• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Xbox Gaf: Are you satisfied with the current state of Microsoft Game Studios?

They had $70 billion to spend on Activision. Dont you think for a few hundred million, they couldve grown Bethesda to get them the resources they need to finish these games on time?

If you cant find devs who want to move to Bethesda then create a stalleite studio on the west coast. Offer better remote work from home packages. There are plenty of support studios all around the world. Maybe acquire them? Crystal Dynamics and SE Montreal just sold for $300 million. Those singapore and eastern european studios would be far cheaper. Tens of millions max.

Back in the late 2010s, I was told Xbox was on life support and could not be held to the same standards as Sony. Well, now they are THE biggest video game company in the world. Spending with gay abandon. Why shouldnt they be held to a different standard?

P.S Sony wasting $3 billion on Bungie while delaying games left and right is equally ridiculous. Focus should be on growing internal studios and then worry about acquisitions, but Sony invested $3 billion they made in 2020 from the PS division into the Bungie deal. Meanwhile MS makes $12 billion every quarter and invested that in the activision deal. One clearly makes more than the rest so they should be held to a different standard, no?

Based on what? Revenue? They haven't fully acquired ABK yet, but even with that they would be behind Sony who is behind Tencent. Number of software releases per year? Potentially. We should probably avoid going into more subjective categories like number of genre-defining or industry-leading releases because those are more easily contested.

Also I don't think Sony wasted $3 billion acquiring Bungie. They also have had a decent stable of games even with some getting delayed. HFW was delayed once and hit its February release date. GT7 was delayed once, and also hit its March release date. They also never set firm to-the-day release dates and put out video vignettes & diaries with the air of assumption they were well ahead of schedule, only to then delay their games to a vague time frame the following year.

You're also ignoring that Sony made money last year from things other than just PlayStation, but at least can confine the costs of a Bungie to just the PS division. MS could never confine the costs of ABK to just the Xbox division's profits because it would take over three decades to make that back, the entire company had to be leveraged (in terms of profits) to justify that purchase.
 

MadPanda

Banned
I think my posting history should confirm that there is no love lost between me and Xbox's first party output. There is no real reason for me to drone on and on about this stuff, but I am interested in hearing what Xbox fans think of Microsoft's lackluster output this gen.

- Are you concerned about another barebones year with Starfield and Redfall getting delayed? 2020 was fairly empty too.
- Are you ok with the lack of next gen only games on xbox so far this gen?
- If not, who do you blame for this? Sony gaf blames Jim Ryan for everything; I blame him for the Ukraine war. Does Phil Spencer shoulder some of this blame after 9 years at the helm?
- They say it's darkest before the dawn. Are you confident MS will have a killer E3 conference with Perfect Dark, Forza, Hellblade, Fable, Starfield, Avowed and State of Decay 2 all making an appearance? That they are about to turn the corner?
- Everyone from Nintendo, Sony to From Software are delaying games. Should MS with their infinite war chest be held to a different standard?

Note to Sony gaf: No offense, but I can predict your posts just by looking at your name tags lol so let's just see what real fans of Xbox have to say first.

I'm not concerned with another barebones year, I'm disappointed and surprised how they manage that with so many studios.
I'm not ok with the lack of next gen games.
I don't know who to blame, but as always, its those at the top who should take blame as they also get the most credit when everything is flourishing. So Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, Todd Howard etc.
I'm confident in MS delivering a good conference, but what's the point of that? I don't play conferences, I play games. So Microsoft is not delivering the goods.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
No.

Infinite is a mess. I waited 4 years for the MCC to be a worthy Halo game. I can’t wait another 4 years for Infinite.

The release schedule for 2022 is barren.

They’ve shot their load announcing Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2, Fable, Perfect Dark and Everwild. The last 2 are in development hell. Those games are 2024 at the earliest. I hoped Hellblade 2, Redfall and some new quality smaller games like Ori would fill the schedule for 2022.

It’s suddenly become very bleak.

I’ve got a PS5 backlog to get though and I’ll be getting Portal, MH Sunbreak, Klonoa and Splatoon 3 on my Switch. And that’s why you should own every platform peeps.

Game Pass too, has been disappointing for months now.

Basically my Xbox is sat waiting for 343 to add an acceptable number of maps and features, and for Bethesda/Obsidian/Rare and Playground’s games. All of which sound light years away.
 

ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
Xbox has been a joke in AAA development that is not even funny.

But you know.....in theory, the time will come when MS actually start to deliver and reach what is expected from a triple trillion-dollar company making games....

....frustratingly...we will be waiting another 3-5 years.....just think about it......fucking insane.
 

graywolf323

Gold Member
Yes and that is why I cannot be hyped anymore. Too many times I have been burned and said to myself, "damn I am really stupid for falling for it, again" to be clear, different people value different things but the fake overhype is something I am done for.

I feel like that also. You cannot be critical. That is a lesson I painfully learned on xbox gaf.
You are right. Although it does happens with the other fanbases as well... but constructive criticism happens more often with those fanbases.

I think they are not as aggressive and have more sense of humour but I am generalizing and speaking from my experience.
heck the only people that rag on Jim Ryan more than Nintendo or Xbox fanboys are the PlayStation fanboys :messenger_tongue:
 

Umbasaborne

Banned
What games does mS studios have for this year?

I'm not trying to be funny or anything...i'm actually curious. As a PlayStation guy i'm really not that into what they release (apart from Forza tbh...i'd love to play those games).
NOTHING…except forza which i really care about, but other wise they have jack effin shite
 

CatLady

Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
They had $70 billion to spend on Activision. Dont you think for a few hundred million, they couldve grown Bethesda to get them the resources they need to finish these games on time?

If you cant find devs who want to move to Bethesda then create a stalleite studio on the west coast. Offer better remote work from home packages. There are plenty of support studios all around the world. Maybe acquire them? Crystal Dynamics and SE Montreal just sold for $300 million. Those singapore and eastern european studios would be far cheaper. Tens of millions max.

Back in the late 2010s, I was told Xbox was on life support and could not be held to the same standards as Sony. Well, now they are THE biggest video game company in the world. Spending with gay abandon. Why shouldnt they be held to a different standard?

P.S Sony wasting $3 billion on Bungie while delaying games left and right is equally ridiculous. Focus should be on growing internal studios and then worry about acquisitions, but Sony invested $3 billion they made in 2020 from the PS division into the Bungie deal. Meanwhile MS makes $12 billion every quarter and invested that in the activision deal. One clearly makes more than the rest so they should be held to a different standard, no?

We are constantly hearing how Sony devs are so talented, the best in the industry and how Sony is the industry leader and so much better than Xbox. I do believe Sony has had more delays than Xbox. How many times was TLOU2 delayed? HFW and GoW:R were supposed to release in 2021 and we were led to believe they would be Next Gen only which turned out not to be the case. I think there is a fair chance that GoW will get delayed again and pushed to next year.

There is no reason to expect or demand Xbox be held to a higher standard than the industry leader and their much-lauded studios just because Xbox's parent company has a shit ton of money.
 

Kacho

Gold Member
Yeah it’s gonna be FM8 and some smaller games for the rest of the year. No chance they had something else big planned with Starfield in the cards.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
I'm not, no. They have tons of studios and still few first party games. It's coming up on two years since new gen launch. Give games.
 

GymWolf

Member
At least jim lyin has been able to get out more than three new games for his new console. Thats something at least


If sony would only release nextgen games it would be in the same situation as M, with their biggest titles ready between 2023-2024, returnal and ratchet are far from their biggest titles.

it is easy when you start developing your games in 2017-2018 for a crossgen release.

i prefer M approach tbh, i want to play nextgen games on my nextgen console even if it takes some time, it's not like we don't have 4358907545734985734957 other games to play between indies, AA and third parties AAA in the meantime.

On the other hand, M has series S so they are never gonna develop a game to fully use series X better ram and gpu.

For the moment, they are both meh tbh.
 
Last edited:

CamHostage

Member
No, but I'm forgiving of the state of COVID (yes, people are working from home getting stuff done, but I can tell you from personal experience that it's just not the same and the output is not as smooth even if an individual is on task,) and if all the Xbox Game Studios games they announced back in 2020 are genuinely moving forward then they do have a promising library to come.

They did over-promise in that Xbox Showcase of 2020 (it was a ton of stuff like Fable, State of Decay 3, Avowed, Stalker 2, Forza Motorsport, plus Hellblade 2 and Halo Infinite had been announced earlier and both made disappointing second appearances at Showcase; Everwild wasn't there but had all been announced just a bit earlier; then in Dec Perfect Dark was announced... almost all of those were revealed as "games" when most were apparently still in an embryonic state.) That has been frustrating. Forza Horizon 5 did at least deliver what Xbox gamers deserve, and Flight Sim and Halo did their jobs too, but otherwise, the excitement of owning an Xbox was in Game Pass and third parties, which is enough to keep you plenty happy but doesn't foster an Xbox identity, if that matters to you. Starfield would have been a monumental event for Xbox, it's sad to see it not happening this year, but hopefully Forza will come out and be good, hopefully STALKER 2 can hold strong to its plan, hopefully there's at least one surprise title in the upcoming summer show, and hopefully 2023 will be worth the wait...

(*also, caveat: I'm primarily a PlayStation guy, so if we're counting up biases, I unfortunately have to number myself among those dicks coming in to pile on when I don't have a lot of personal stake in the situation.)
 

Nydius

Member
[Read this in the Dad voice] I'm very critical of Microsoft and Xbox because I like them and want to see them succeed, but they keep making mistakes and I know they can do better.

Okay, Dad voice off. So no, I'm not happy with the way Microsoft is handling their game studios, and I haven't been for quite some time. They have a history of scrapping games and studios instead of helping build them up into more valuable properties. Some example off the top of my head:
  • They had a platformer in Blinx that could have grown into a mascot-level game for kids.
  • They had a very popular arcade racer in Project Gotham Racing that they shit-canned because it was a threat to their Forza brand.
    They had a potential Wip3out and F-Zero competitor in Quantum Redshift but never pursued it after the first game.
  • The FPS iteration of Shadowrun was lampooned at the time but it accurately predicted the future: Class-based, objective driven, twitch FPS games, with cross-play. Instead of fighting back against the negative reviews, they just dropped it.
  • Crimson Skies was a cult classic that could be a next gen staple but it, along with everything else they had from FASA studios, is gone.
  • Rather than giving Bungie the opportunity to work on something other than Halo, they just let them walk.
  • After buying Rare we got some decent new games like Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, and Viva Piñata but then Rare was turned into the UI and Kinect studio, left to languish until they got the greenlight to do Sea of Thieves after Kinect was a flop.

I could keep going but you get my point. Microsoft is abysmal at managing the studios under the Microsoft Game Studios umbrella, which we see currently with all the shit going on at 343 Industries and The Initiative. Their decisions in the X360 era is what led to them becoming sarcastically called the "Halo/Gears/Forza" Box. They have a history of buying studios, sitting on IP or releasing games and then abandoning them instead of giving them room to grow. Imagine what they could have. A next gen Crimson Skies. A Shadowrun FPS that rivals TF2 and Overwatch. Mascot games for kids and adults. And it gets worse if we expand the evaluation to how they treated second-party devs with exclusivity contracts, such as Mistwalker Studios.

This is why they're in a position now where they have to buy big established studios like Bethesda and Activision Blizzard. It's also why I don't share the optimism of those who think Microsoft will "turn around" the culture at Activision/Blizzard. Microsoft has never really turned around any studio. Quite the opposite, in fact.
 
Last edited:

sircaw

Banned
We are constantly hearing how Sony devs are so talented, the best in the industry and how Sony is the industry leader and so much better than Xbox. I do believe Sony has had more delays than Xbox. How many times was TLOU2 delayed? HFW and GoW:R were supposed to release in 2021 and we were led to believe they would be Next Gen only which turned out not to be the case. I think there is a fair chance that GoW will get delayed again and pushed to next year.

There is no reason to expect or demand Xbox be held to a higher standard than the industry leader and their much-lauded studios just because Xbox's parent company has a shit ton of money.
on a scale of 1-10, how disappointed will you be if Stray is delayed.


kitty GIF
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
I didn’t buy an Xbox but the gamepass PC experience has been great outside the really bad launcher. I play aoe4 every day.
 

ungalo

Member
Been playing on Xbox for a while, since the 360. It's nothing new but i hoped that by 2022 they would start to deliver. I knew Microsoft was bad when i bought the Series X, i did it because they have many of my favorite studios and franchises so i can't complain. You don't need to be a genius to see that what they're pushing for in gaming is not quality content, but i'm not satisfied with the current state of AAA gaming as a whole anyway, it's not only Microsoft.
 

Nydius

Member
halo infinite is the best open world game in years
Surely this has to be sarcasm. Right? Right?

Infinite's open world was terrible and felt like a bolted on after thought. Had no meaning to the linear parts of the story, unlocking the items, killing the HVTs, destroying all the radio towers, finding all the forerunner artifacts, etc. were meaningless for the final third of the game where most of those unlocks would have mattered. It was bolted on fluff for the sake of saying it was an open world.
 

Dr Bass

Member
We are constantly hearing how Sony devs are so talented, the best in the industry and how Sony is the industry leader and so much better than Xbox. I do believe Sony has had more delays than Xbox. How many times was TLOU2 delayed? HFW and GoW:R were supposed to release in 2021 and we were led to believe they would be Next Gen only which turned out not to be the case. I think there is a fair chance that GoW will get delayed again and pushed to next year.

There is no reason to expect or demand Xbox be held to a higher standard than the industry leader and their much-lauded studios just because Xbox's parent company has a shit ton of money.
It's because results matter, and Sony and Nintendo get results. Nintendo just had one of the best directs they've ever had, setting up huge excitement for their 2022 schedule. Yeah HFW got delayed three months, then released to great acclaim.

Like ... is your argument in favor of Xbox actually relying on God of War, Horizon Forbidden West, and The Last of Us 2? You might want to rethink that. Not to mention all the other games that actually come out. Ratchet. Miles. Ghost of Tsushima. Returnal (one of the best games I've played in the last five years). It goes on.

MS is releasing nothing. They continue to be all talk, and it's beyond ridiculous. That's the benefit of not being an Xbox only gamer though. You can actually play other things and see things as they are, not as you wish they were. Not sure what standard you think MS should be held to, but for crying out loud, they should be held to a standard.
 
Last edited:
We are constantly hearing how Sony devs are so talented, the best in the industry and how Sony is the industry leader and so much better than Xbox. I do believe Sony has had more delays than Xbox. How many times was TLOU2 delayed? HFW and GoW:R were supposed to release in 2021 and we were led to believe they would be Next Gen only which turned out not to be the case. I think there is a fair chance that GoW will get delayed again and pushed to next year.

There is no reason to expect or demand Xbox be held to a higher standard than the industry leader and their much-lauded studios just because Xbox's parent company has a shit ton of money.
Here's the full list of 2022 first-party Xbox games:
 
As of right now I don't think there is a single MS game in 2022 nor anyone scheduled to released in 2022.

When the main draw of the service they want to push are MS games available day one that is a massive failure, specially considering how much they invested already to attempt to fix this.
 
Last edited:

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
We are constantly hearing how Sony devs are so talented, the best in the industry and how Sony is the industry leader and so much better than Xbox. I do believe Sony has had more delays than Xbox. How many times was TLOU2 delayed? HFW and GoW:R were supposed to release in 2021 and we were led to believe they would be Next Gen only which turned out not to be the case. I think there is a fair chance that GoW will get delayed again and pushed to next year.

There is no reason to expect or demand Xbox be held to a higher standard than the industry leader and their much-lauded studios just because Xbox's parent company has a shit ton of money.
Apples and Oranges.

Horizon Forbidden West was delayed once, only for a ~4 months. TLOU 2 was delayed once for development reasons and then it was delayed because of COVID and possible supply chain issues. Even then it released within an 8-month window and became the most awarded (user + critic) game ever. God of War Ragnarok was delayed because of Christopher Judge's accident, and that bit was shared by Judge himself.

How many times and for how long Ratchet, Demon's Souls, Miles Morales, Sackboy, Returnal, GT7, MLB were delayed?

PlayStation Studios continue to release GOTY titles. And if a small fraction of those games does get delayed, they still release them within 6-8 months and they are all always GOTY candidates. That's not the case with any other publisher.
 

Codes 208

Member
Surely this has to be sarcasm. Right? Right?

Infinite's open world was terrible and felt like a bolted on after thought. Had no meaning to the linear parts of the story, unlocking the items, killing the HVTs, destroying all the radio towers, finding all the forerunner artifacts, etc. were meaningless for the final third of the game where most of those unlocks would have mattered. It was bolted on fluff for the sake of saying it was an open world.
It was fine. Comparatively it was the best campaign 343 has made regardless of the fluff (the gunplay was solid, taking over banished fortresses/depots was fun) and the story was pretty solid even if the end felt a bit a flat

That said it felt more like a decent far cry game than traditional halo. If we’re speaking open worlds than yeah, infinite doesnt hold a candle to games like skyrim, botw, or even more recently arceus and elden ring.

And again, and i cant emphasize this enough: they shit the bed with the multiplayer so a decent campaign and a lousy multiplayer =/= a good halo game
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
I didn’t buy an Xbox but the gamepass PC experience has been great outside the really bad launcher. I play aoe4 every day.
Yeah after years of shitting the bed with PC they finally have something worthwhile. With Flight Simulator, AOE4, Forza, Gears 5, Halo there has been plenty of first party games to play and then there is a ton of 3rd party games both AAA and smaller indie stuff.
 
Last edited:

VN1X

Banned
They are STILL to this day playing catch-up with Sony when it comes to first-party output which is unacceptable really.

The only reason (for me) to own a Series X at this point is so I'm certain that I'll be able to get some of the Bethesda/Activision offerings when they finally come in about 2 years time. Other then that there's nothing that I can think of that warrants me owning this damn console. Ultimately I guess it's simply a case of Microsoft buying themselves in ever since the start of the OG XBOX (and even more so now) but that you just can't beat (or build) the type of legacy that Nintendo and Sony have that way.
 
Last edited:

Nydius

Member
It was fine. Comparatively it was the best campaign 343 has made regardless of the fluff (the gunplay was solid, taking over banished fortresses/depots was fun) and the story was pretty solid even if the end felt a bit a flat

That said it felt more like a decent far cry game than traditional halo. If we’re speaking open worlds than yeah, infinite doesnt hold a candle to games like skyrim, botw, or even more recently arceus and elden ring.

And again, and i cant emphasize this enough: they shit the bed with the multiplayer so a decent campaign and a lousy multiplayer =/= a good halo game

I can agree with that analysis, but I think "it was fine" is the epitome of a backhanded compliment since the game is a tentpole franchise for Xbox and Microsoft spent years promoting how it was going to be a big change to the Halo formula with an open-world focus. Ultimately the open world was simply okay, something I'd expect from a AA-studio rather than a AAA one.

But when someone says it's the best open world game "in years"? That's just gotta be sarcasm or some serious rose-tinted goggles because it ignores games like RDR2, Ghost of Tsushima, or Horizon Forbidden West. I'd go so far to say that, in terms of open world design even Biomutant, for all its flaws, was better planned out than Infinite.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Not worried, maybe slightly annoyed. I'd rather shit get delayed on any platform than release a mediocre product that gets dropped. I've been playing Battlefront 2 a lot lately and am shocked that E.A. didn't try and do a 2.0 release or relaunch or something as it's such an amazing product now.


BGS games are always buggy, always have been, if they need to delay to give us the proper amount of bugs for a launch, I'm all for it.

Arkane being probably the single biggest and underappreciated studio of last generation, I'm happy to give them all the time they want.

There's so much shit to play as it is. I'm currently jumping back and forth between Dying Light 2, Days Gone(PC) and Splinter Cell:Blacklist that I have so much to keep me entertained. I might even install Gears 5 and play through that in coop with my Pops.
 
Last edited:
Xbox has been a joke in AAA development that is not even funny.

But you know.....in theory, the time will come when MS actually start to deliver and reach what is expected from a triple trillion-dollar company making games....

....frustratingly...we will be waiting another 3-5 years.....just think about it......fucking insane.
The thing is there is no guarantee the time will come. Most publisher are really struggling too put out AAA games and that also includes Bethesda, Activision and Blizzard.

Nobody gives the benefit of the doubt to Ubisoft, Square Enix, Konami, etc, that they'll start to get things right.

Phil Spencer was big inside Xbox for a long time, I remember him on E3 2010 talking about their exclusives. He never was able to fix these problems their internal studios seem to have.

That's specifically what he was in charge of:


edit:
He was saying in 2010, this is our biggest year ever... you can't make this stuff up.
 
Last edited:

Lunarorbit

Member
Of course you can blame a single figure. They don't have great 1st party output and now these games are delayed by a year. Every choice you make as a company has consequences; starfield is an ambitious game but whereas before it bookended a barren year now its on its own island.
 

Shtef

Member
Eh I don’t care, I bought xbox becuase it has nice controller and console look nice. There are other games i will play this year, harry potter game looks pretty good.
 

ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
The thing is there is no guarantee the time will come. Most publisher are really struggling too put out AAA games and that also includes Bethesda, Activision and Blizzard.

Nobody gives the benefit of the doubt to Ubisoft, Square Enix, Konami, etc, that they'll start to get things right.
I know. But if MS doesn't have it's shit together in 3-5 years....we be talking levels of incompetence that would have spaned since the second half of the 360 era, the entire One generation and half of the Series generation.....WTF?!.....
 

MarkMe2525

Gold Member
I am starting to get impatient. I believe this puts even more pressure on Microsoft to have a stellar showcase.
One silver lining is the fact that Microsoft is obviously aware that the bar is high, and they are willing to invest more time and money into their projects to give them the best chance of success.
 
Last edited:

Jigsaah

Gold Member
I think my posting history should confirm that there is no love lost between me and Xbox's first party output. There is no real reason for me to drone on and on about this stuff, but I am interested in hearing what Xbox fans think of Microsoft's lackluster output this gen.

- Are you concerned about another barebones year with Starfield and Redfall getting delayed? 2020 was fairly empty too.
- Are you ok with the lack of next gen only games on xbox so far this gen?
- If not, who do you blame for this? Sony gaf blames Jim Ryan for everything; I blame him for the Ukraine war. Does Phil Spencer shoulder some of this blame after 9 years at the helm?
- They say it's darkest before the dawn. Are you confident MS will have a killer E3 conference with Perfect Dark, Forza, Hellblade, Fable, Starfield, Avowed and State of Decay 2 all making an appearance? That they are about to turn the corner?
- Everyone from Nintendo, Sony to From Software are delaying games. Should MS with their infinite war chest be held to a different standard?

Note to Sony gaf: No offense, but I can predict your posts just by looking at your name tags lol so let's just see what real fans of Xbox have to say first.
I'm more or less indifferent. I mean I played Forza Horizon and Halo...like em both but I haven't been blown away in a LONG TIME. I am a very patient person though and I can more than fill up my time with other games and backlogs. I assume this thread comes hot on the heels of the Starfield and Redfall delay news. Am I upset, not really. I think part of the reason is because of the timing of the announcement. Like we still had 6 months to wait regardless so it doesn't sting so bad. Also I don't know that I'm super hyped for either of those games to begin with.

I just turned 40 in January...maybe I'm just at a point in my life where the whole idea of hype has waned for me. Kinda sad actually.
 

PhaseJump

Banned
XGS is a big and slow AAA factory. I set my expectation accordingly.
They delivered Forza Horizon, Psychonauts, Halo.

The disappointment I have around being an Xbox customer is that:
JRPGs aren't happening. Japanese studios aren't ramped up yet if not outright acquired yet. I can't use PC Game Pass on Steam. Backwards compatible game ports aren't on Windows. Proton support for all their service based, anti-cheat, DRM games needs to be better.

I'm playing on Deck more than any other platform now. Xbox on every TV in my house, and I can't be bothered to look at Game Pass or GWG.
 
Top Bottom