Sounds pretty ambitious, but if they get it working that'd be super cool :D
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Xbox Game Studios |OT5| The Cult of Phil in the Age of Booty: A Case Study
- Thread starter Figments
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Sounds pretty ambitious, but if they get it working that'd be super cool :D
Definitely Microsoft bought talent and efficiency
Then I expect another team of 70-80 working on a new AAA, and a little one of 40-50 on Tyranny II or something like that.
I've heard too that jack would have played a bigger role, now I found it. It was always on screen in e3 2018 trailer
Never played a single minute of Gears; never had an interest and never felt like I was missing anything. But these rumors actually sound pretty cool. Fingers crossed they come to fruition.
The news of Ninja Theory only using 10-20 devs for most of development on Bleeding Edge and Obsidian only using 80 for Outer Worlds presents an interesting Cost/Benefit argument about a game like Halo. While I think it's important for Xbox to have massive AAA showpieces like Halo, it could be beneficial for Microsoft to allow studios to make smaller projects and would go along with some of the early reports we've gotten from the Initiative about staying a bit smaller and being more flexible.
I don't think having everyone in house is particuarly common or cost effective, the outsourcing that happens is insane.
Look at Spider-Man from Insomniac, who are not a huge studio. However the credit roll for that game is 33minutes long. Teams of companies from india, china , japan,Korea,UK... all over of the world.
Over 2000 people are credited
I think MS is going for a Nintendo Direct look for future Inside Xbox's. Which means everyone will be let go except maybe 2-3 people who will be featured (Major Nelson being one obviously)
"including hardware-accelerated raytracing." very interested to see how this is implemented.
I know at least this part is true, as confirmed by Lisa at Computex.
Makes sense. The taped, edited videos cost significantly less than have a live studio crew.
I wonder if they're looking at engagement with Inside Xbox and thinking the live show just isn't getting enough eyes to be worth the investment.
• Ninja Theory | we don't know how many teams exactly they have, or maybe you have some source telling that there are 3 teams.
• Obsidian | now they have 4 teams: The Outer Worlds team, which is the majority of our development, small group of people that are finishing up in Pillars of Eternity, two other teams that are starting things up.
• Rare | actually there are 3 teams: Sea of Thieves, overseeing Battletoads and new project.
• Playground Games | here you're accurate.
I am not counting overseeing teams. Tho otherwise i would add Coalition, 343 also.
Ninja Theory has the Bleeding Edge team, Hellblade team and that VR team. Come to think of it maybe there is even a 4rd team. I remember something about that. Maybe Klobrille knows?
I found them boring to watch. Maybe its the voice overs i dont know.
What's crazy is that they've been doing direct esque programming for years with Major Nelsons this week on Xbox, which I actually quite like because of how short and straightforward they are, there was never any need to do the whole Inside Xbox Live thing, they could have taken the existing format they had and expanded it slightly.
Man if MS can pump out 1-2 quality games per quarter in the next-gen esp for GP, will be amazing.
maybe a pre-recorded show/vidoc style of some sort. maybe have intimate quick 2 min interviews with developers/team members from that studio talking about their game(s) being the highlight of the inside episode. have a well rounded 15 min video. 4-5 a year perhaps too. haven't really thought deep into it, but i think some change to align with the new generation feels fitting.
this is a reaction of mine from e3's inside xbox. i can't remember anything substantial that was learned from the inside xbox. fir example i was hopeful on Chris Lee talking more in depth, and live, about the slipspace engine, but we just got a replay of the trailer and a sentence about us to check out halowaypoint's post.
i think in the past, they had some good bombshells to drop in an inside xbox episode, but this e3 felt flat to me.
this is a reaction of mine from e3's inside xbox. i can't remember anything substantial that was learned from the inside xbox. fir example i was hopeful on Chris Lee talking more in depth, and live, about the slipspace engine, but we just got a replay of the trailer and a sentence about us to check out halowaypoint's post.
i think in the past, they had some good bombshells to drop in an inside xbox episode, but this e3 felt flat to me.
VR team which is not related to Xbox on PC or console. Sad. Even Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice isn't released on Microsoft Store for Windows 10 with Mixed Reality support.
Hopefully we won't have to wait so much time to see another single player game from Ninja Theory. I'm tired of another multiplayer-focused or coop-focused games. Especially with lack of nice singles from Microsoft.
And that's just my opinion and feelings.
Did you enjoy the ID@Xbox Game Pass video back in March? (terrible name for a show, btw)
Felt more natural yeah. Its fine for ID@xbox stuff tho. For bigger stuff i dont know.
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I understand that outsourcing happens and I think we can comfortably assume around 500 developers will work at least five years on Halo Infinite. That's 2500 years of developer time (500 developers times 5 years). The Outer Worlds will have been in development for 3.5 years with 80 developers, meaning it used 280 years of developer time (80 developers times 3.5 years). That means The Outer Worlds (or a similar game fully-funded by Microsoft) costs Microsoft roughly 1/9th of what Halo: Infinite would cost and that doesn't even include any of the outsourcing you're talking about. Also, if we use the same formula, Bleeding Edge from Ninja Theory probably falls into the 80-120 years of developer time range.
So, if Bleeding Edge cost Microsoft $1, The Outer Worlds cost Microsoft $28, and Halo Infinite cost Microsoft $250.
I understand that having games at varying levels is important, but if you're Microsoft and looking at those numbers, especially from the stand-point of creating new IP, then Bleeding Edge and Outer Worlds are far more interesting from a cost/benefit perspective than Halo Infinite. Obviously, Halo makes a ton of sense for the brand and to serve as a showpiece, but when looking at new projects from the other Xbox Game Studios, the value proposition of smaller projects may be hard to ignore. I personally think it's a great idea for the GamePass model. I'd rather see eight 8-20 hour experiences similar in scope to The Outer Worlds than three or four "showpiece" quality games in the 15-45 hour range.
They need to let their developers experiment some more.
Like let a small team from 343i or Coalition break off and prototype some shit.
They're going for different things. Outer worlds will be a small game. that's good news, but it's not for everyone. That said, that was kind of the tenor of the conversation of the Booty conversation at Coliseum. Lots of teams to make smaller, riskier games that have a place in Game Pass.
I wonder where the freelance /contract dev industry will go with increasing consolidation broadly. We see lots of celebrated smaller teams get squeezed out in the visual effects space. Will the same or something totally different happen
This is why teams like Ninja Theory, Obsidian and Doublefine are gonna be so valuable. They're used to working lean and working to survive, in a world where they have unlimited funds and don't have to work for hire or crowd fund, they're output is gonna be huge and great, purely projects they want to do.
I think it'd be awesome if 343i and The Coalition became multi-team studios as well, and I don't think it's anything come down from Microsoft telling them they can't. More like the demands of these games is so huge there just isn't bandwidth to think about other titles. That's why they hire out for things like Tactics and Halo Wars.
As some others have mentioned, once Obsidian or Ninja Theory sets their sights on a big open world RPG or something like that, it may very well take the entire studio to produce it. My ideal world is every studio having at least two teams at all times. So even if it's all hands on deck for an open world action RPG or a huge MMMO shooter or something, they'll still be able to play around with something risky and cool.
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This is the most important part of it for me. Microsoft has a bunch of insanely talented and creative developers at this point and I think smaller games give them chances to take bigger risks. Say Ninja Theory wanted to make a serious spiritual-successor to Ghostbusters where you use the tools you see in weird ghost hunter shows, but don't ever shoot a gun or fire up a proton pack. I want them to be able to do that and the only way that's going to fly is if it's a smaller, experimental title. Knowing that Microsoft is open to that sort of thing gives me way more confidence that they will do right by the studios that owned and the studios they've acquired.
The Initiative keep telling us they're not doing AAA (in between hiring developers from high profile AAA studios).
Sorry- AAAA. Seriously, though, they are. Drew Murray has said this multiple times.
Sorry, but my ravenous game-lust will only be sated by Septuple A games, and pronto.
Hop to it, Phil!
I would love for this to happen, Coalition and 343i are absolutely packed with talent. I would hate for them to be confined to a single IP for the life of the studio. Just look at what Guerrilla Games did when they were given creative freedom. I hope Matt Booty realises this sooner, than later.
Obsidian
Coalition
343i
Initiative
Playground 1 & 2
Turn 10
They all will or do make high quality and large scale games. I expect InXile to reach that point at some time, perhaps Undead Labs too.
Playground Games, 343i, The Initiative and The Coalition will be building the biggest games for XGS. But Rare, Obsidian and Turn 10 will also be building AAA- (whatever that is) games.
Seems like Ninja Theory, Mojang, Double Fine, inXile and Compulsion will be creating smaller titles.
Undead Labs could go either way. Age of Empires studio is a weird one right now.
Seems like Ninja Theory, Mojang, Double Fine, inXile and Compulsion will be creating smaller titles.
Undead Labs could go either way. Age of Empires studio is a weird one right now.
Facts. Shit, even a cool spin-off in the Halo or Gears universe in a different genre. We're seeing this with Halo Wars and Gears Tactics, but hopefully they can expand to other genres.
Completely forgot about Turn 10, Rare, and Obsidian. I'd like to see inXile and Ninja Theory working on larger scale, big budget projects, and perhaps we will one day.
Basically each studio has an opportunity to either build a huge universe world with an IP they create or most likely just keep on doing something new each game.
So glad to know the new studios can do almost anything they want.
So glad to know the new studios can do almost anything they want.
I thought they were.
Isn't that how that halo arcade thing and the gears spin offs came to be?
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