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Phil Spencer on the future of Xbox: we still want to take risks with games

Naked Lunch

Member
Xbox is in a completely different place from where they were just a couple years ago.
The shear number of studio acquisitions cannot be denied - and the games are finally falling into place.
Ive always been a big Xbox fan mainly for the Halo series and the XB controller - but I was getting tired of just Forza and Gears - theres so much more to look forward to now.
In a way - it kinda all gets started in 2 weeks when Flight Sim hits the Series line and continues from there.

There is excitement around the brand again.
Just from me personally, I know at least 12 real life friends who used to be big 360 fans who jumped ship to PS4 who are coming back with Series X.
Even some PC gamer friends tired of keeping up with upgrading are going with the SX.
MS has done a lot to right the ship.
 
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Corndog

Banned
Taking famous multiplatform franchises and removing them forever from the platform where they were most popular?

If that's not taking risks, I don't know what is.
What platform are you talking about? Please drop the console warring you plan on doing.
 
I agree, it's my most wanted game by far and hopefully it lives up to the legacy. Some people are going to hate it regardless but as long as it has a lot of core concepts from the original with a new angle I'll be happy.

So gadgets are of course a must, the core combat and more athletic, spy type movement they speak of must be the real deal and offer plenty of opportunity in their little combat sandbox. It has to feel good. I think Splinter Cell Conviction and Blacklist movement is a good blueprint. The core shooting combat loop must be amazing. Level design must be top notch, AI has to be good. I'm not referring to bullet time or anything, but I think if they incorporate some kind of slo mo, quick dodge mechanic, it could really add a ton to more frantic gameplay moments. Not something that can be abused, mind you, just a little something to give it that more badass feel, and to make players feel like they have more time to think and come up with a plan in a scary situation.

I mean, I have high hopes.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
Outer Worlds sold very well and had a smaller budget.
Forza Motorsport isn't for everybody, but top notch franchise, but I agree not nearly as big as Horizon
Starfield, I like that you were fair in saying it may end up great. I believe so too. I'm certain this will be one of the biggest/most loved game releases this entire generation.
Gears of War, yea, I guess I can see that, except to me I think Gears 5 is the best in the franchise's history.
Killer Instinct - Yea, future uncertain
Perfect Dark - I didn't even like the N64 game people go so crazy about, but I know it's an IP with tons of potential in the right hands.
Indiana Jones - fair, we'll see, but the potential is there and the right team is on it.
Fallout - definitely not diminished, fallout 76 has people fooled. The next big singleplayer they release will be huge, just like the rest. Toss in the Amazon fallout series coming, and Fallout is due for a big return
Elder Scrolls - of course available everywhere, but this next one is one of the most anticipated games in the entire industry, next to starfield, Halo Infinite etc

Halo Infinite - Is technically as big as it ever was, most ambitious looking Halo ever, free to play MP will be big, campaign is creating the most hype for any Halo in man years. Will not disappoint. Also has a major TV series coming, which if it's good will further bolster the game's popularity.

Wolfenstein - games are excellent, and will be getting better and more recognition due to the xbox deal
Dishonored - one of the most underrated franchises in game, definitely a sleeping giant, will benefit greatly from xbox attention. Redfall also? Watch that game blow up.
Quake - yea, quake is non-existent true, but I only mentioned it as part of the legendary IP microsoft now owns.
Doom - The new for xbox only is coming. Doom has never been better.

And I purposely left out so many, only because I was going for the big names. But don't sleep on Hellblade 2 or Contraband.
Good post

Elder Scrolls - of course available everywhere, but this next one is one of the most anticipated games in the entire industry, next to starfield, Halo Infinite etc

In my opinion, TES is literally in the highest echelon of game franchises and only mainline Zelda and GTA games match it in terms of hype and excitement.
 
Xbox is in a completely different place from where they were just a couple years ago.
The shear number of studio acquisitions cannot be denied - and the games are finally falling into place.
Ive always been a big Xbox fan mainly for the Halo series and the XB controller - but I was getting tired of just Forza and Gears - theres so much more to look forward to now.
In a way - it kinda all gets started in 2 weeks when Flight Sim hits the Series line and continues from there.

There is excitement around the brand again.
Just from me personally, I know at least 12 real life friends who used to be big 360 fans who jumped ship to PS4 who are coming back with Series X.
Even some PC gamer friends tired of keeping up with upgrading are going with the SX.
MS has done a lot to right the ship.
They have done heaps but we still need to see from their first party studios. Currently we still only have Gears, Forza and Halo and I'm burned out on those IP's. We need new IP's. Be it from Sony, MS or Nintendo. We need new stories, heroes. Just anything new.
 
Who cares if it is more popular, what a ridiculous argument. FF XIII and XV are on Xbox and definitely had success there, otherwise Sony would not be buying to prevent Xbox from having VII Remake and XVI for years.
Those games were significantly more successful on PlayStation though which is probably a huge reason that Sony can secure so many exclusives though. I said it before, but XBOX gamers need to support more games to make publishers think twice about making timed exclusives for PlayStation.
 

Optimus Lime

(L3) + (R3) | Spartan rage activated
Xbox is in a completely different place from where they were just a couple years ago.
The shear number of studio acquisitions cannot be denied - and the games are finally falling into place.
Ive always been a big Xbox fan mainly for the Halo series and the XB controller - but I was getting tired of just Forza and Gears - theres so much more to look forward to now.
In a way - it kinda all gets started in 2 weeks when Flight Sim hits the Series line and continues from there.

There is excitement around the brand again.
Just from me personally, I know at least 12 real life friends who used to be big 360 fans who jumped ship to PS4 who are coming back with Series X.
Even some PC gamer friends tired of keeping up with upgrading are going with the SX.
MS has done a lot to right the ship.
I think the Xbox Series X is a brilliant system, and I know people who were big Sony fans or PC gamers who bought one and enjoy it a lot.
 

NickFire

Member
PSA: It's ok to like your Xbox / Gamepass and still laugh when the silliness of constant/ nonstop marketing (but few releases) is joked about. It's just the MS version of Soooony.

Also, the joke about salty PS fans is getting overplayed. Yes, yes, yes, it is still warranted on occasion. But not every time someone cracks a joke. We all saw what was not shown at E3, and we all read about what the expectations should be in terms of another elder scrolls game release date. Entire generations of children will have been born and moved to college in between Skyrim and part 6. In other words, the arrow was removed from the knee, the wound closed, and there is no scar at this point. The salt either ran out or got really wet and doesn't shake any more.
 

OmegaSupreme

advanced basic bitch
Xbox is in a completely different place from where they were just a couple years ago.
The shear number of studio acquisitions cannot be denied - and the games are finally falling into place.
Ive always been a big Xbox fan mainly for the Halo series and the XB controller - but I was getting tired of just Forza and Gears - theres so much more to look forward to now.
In a way - it kinda all gets started in 2 weeks when Flight Sim hits the Series line and continues from there.

There is excitement around the brand again.
Just from me personally, I know at least 12 real life friends who used to be big 360 fans who jumped ship to PS4 who are coming back with Series X.
Even some PC gamer friends tired of keeping up with upgrading are going with the SX.
MS has done a lot to right the ship.
You have 12 irl friends? "I don't believe you" as Ron Burgandy would say.
 
Phil says lots of things. He's good at it.

It's the following through he's had trouble with.

Find me a bigger follow through in gaming history than buying Zenimax and Bethesda for $7.5 billion and making Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Starfield, Doom, Wolfenstein, Dishonored, Evil Within and everything else that Bethesda makes and is responsible for, along with all their game studios Xbox First Party game studios while also bringing all their new games to Game Pass day one at no additional cost while also making them Xbox console exclusive?
 
Fight Kangaroo GIF


This thread in a nutshell.
 

Chukhopops

Member
PSA: It's ok to like your Xbox / Gamepass and still laugh when the silliness of constant/ nonstop marketing (but few releases) is joked about. It's just the MS version of Soooony.

Also, the joke about salty PS fans is getting overplayed. Yes, yes, yes, it is still warranted on occasion. But not every time someone cracks a joke. We all saw what was not shown at E3, and we all read about what the expectations should be in terms of another elder scrolls game release date. Entire generations of children will have been born and moved to college in between Skyrim and part 6. In other words, the arrow was removed from the knee, the wound closed, and there is no scar at this point. The salt either ran out or got really wet and doesn't shake any more.
One of these days we will see review threads instead of just Phil said x,y or z today.
Speaking of overplayed jokes...
 

Loope

Member
I think conversation is fine but most of the time its just people letting others know how unhappy their are with the console they don't even own. Like @Concern used to say "I don't love my favorite console I just hate yours".
Exactly, when the discussion revolves around :" lol, expected, i dont' like Xbox or PS" it's fucking ridiculous. Same reason why i don't go barging in games OT like Uncharted, TLOU etc. saying "hey fuckers i don't like this shit, lol lol, look at this bug etc."

It's ok, in my opinion, to discuss these things in threads where everything is being discussed from the get go and although i do think there are a lot of threads with stuff Phil says, it really doesn't take skin off my back to the point where i ABSOLUTELY need to tell everyone how he is full of shit, etc. etc.
 

Jack Uzi

Banned
I don't know why people doubt him on this. Some of the first games we are seeing are Grounded, Psychonauts 2 and Flight Simulator. Then they decided to let Playground Games start working on a AAA game in a genre they've never touched. Ninja Theory is working on multiple mental illness projects. Xbox is putting tons of indies on Gamepass day one, and paid for the entire Yakuza series, and Octopath Traveler on Gamepass.

Gamepass as a payment model really promotes more developer freedom since they're pretty much going to get paid either way. They don't even have to rely on straight boxed sales alone. It's like a youtuber with a patreon getting to make whatever content they want without having to worry about ads and views.

If you did some research you’d have found out Marvel went to Sony for that Spider-Man deal. Carry on.
 

Naked Lunch

Member
They have done heaps but we still need to see from their first party studios. Currently we still only have Gears, Forza and Halo and I'm burned out on those IP's. We need new IP's. Be it from Sony, MS or Nintendo. We need new stories, heroes. Just anything new.
Flight Sim in 2 weeks. Why are people blind to this?

I keep hearing: "we need new things".
Another poster: "How about Flight Sim - its new, different from the norm for consoles."
"Well, that's not even a game"
Actually posted on this very forum.

Other new IPs from Xbox alone:
Avowed, Perfect Dark, Hellblade, Everwild, Red Fall, Fable, Starfield. All on the way.
Might as well consider Perfect Dark and Fable new IPs theyve been missing for so long. I would imagine there's plenty more I missed and arent announced.
Xbox is in a very good place, especially compared to where they were last gen. Night and day difference.
 

cireza

Banned
but XBOX gamers need to support more games
Players on Xbox don't have to make more efforts than others. People should buy what they are interested in, and that's it. If publishers are willing to take the quick cash from Sony, because of how short term their business decisions are, that's their choice. And in the case of Street Fighter V, it was probably their loss, as IV was super popular on 360.
 
Players on Xbox don't have to make more efforts than others. People should buy what they are interested in, and that's it. If publishers are willing to take the quick cash from Sony, because of how short term their business decisions are, that's their choice. And in the case of Street Fighter V, it was probably their loss, as IV was super popular on 360.
That’s the problem though. Of course companies will go where their games sell best on and are more appreciated. Most XBOX gamers are seemingly not interested enough to buy games from companies to persuade them to make more Xbox games and think twice about taking these exclusive deals from Sony. The sales charts generally prove it each month for years. From Scarlet Nexus, Mistwalker games, JRPGS, fighting games, FF15, Resident Evil Village to even Dark Alliance, these games sold substantially better on PlayStation. Wouldn’t that be incentive enough to primarily support PlayStation over other platforms?

I doubt Sony has to twist these publisher’s arms to get exclusivity when the companies clearly see that they are not selling near as many games on Xbox. That’s why I think Xbox gamers should try to show companies support and this has been a huge problem long before Gamepass existed.
 
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Moonjt9

Member
Flight Sim in 2 weeks. Why are people blind to this?

I keep hearing: "we need new things".
Another poster: "How about Flight Sim - its new, different from the norm for consoles."
"Well, that's not even a game"
Actually posted on this very forum.

Other new IPs from Xbox alone:
Avowed, Perfect Dark, Hellblade, Everwild, Red Fall, Fable, Starfield. All on the way.
Might as well consider Perfect Dark and Fable new IPs theyve been missing for so long. I would imagine there's plenty more I missed and arent announced.
Xbox is in a very good place, especially compared to where they were last gen. Night and day difference.
“All on the way” might as well be Xbox’s new slogan.
 
If you did some research you’d have found out Marvel went to Sony for that Spider-Man deal. Carry on.
Maybe you quoted the wrong person? No idea what that's got to do with my post.

Either way, it's not exactly surprising Sony and Marvel develop Spider Man games together when Sony holds the film rights to Spider Man. They can ask for leverage on their games systems anytime Marvel needs a cameo and it's pretty painless for Marvel to agree to that.
 

Jack Uzi

Banned
Maybe you quoted the wrong person? No idea what that's got to do with my post.

Either way, it's not exactly surprising Sony and Marvel develop Spider Man games together when Sony holds the film rights to Spider Man. They can ask for leverage on their games systems anytime Marvel needs a cameo and it's pretty painless for Marvel to agree to that.

Yeah meant to quote Oldergamer. Maybe my phone messed up the quotes or i quoted you accidentally.

And yes I agree on that Sony kinda have Marvel by the balls when it comes to Spider-Man. The leverage certainly helped them with that Avengers game. Sorry about the misquote.
 

Coolwhhip

Neophyte
Microsoft : All talk, no games.
Sony : Silent , steady stream of next gen game releases

Are Xbox owners not tired yet of the talking and zero games released, you guys have the patience of saints.

At this point people probably know you buy an Xbox solely for 3rd party games. So the current owners are probably fine.
 

GhostOfTsu

Banned
Other new IPs from Xbox alone:
Avowed, Perfect Dark, Hellblade, Everwild, Red Fall, Fable, Starfield. All on the way.
'New IP' Hellblade that was announced at a Sony conference and released on Playstation a year before by a studio that made Sony exclusives lol. You guys sure like to rewrite history.

Starfield was also in development for 4+years when MS bought them in March 2021 but whatever
 

reinking

Gold Member
Just from me personally, I know at least 12 real life friends who used to be big 360 fans who jumped ship to PS4 who are coming back with Series X.
Even some PC gamer friends tired of keeping up with upgrading are going with the SX.
My anecdotal evidence is different than yours. I would have passed on the Series X if I had scored a GPU before getting one. I also know more people that PC game that will not be buying an Xbox this gen because MS has made the move to bring game pass and all of their games to PC day one. I don't say that as a negative against Xbox. It is a huge positive but Xbox fans can't have it both ways. They can't argue on one hand that MS is not worried about console sales and then on the other claim masses are migrating back to the consoles. Current sale trends say otherwise.
 

sendit

Member
Xbox is in a completely different place from where they were just a couple years ago.
The shear number of studio acquisitions cannot be denied - and the games are finally falling into place.
Ive always been a big Xbox fan mainly for the Halo series and the XB controller - but I was getting tired of just Forza and Gears - theres so much more to look forward to now.
In a way - it kinda all gets started in 2 weeks when Flight Sim hits the Series line and continues from there.

There is excitement around the brand again.
Just from me personally, I know at least 12 real life friends who used to be big 360 fans who jumped ship to PS4 who are coming back with Series X.
Even some PC gamer friends tired of keeping up with upgrading are going with the SX.
MS has done a lot to right the ship.

Agreed, if getting your shit pushed in for an entire generation doesn’t result in change. I would be worried.
 

e&e

Banned
Dude is just so.......boring........in an annoying way.
As opposed to who, Jimbo?
hate? the dude gets unfairly praised. How about getting those big Japanese games he has been talking about for years.
The motherfucker SAVED Xbox and gave us GamePass, he deserves ALL the credit!

I’m still peeved at no actual Next Gen games yet though…
 
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ZywyPL

Banned
Well with GP allowing the games reaching a much broader audience, hence minimizing chances of flop, I can see them trying out different stuff, like Everwild or the rumored Kojima game (maybe that's exactly what Spencer was referring to?).



Sony : Silent , steady stream delay of next cross gen game releases

FTFY.
 
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93xfan

Banned
That's how you can tell Xbox is hitting the right buttons.

They really are. Sucks on how Sony has changed. Miss the days of Team ICO, WipeOut, Motorstorm, effort put into BC, Socom.

$70 on 1st party games is pretty risky, especially when your competitor has everything on Gamepass, so I’ve got to give them that.
 
Hopefully no more risks at the Halo Infinite "Craig the Brute" risk level though. 😯

I know that some people moan about what he says but what he says is very much out of the standard "Things Vice President's of Gaming are Supposed to Say for Dummies" book so it's difficuly to feel negatively about what he says, it's very much what he should be saying really.
 

SynTha1

Member
I really wanna know why people still support this con artist of a company. Is your love of video games that strong that you'll take promises over games cause that's what I see. Every damn year it's the same thing " we have games coming" and every year nothing then the cycle repeats. I really wish they would sell the Xbox division to damn near anyone else cause then I might buy one but as long as this shady ass con artist of a company l refuse to support them and I do love this industry but it became so much worse since they got into it smfh.
 

elliot5

Member
I really wanna know why people still support this con artist of a company. Is your love of video games that strong that you'll take promises over games cause that's what I see. Every damn year it's the same thing " we have games coming" and every year nothing then the cycle repeats. I really wish they would sell the Xbox division to damn near anyone else cause then I might buy one but as long as this shady ass con artist of a company l refuse to support them and I do love this industry but it became so much worse since they got into it smfh.
Im going to go out on a limb and guess you don't have an Xbox?

I feel like if you surveyed Xbox players they would say they're fine right now. I know I am. It's not a con job lmao. The drama.
 

catvonpee

Member
I really wanna know why people still support this con artist of a company.
I think all companies want to do their best to part you from your hard earned money...

The other two are no different. I for one am really excited my Xbox's strategy now. I am really excited to see what they can achieve this console generation. I feel like they have already done the impossible by redeeming their image, and the "no games" argument is moot now.

As long as whatever company keeps making fun games I'll be playing them. It doesn't matter what their mouthpieces are saying.
 

Raonak

Banned
I mean it is pretty risky to release games in general...?

It would explain why they are so cautious to do so.
 
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