Legends was their fault for greenlighting it then shutting down the studio.



Outside of ori 2, halo 6 and forza Horizon 4 are we sure they even had anything else planned for 2018? I suspect not personally
Click to expand...
I mean You don't go into development expecting games to suck or look bad. Fable Legends and Scalebound could've been great games. But in actuality that didn't seem to be the case
 
S

Steverulez

Member
blakep267 said:
I mean You don't go into development expecting games to suck or look bad. Fable Legends and Scalebound could've been great games. But in actuality that didn't seem to be the case
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Fable Legends should never have been green lit. Microsoft's shoddy organisation at this point is clearly a rather large problem
 
M

MosquitoSmasher

Member
Chris1 said:
Nah Halo will come out next year cause if that gets delayed then Gears 5 will have to get delayed aswell. It's a snowball effect they won't wanna get into.
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Yeah but the way 343 spoke about there being no Halo 6 news for a while to come almost sounds like it won't be a title for next year. But I doubt that though.
 
Y

Yearsoflurking

Member
Steverulez said:
Bad things being decisions Microsoft willingly took?

Fable Legends was their fault for greenlighting it then shutting down the studio.



Outside of ori 2, halo 6 and forza Horizon 4 are we sure they even had anything else planned for 2018? I suspect not personally
Click to expand...
Fable legends was lit most likely by phil Harrison
 
M

MosquitoSmasher

Member
Whatever the fuck is going on at MS now, I hope they can pick themselves up in this regard and improve, drastically improve. They are doing so well in all the other things for Xbox but the gaming studios? No. Really don't want to see them go. Of course such a thing doesn't happen overnight but fuck man.


jayu26 said:
Halo 6 ain't getting delayed. It will be announced for spring 2019 from the get go.
Click to expand...

But what will be their big holiday 2018 game then? Forza Horizon 4?
 
S

Steelyuhas

Member
PanicFreak said:
With the way 343i is talking, Halo 6 may not be a 2018 game. Personally, I think their 2018 line up will be:

Spring: Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves
Summer: Ori
Fall: Forza Horizon 4, State of Decay 2
Click to expand...

State of Decay was listed as Spring at E3, although obviously that could change.

Agreed there won't be a Halo 6 in 2018.
 
P

PanicFreak

Member
LordBaztion said:
likely they will rush Halo to have something for next year.
Prepare for Halo 5 part 2
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They don't need to rush shit for next year because their entire 2017 lineup has already slipped into 2018. They could delay Ori, Forza Horizon 4 and Halo 6 and their 2018 lineup would still be better than their 2017 lineup.
 
Y

Yearsoflurking

Member
Steverulez said:
Phil was head of studios, did he have no say? Then 6 months after it was announced he took over the division and carried on pushing it for 2 years, he had ample time to make a different decision
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Iirc wasn't phil head of nam and Harrison in charge of emea when it was greenlit (assumingly 2011). Was phil supposed to can the game with work done on it? I'm confused what you wanted him to do. Imagine telling your teams hey this ideal now suck years after let's now can this
 
L

LordBaztion

Member
Steverulez said:
Phil was head of studios, did he have no say? Then 6 months after it was announced he took over the division and carried on pushing it for 2 years, he had ample time to make a different decision
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Also, Fable Legends started as a side project of Lionhead, when Spencer took the lead, it wanted it to be a AAA free to play game and that is what most likely killed the game as it became too expensive to produce.
 
B

Banjo-Kazooie

Member
Steverulez said:
Bad things being decisions Microsoft willingly took?

Fable Legends was their fault for greenlighting it then shutting down the studio.



Outside of ori 2, halo 6 and forza Horizon 4 are we sure they even had anything else planned for 2018? I suspect not personally
Click to expand...
I'm not even certain Halo 6 is next year, I don't see them announcing and releasing it 4 months apart?

Also wouldn't be surprised if Ori wasn't a Q1 2019 title?
 
H

hydrophilic attack

Member
blakep267 said:
Well mattrick was the one who consolidated the studios and set them on the path of each studio being a factory and reliance on the Kinect. Granted Phil continues this but it didn't happen just now
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Yes, but people thought Phil taking over would signal a full new era for Xbox. But he was Don's right-hand man. We should never have expected anything but more of the same.

Then again, I don't know how much they are too blame, and how much is on reduced budgets from the corporate overlords. If Xbox indeed has never made a profit, putting the squeeze on the division makes sense from corporate's perspective
 
S

Steverulez

Member
Yearsoflurking said:
Iirc wasn't phil head of nam and Harrison in charge of emea when it was greenlit (assumingly 2011). Was phil supposed to can the game with work done on it? I'm confused what you wanted him to do. Imagine telling your teams hey this ideal now suck years after let's now can this
Click to expand...

Probably preferable to putting everyone at the studio out of a job? Maybe they could've been put on a project that people want to play and buy

LordBaztion said:
Also, Fable Legends started as a side project of Lionhead, when Spencer took the lead, it wanted it to be a AAA free to play game and that is what most likely killed the game as it became too expensive to produce.
Click to expand...

Just makes it worse tbh
 
B

blakep267

Member
hydrophilic attack said:
Yes, but people thought Phil taking over would signal a full new era for MS. But he was Don's right-hand man. We should never have expected anything but more of the same.

Then again, I don't know how much they are too blame, and how much is on reduced budgets from the corporate overlords. If Xbox indeed has never made a profit, putting the squeeze on the division makes sense from corporate's perspective
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Well don was Phils boss just like Phil is shannons boss. I can't put blame on her, the blame goes to the person in charge. The budget stuff likely would affect future non halo or Forza games
 
C

Chris1

Member
Quoting from the CD cancellation thread

DVABWO0.png
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Yikes... Alanah isn't usually the type of person to be so negative about games is she? From the little of what I know of her she generally tries to stay positive
 
L

LordBaztion

Member
PanicFreak said:
They don't need to rush shit for next year because their entire 2017 lineup has already slipped into 2018. They could delay Ori, Forza Horizon 4 and Halo 6 and their 2018 lineup would still be better than their 2017 lineup.
Click to expand...
To be honest, you don't need much to have a better lineup than 2017. I don't think they will be willing to repeat the plate next year without a big title to show.

You know, back in 2016 I thought 2017 would rock with Scalebound, State of Decay 2, Halo Wars, Sea of Thieves and Crackdown. It's really sad how it turned out.
 
Y

Yearsoflurking

Member
Steverulez said:
Probably preferable to putting everyone at the studio out of a job? Maybe they could've been put on a project that people want to play and buy



Just makes it worse tbh
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Maybe the idea sounded good on paper until they realized they'd never make enough off of it to justify. Idk it's tough dictating what you want a team to do. The actual issue is that they should have been on fable 4 or something completely new not ftp
 
L

LordBaztion

Member
Chris1 said:
Quoting from the CD cancellation thread

Yikes... Alanah isn't usually the type of person to be so negative about games is she? From the little of what I know of her she generally tries to stay positive
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Alanah openly talked about the state of Andromeda before release but she thought it would be fixed.

Also, you don't need insider information to see that the game is not doing well. They basically had a toybox as E3 demo. Let's see how the MP demo does at Gamescon, if it doesn't delivers, they game will likely be cancelled.
 
S

Steverulez

Member
Yearsoflurking said:
Maybe the idea sounded good on paper until they realized they'd never make enough off of it to justify. Idk it's tough dictating what you want a team to do. The actual issue is that they should have been on fable 4 or something completely new not ftp
Click to expand...

Well their fable 4 pitch at least sounded much better than what they did on FL 🤷*♂️
 
J

JlNX

Member
LordBaztion said:
Also, Fable Legends started as a side project of Lionhead, when Spencer took the lead, it wanted it to be a AAA free to play game and that is what most likely killed the game as it became too expensive to produce.
Click to expand...

Do you have any evidence of this or is this post just like the rest you have made, reactive and hyperbolic.

Steverulez said:
Probably preferable to putting everyone at the studio out of a job? Maybe they could've been put on a project that people want to play and buy
Click to expand...
Well correct me if i'm wrong but wasn't part of the reason Lionhead was closed down was the studio itself, the fact they blew well past multiple schedules and we have heard of members of their staff not even working on the game but instead working side projects like fortune. The studio probably would have been closed anyway, each Fable got worse and they have shown they couldn't keep production times and as a studio their work ethic wasn't great. This was admitted as much in Kotaku's piece on Lionhead and former staff who agreed with the studio being closed, plus they lost a lot of their team they were a husk.

Steverulez said:
just makes it worse tbh
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Are we really going to entertain posters willing things into fact because they feel the need to be reactive.
 
C

Chris1

Member
^^ Nah the other thread will probably get all the comments though
LordBaztion said:
Alanah openly talked about the state of Andromeda before release but she thought it would be fixed.

Also, you don't need insider information to see that the game is not doing well. They basically had a toybox as E3 demo. Let's see how the MP demo does at Gamescon, if it doesn't delivers, they game will likely be cancelled.
Click to expand...
Yeah.. here she's suggesting it may get cancelled. Big difference in tone. There is no way they will actually cancel it after all the Scalebound and FL backlash, but the fact she's suggesting it as a posibility says a lot about the game's state

Judging by Phil's comments on the other page the MP won't be at Gamescom, which shouldn't really surprise anyone to be honest
 
S

Steverulez

Member
JlNX said:
Do you have any evidence of this or is this post just like the rest you have made, reactive and hyperbolic

Are we really going to entertain posters willing things into fact because they feel the need to be reactive.
Click to expand...

Tbh I can hardly keep up with it all these days so I don't know what started as x and morphed in y, whatever the story was for Lionhead and fable Legends, the same result will be me shaking my head
 
J

JlNX

Member
Steverulez said:
Tbh I can hardly keep up with it all these days so I don't know what started as x and morphed in y, whatever the story was for Lionhead and fable Legends, the same result will be me shaking my head
Click to expand...

Obviously I agree, but faux outrage muddles the conversation best to keep that in the other thread.
 
wapplew

wapplew

Member
Game got delay, not cancelled. Why people start the blaming game?
If anything, Phil and team deserved praise for this decision. They are not rushing the game out and send it to die, which is what you ask for years.
It mean they willing to invest more money into the project and have faith for Crackdown 3, they want to do it right.
 
L

Lord of Ostia

Member
LordBaztion said:
Also, Fable Legends started as a side project of Lionhead, when Spencer took the lead, it wanted it to be a AAA free to play game and that is what most likely killed the game as it became too expensive to produce.
Click to expand...
They basically forced the studio to make it too, Lionhead wanted to make another single player RPG, which is what they were good at. They really should've let them, considering that those titles have done well this generation. Instead they force them to make an expensive F2P multiplayer game, then shut it down just before release, wasting tons of money and a talented studio with background in a genre they are now sorely lacking...so stupid.

Sony is guilty of this too, pursuing F2P with Sony San Diego and releasing their f2p games without so much as a wet fart, then promptly shutting them down and laying off those teams, but at least the studio is intact, and it's not as if Sony is hurting for talented studios, unlike Microsoft.
 
Y

Yearsoflurking

Member
The issue with lionhead goes back well beyond phil, it goes back to arguably the kinect era where they started bleeding talent. MS should have been building for the future in 2010 instead they were sustaining. This is the result
 
S

Simply Sami

Member
I can't believe people are saying Phil Spencer isn't at fault.

He was head of studios before this. Since he took over from Shane Kim in 2009 the quality of games has gone down.

He's improved it from the console side. But I refuse to believe MS corporates are letting them release a upgraded console but not new games.

Phil Spencer has been in charge of games since 2009. How many good first party games have we had since then? I mean Halo Reach was getting made at the time so it's not that. He's killed the Fable franchise. Made Forza into a yearly thing and killed PGR. No major games from Japan released. Halo and Gears are a shadow of what they used to be.

This is all his responsibility. He was head of games before he was head of Xbox. Since Shane Kim has retired the game quality has gone downhill.
 
G

gamz

Member
wapplew said:
Game got delay, not cancelled. Why people start the blaming game?
If anything, Phil and team deserved praise for this decision. They are not rushing the game out and send it to die, which is what you ask for years.
It mean they willing to invest more money into the project and have faith for Crackdown 3, they want to do it right.
Click to expand...
It's for the best. With PUGB and everything else this Holiday it would've gotten slaughtered. Gives them more time to polish and a good release date.
 
Y

Yearsoflurking

Member
Simply Sami said:
I can't believe people are saying Phil Spencer isn't at fault.

He was head of studios before this. Since he took over from Shane Kim in 2009 the quality of games has gone down.

He's improved it from the console side. But I refuse to believe MS corporates are letting them release a upgraded console but not new games.

Phil Spencer has been in charge of games since 2009. How many good first party games have we had since then? I mean Halo Reach was getting made at the time so it's not that. He's killed the Fable franchise. Made Forza into a yearly thing and killed PGR. No major games from Japan released. Halo and Gears are a shadow of what they used to be.

This is all his responsibility. He was head of games before he was head of Xbox. Since Shane Kim has retired the game quality has gone downhill.
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MS isn't and wasn't ran like you think it is. For example not just shannon loftis reports to phil like many seem to think. Many studios have direct reporting studio heads that report to phil. Loftis deals mostly with 3rd party deals. Don was the boss you should be blaming his vision.
 
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