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

[Legend]

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

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."

 

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."

 

On micro transactions & paywalls:

Originally Posted by Phil Spencer
 
 

 
 "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/technolo...s-phil-spencer
 

Is this a joke? They need to announce 6 exclusives at E3 just to keep up with their worst past years. 9 exclusives would make it on tier with XBO's best E3s.

Either they've been holding back a lot or else they're hoping no one thinks about how few games they're going into E3 with.

[DerNebel]

Talk is cheap, also the fact that he seems to not be very keen on investing into story-driven singleplayer games doesn't exactly make me massively interested in what they might be cooking up. Good multiplayer games are a dime a dozen nowadays and I don't particularly care about any of them.

[Mmm_fish_tacos]

Well they had a 1 billion investments at the start, see how that turned out? Maybe theyll double it.

[Raven]

We really need to keep a running tab on how many times Spencer has said that they're doubling down on first-party, because I feel like it's already enough to get completely smashed from taking a shot every time he's said that.

Also, I think he's quite a bit out of touch if he believes heavily narrative driven games don't make big impacts. I'm sure we could come up with quite the list of games fitting that description whose impact has been quite significant, both in previous generations and still today. Either he really is that out of touch or it's him making an excuse for Microsoft's first-party studios lacking the talent to make such games.

[the-pi-guy]

That comment about single player games just tells me they don't get it...

I feel like single player games have gotten bigger this gen if anything.

[Legend]

We really need to keep a running tab on how many times Spencer has said that they're doubling down on first-party, because I feel like it's already enough to get completely smashed from taking a shot every time he's said that.

Also, I think he's quite a bit out of touch if he believes heavily narrative driven games don't make big impacts. I'm sure we could come up with quite the list of games fitting that description whose impact has been quite significant, both in previous generations and still today. Either he really is that out of touch or it's him making an excuse for Microsoft's first-party studios lacking the talent to make such games.

At least nowadays these statements seem to be losing their effect on fans. Far less "I told you so!"s are posted nowadays.

[SWORDF1SH]

Seems clear to me, MS want games that either push Xbox Gold subs or are treated like a service so fans continually pay over time to play.

[the-pi-guy]

It wouldn't make a lot of sense if MS had anything currently in development.  They had a ton of studios listed.  Removing them, just to open new ones doesn't make a lot of sense, especially since most of them hadn't even really made anything.  

The worst part about this, is even if MS decided hey we are going to invest big time in first party; they wouldn't even be able to make anything for the Xbox One.  2 years optimistically, 3 years probably.  At which point, there's no point to release games for the Xbox One.  

[Raven]

http://www.dualshockers.com/2017/04/30/phil-spencer-clarifies-statements-horizon-zelda-impact-wants-single-player-games-succeed/

[Kerotan]

I'll believe it when I see it.  Actions speak louder then words.  Me thinks they've a new gears, halo and Forza in development at least.  That's something.

[ethomaz]

They says that since original Xbox release.

[Legend]

I Watched the latest Sea of Thieves gameplay. Looks kinda cool but either it's very far from release or not AAA (from our definition of it).

RAre is a large studio so maybe sot is only taking half of them. Could have another game closer than I expected.

[Raven]

I Watched the latest Sea of Thieves gameplay. Looks kinda cool but either it's very far from release or not AAA (from our definition of it).

RAre is a large studio so maybe sot is only taking half of them. Could have another game closer than I expected.

I believe it was said that Rare is working on multiple projects but that Sea of Thieves is the only one anywhere near completion. Still, I don't think Rare was ever bigger than a couple hundred people at the start of this generation, and then of course they had layoffs when it was obvious Kinect Sports Rivals was a dud. I think they had about 150+ people working on just that game. Which, if I recall, was a large majority of their studio. If they do indeed have multiple projects coming down the pipe and Sea of Thieves looks like it is NOT a AAA production, then either Rare is much smaller these days, each project has a fair chunk of the studio working on it, or both.

My guess is that Microsoft does not have the confidence in Rare to greenlight a high dollar project, so instead they're having them work on smaller projects to see if anything sticks. If it does, THEN they'll give them a bigger budget to work with for a sequel. Though I'm still convinced that Microsoft is grinding the axe and waiting to see if Sea of Thieves goes over well. If it doesn't, it will take a lot of convincing from someone to keep them open. May even require a virgin sacrifice.

[Legend]

@johnnyb0890 That is the plan of record!

— Crackdown (@crackdown) May 1, 2017