No kidding. Closing Studio Liverpool. Last Guardian's mystery status. The fact that Gran Turismo games take forever to release. Announcing The Agency, then closing the studio developing it four years later. Driveclub delayed, then broken, and still not available for PS+.
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The Incompetence of Microsoft Studios
- Thread starter LukeTim
- Start date
No kidding. Closing Studio Liverpool. Last Guardian's mystery status. The fact that Gran Turismo games take forever to release. Announcing The Agency, then closing the studio developing it four years later. Driveclub delayed, then broken, and still not available for PS+.
I agree. The only reason I finally bit the bullet on X1. Was halo MCC(I have no interest in H5), scalebound, then I saw phantom dust possible 2016(that was the final straw) and I bought it. This shit is pretty shady to me. I would sell my xbox off right now to finish financing my first pc build if I wasn't waiting for scale bound. If that gets an announced pc release I'm out.
This is a very uninformed opinion. Sony did close a good number of studios, but it would be off-topic to mention those - we don't want to turn that into a SonyToo thread.
In many regards, Microsoft also had a lot of success in terms of first party. They helped Bungie turn Halo into something truly massive. Turn 10 is by all account a very succesfull and productive studio. Rare, even though many on these forums don't like their new direction, did sell a shit ton of products under Microsoft's supervision. Lionhead, I would tend to agree, but I would put that on Molyneux's departure rather than Microsoft's management. And they had a ton of succesful relationships with independant teams (Epic, Remedy, ...).
They had a few bumps, but who hasn't in this industry ?
Final Verdict
Member
Woah, that's horrible!
Makes me wonder who mad the decision up top?
(Phil! I'm looking at you!)
The only thing I find shady in the OP is Halo TMCC. It's obvious that the game was pushed out out of the door too early because MS wanted it to be released before the holiday season.
The rest are either poor management (Victoria/PD) or change of direction (Gears of War). They're really not that different from other publishers when it comes to these things.
The rest are either poor management (Victoria/PD) or change of direction (Gears of War). They're really not that different from other publishers when it comes to these things.
Don't think that is true too much before Xbox One. They always concentrated on the same year releases or thereabouts but there was an Alan Wake or two.
Xbox One hype was needed desperately so Spencer wheeled out anything, soon or far off.
343 shows you even with your top IP and mega funding, you can't create a great studio out of thin air. I was disappointed Black Tusk got Gears of War duty instead of a new IP.
Microsoft dug themselves into a hole by coasting with games for 360 and their attempts to build it back up for Xbox One hasn't been smooth sailing. Time will tell.
Pretty much.
The problem is that most of their internal studios aren't incredibly established, so they're not being pushed to the forefront. Sony puts Naughty Dog or Sucker Punch at the beginning of a trailer, and that means something to people. The same can't be said about Black Tusk or Victoria Studio. However, I think that they need to push these names to the forefront in order to make people know these studios.
Freeman
Banned
You must be joking. Using Rare as a positive example is crazy.
Final Verdict
Member
Yeah, just take a look at how they improved studios like double helix, and sucessfull partnership s with Certain Affinity.
They aren't as bad as people say, despite their numerous mess ups.
GHG
Member
They got themselves into a hole by deciding that Kinect was the future and wanted to make their next gen console and all singing all dancing entertainment machine.
They took their eye off the ball and forgot about the things that got them into a position of strength at the start of last gen in the 1st place.
If you watch the Xbox One's reveal again everything you need to know can be seen there. The DRM issues were just a small part of it despite that being the thing it got the most negative press for.
Nobody cares. There is a long list of companies you can do the same thing for. The fact is, the OP only mentioned Microsoft and thus that is the topic at hand.
John Bender
Banned
I don't know, man.
Couldn't get any worse than the Halo 4 / MCC situation.
GHG
Member
Of course not.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=955285
You might want to grab a drink because its quite a read if you include the links to the official Forza forums.
walltowall
Member
When I take my rose colored glasses off, the Bungie story is about money. Destiny, like Halo is a 10+ yr thing, it just happens to be THEIR 10+ yr thing
1 broken release is not a trend. The broken release of their biggest franchise....well, that's just wretched mismanagement.
Edit: I also think that it's pretty damn sorry that the Horizon bug took a month to fix.
To the point of the OP, it seems that hitting these dates means more to companies than anything lately and they bank on any good will that they have stored. The "Shady" practice is everywhere. I'm guessing some key person will "depart" 343i when Halo 5 goes gold or shortly there after. Although....Evolution seems to have remained in tact so you never know.
Well, maybe it was a bit of a stretch. I'd rather get back the Rare from old times. Granted, they aren't appealing to core gamers like they used to, but tbh, some of their Kinect endeavours have been pretty massive in terms of sales, so they got to be doing something right.
Whatever, my point stands I think. They had some failrures, but they had some success. Whether we count Rare in one category or the other is quite irrelevant.
Steverulez
Member
MCC is obviously a huge screw up, but looking at the situation back in 2007... Bungie seemed willing to risk Microsofts pretty much only huge franchise for a new IP, that wasn't really a business decision they could afford to make especially given how its success has helped shape the Xbox business.
In a perfect world of course Bungie would have been able to make Halo and do another IP at the same time and stayed under Microsoft ownership but when they couldn't do that and Bungie didn't like it then... well I think MS were left with very little choice in the end. The end result was because of Bungies inability to project manage successfully but in the end they got what they wanted which was to make lots of money with Destiny and MS got to keep making Halo, so, everybody won?
Freeman
Banned
It wouldn't get announced even if it ends up launching for PC as well eventually. Just like Alan Wake, DR3, Ryse, the PC version just shows up after the Xbox version is released.
If you only have the XB1 because of Scalebound you are better of selling it an buying it again when the game is released, given how fast the Xbox One drops in price you'll probably save some money.
Given how successful the 360 was MS really mismanaged its studios to end up like they are now, they should have much more to show. Sony even if all its mistakes still improved their stable of studios.
Steverulez
Member
They just got new management, Don Mattrick and Marc Whitten out, Phil Spencer moved up and other people presumably too
Andrew Ryan
Banned
MS really wanted the Ryse IP of all IP? Wow
I need to get around to playing Ryse now that it's around $20
Visualante2
Member
I think you have to always judge a publisher on what they do and not what they say otherwise you're setting yourself up for disappointment. They're all pretty bad.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Reaching NoA levels of "we have no idea what we're doing, but we'll occasionally luck into publishing a hit game."
A competent and malevolent company (let's take a GAF favorite, like Ubisoft) would be churning out new Gears, Halo, and Fable games annually, regardless of quality, to maximize revenue.
A competent and malevolent company (let's take a GAF favorite, like Ubisoft) would be churning out new Gears, Halo, and Fable games annually, regardless of quality, to maximize revenue.
What would the end game of this shadiness with setting up a new studios and then closing it be? Are you suggesting they spent a ton of money hiring people and offices and all that stuff just so someone would think, "Well I wasn't going to buy an Xbox One, but I heard Microsoft opened up a new studio! To the Best Buy!"
Freeman
Banned
Funny enough, their new management is the guy that was responsible for MS studios since way back.
EL CUCO
Member
How much longer till we start seeing Phil Spencer on these Gifs?
First party studios has never been MS's strong side. I was hoping that it'll be different with the X1 but doesn't seem like much has improved. Hopefully Gears is amazing and they have some tricks up their sleeves for E3.
They should just make a Rise of Nations spinoff instead (alongside a proper sequel to RoN, of course).
ghostwritingduck
Member
You left out the shadiest of things, not paying indies. I believe this has been corrected, but it's still shocking to me that it ever happened at all.
http://kotaku.com/microsoft-is-late-on-paying-xbox-indie-developers-agai-1666323327
http://kotaku.com/microsoft-is-late-on-paying-xbox-indie-developers-agai-1666323327
Steverulez
Member
I think they will hire an external studio to make Halo Wars 2 overseen by 343i.
Lion head are doing a new IP which they said before we might hear about this year although I kind of doubt it at this point.
machemachete
Banned
Basically.
Black Mantis
Member
There's nothing shady about that though. If you demo a project that management doesn't like, it gets canned and you start again. It would've been worst for Rare if MS had let them continue with those projects, released them to die and then shut them down. That's shady.
Oh, yeah, sure. I guess that's why MCC works flawlessly.
Microsoft Studios isn't shady. They're just blatantly incompetent.
CastorTroy
Member
So they are exactly like every other AAA publisher.
Good to know, OP.
Good to know, OP.
borborygmus
Member
I'm not sure the case expressed by the OP indicates shady behavior, but I'd say that Microsoft's mismanagement does not inspire confidence.
I'd characterize their pre-launch and launch window fiascos as shady though.
I'd characterize their pre-launch and launch window fiascos as shady though.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Since MS shut down Ensemble and made Rare develop avatars I have no respect for them left.
However, there really is nothing shady about this. Just bad management and (probably) bad luck.
They were just always kinda shit at managing their own studios. If you think about it, many of their big/good IPs were developed by third party studios (Halo - Bungie, Gears - Epic, Alan Wake - Remedy, Crackdown - Realtime Worlds, Killer Instinct - Double Helix/Iron Galaxy, Forze Horizon - Playground Games) etc.
Really, the only big first party MS IP is Forza, right? Other then IPs they just flat out bought like Gears or Minecraft.
However, there really is nothing shady about this. Just bad management and (probably) bad luck.
They were just always kinda shit at managing their own studios. If you think about it, many of their big/good IPs were developed by third party studios (Halo - Bungie, Gears - Epic, Alan Wake - Remedy, Crackdown - Realtime Worlds, Killer Instinct - Double Helix/Iron Galaxy, Forze Horizon - Playground Games) etc.
Really, the only big first party MS IP is Forza, right? Other then IPs they just flat out bought like Gears or Minecraft.