Phil's cross-gen "pro-consumer" plan: where was it?

[Sense]

This thread is hilarious.

Matt Booty made his comments back in 2019 and people got wildly hyperbolic. "MS isnt making next gen games, oh no!" "Xbox one is going to hold back the generation"

Rational thinkers said "calm down, there will be cross gen to start with, but by the end of 2021 we'll get next gen exclusives." This really isnt some radical strategy.

Now it turns out the rational interpretation of Booty's words is somehow just as offensive as the hyperbolic interpretation.

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Phil Spencer repeated that line of cross gen for a couple of years just last week and it is in the blog post as well. Going by the presentation none of the new announcements seem like 2021 games. Even something like forza Motorsport is not guaranteed when the comments from the dev team was that it was early in developmen.

 

[Dunlop]

Or it shifted from, "cross gen will hold games back!" for many - and when I look at Halo Infinite it's like...yeah I see it - to, "wait you're supporting cross gen because you don't really have much for two years."

Can you actually not see how both complaints have validity and they aren't contradictory?

I know I'm on the precipice of console warring so I want to be careful, but I don't understand why there is this undercurrent of being willfully obtuse about the criticism some have with Microsoft's approach to next gen, their PR for it and how it's somewhat hypocritical, and how those two things are related.

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Because valid posts are often downed out with "concerned" or "angry" posts that are clearly bullshit and just meant to cause discourse by console warriors so it gets harder to take them at face value?

 

[Trup1aya]

Phil Spencer repeated that line of cross gen for a couple of years just last week and it is in the blog post as well. Going by the presentation none of the new announcements seem like 2021 games. Even something like forza Motorsport is not guaranteed when the comments from the dev team was that it was early in developmen.

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It's also been said that these games will be developed XSX first. Much like, Titan Fall, Forza Horizon 2, Rise of the Tomb Raider during the last transition. Nothing is held back.

The last Forza game came out in 2017. The engine is mature. I'm thinking they'll get it out in sooner than later.

 

[Renna Hazel]

Do you genuinely believe that 343i is able to meet their ambitions for Halo Infinite with the much lower performance and especially the mechanical hard drive of the Xbox One when the XSX exists and will be out when their game comes out?

Ultimately 343i is limited in their vision for Halo Infinite because they have to account for the Xbox One. This isn't something that can be rebuffed I don't believe. If you compare Halo to something like Miles Morales or the new Ratchet and Clank, Insomniac will be able to do whatever they have the time, creativity, and skill to do. They aren't limited by the PS4. They have the freedom to make the game they want to make, within reason.

So respectfully, I don't agree with your assertions. It just sounds like reiterating PR speak.

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I'm not reiterating PR speak since I did admit it was deceptive to a degree, and I'm also not a big Phil Spencer fan, and I've always thought he was a purposefully misleading guy, so I have no real desire to defend him. I just wont call him a liar for this particular thing.

Now you may very well be right about Halo and 343. The game has been in development for a long time though, I would imagine the game was designed around Xbox One from the beginning because Series X might not have been their target platform at the start. So yeah they could have made a game with a larger scope and scale if they targeted series X from the start, but this might just be an example of a game being done for Xbox One and being ported to Series X.

It's totally possible he lied here, but it's also possible he didn't. I'll just assume he didn't until proven otherwise.

 

[MrKlaw]

Both studios use ForzaTech, which is T10's game engine. Having said that, while it is T10's engine, Playground also contributes to it.


Not necessarily. It's quite possible that Playground will use a modified FH4 engine for Forza Horizon 5. This is likely why Horizon 4. and not Motorsport 7, was given Series X support at launch. Playground will buy Turn 10 an extra year of development on Motorsport and ForzaTech 2.0 (or whatever iteration it's on now). Horizon 6 is when we will see the Forza Horizon series running on Turn 10's latest ForzaTech game engine.


So long and short of it:

2021:
Forza Horizon 5 (built on a tweaked Forza Horizon 4 game engine)

2022:
Forza Motorsport (built on an overhauled ForzaTech engine for Series X)

2023:
Forza Horizon 6 (based on the 2022 Motorsport engine)

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that'd make it easier to wait for motorsport if we had a decent FH5 next Christmas

 

[OneBadMutha]

• Microsoft will continue to support Xbox One for 2 years
• Microsoft is currently building games for Series X from the ground up

I repeated it 20 times throughout the other threads. The lineups will not be exactly the same. Support doesn't equal parity. Not in lineup, game design or quality. Games that come out early in the life of the next gen console were primarily built for Xbox One and scaled up. Games that come out 2 years from now will scale in the other direction whenever possible. It's a very simple concept.

 

[McScroggz]

Because valid posts are often downed out with "concerned" or "angry" posts that are clearly bullshit and just meant to cause discourse by console warriors so it gets harder to take them at face value?

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That's just what discussing anything in 2020 is like unfortunately. I see all of the console flaming BS on both sides and I try to avoid it. However I don't like when one side resorts to intellectually dishonest rhetoric and people on the other side of the opinion decide that if some are going to post nonsense argument that suddenly it's okay for them to reply similarly. It's a two wrongs don't make a right situation. Xbox has caught more flak over the last few months than they deserve, but there are legitimate points of criticism. Same with Sony. Let's engage in a discussion on the merits of the argument and not the bad faith arguments on either side.

I'm not reiterating PR speak since I did admit it was deceptive to a degree, and I'm also not a big Phil Spencer fan, and I've always thought he was a purposefully misleading guy, so I have no real desire to defend him. I just wont call him a liar for this particular thing.

Now you may very well be right about Halo and 343. The game has been in development for a long time though, I would imagine the game was designed around Xbox One from the beginning because Series X might not have been their target platform at the start. So yeah they could have made a game with a larger scope and scale if they targeted series X from the start, but this might just be an example of a game being done for Xbox One and being ported to Series X.

It's totally possible he lied here, but it's also possible he didn't. I'll just assume he didn't until proven otherwise.

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I don't think the term lied is appropriate. I think being disingenuous is more appropriate. Whenever we think about a games development schedule, often the preproduction part is either automatically added in and it bloats the length of development or its completely ignored and only the "full production" timeline is used and can sometimes skew game development of big projects as being fairly quick. With Halo, it's been in development for 5 or so years, but in 2016 it's pretty unlikely they solidly knew the specs they were targeting and what gameplay features, set pieces, etc. would be in the final product. By the time Halo Infinite was deep into production it is pretty likely Microsoft had already starting developing the next console, and while 343i probably didn't know, in let's say 2017, what the final specs of the XSX would be they had a reasonable idea of the power and that it would have an SSD I would be willing to bet.

Microsoft, 343i or both decided during the development of Halo Infinite that it would come out on the Xbox One. I am confident that if one (or at least Microsoft) wanted to release Halo Infinite only on the XSX they could have made that transition a few years ago. Developers create games for target specs on next generation consoles and calibrate as things become crystallized. Now, if the argument is, "343i decided to support the Xbox One and therefore you can't say the XSX version is limited by a version that the developer chose to support" then I guess you are right in a technical sense. However, when people say 343i's vision is limited by current generation hardware I think that is just kind of a fact. If what Phil means when he says the Xbox One isn't holding their developers back because the developers know they are making a game for both systems and have calibrated their expectations from the start, I think that's a pretty weak statement right?

And to really see my point just look at the counterpoint in Sony. They have been adamant about a transition to the next generation hardware. They told their developers that and the public. So whenever a developer started making a game for Sony within the last couple of years they could design their game with the next generation PlayStation in mind. They are effectively not held back back the PS4. Will that result in stark difference in Sony and Microsoft exclusives? We will see.

But I don't think there is much of an a

 

[Renna Hazel]

That's just what discussing anything in 2020 is like unfortunately. I see all of the console flaming BS on both sides and I try to avoid it. However I don't like when one side resorts to intellectually dishonest rhetoric and people on the other side of the opinion decide that if some are going to post nonsense argument that suddenly it's okay for them to reply similarly. It's a two wrongs don't make a right situation. Xbox has caught more flak over the last few months than they deserve, but there are legitimate points of criticism. Same with Sony. Let's engage in a discussion on the merits of the argument and not the bad faith arguments on either side.



I don't think the term lied is appropriate. I think being disingenuous is more appropriate. Whenever we think about a games development schedule, often the preproduction part is either automatically added in and it bloats the length of development or its completely ignored and only the "full production" timeline is used and can sometimes skew game development of big projects as being fairly quick. With Halo, it's been in development for 5 or so years, but in 2016 it's pretty unlikely they solidly knew the specs they were targeting and what gameplay features, set pieces, etc. would be in the final product. By the time Halo Infinite was deep into production it is pretty likely Microsoft had already starting developing the next console, and while 343i probably didn't know, in let's say 2017, what the final specs of the XSX would be they had a reasonable idea of the power and that it would have an SSD I would be willing to bet.

Microsoft, 343i or both decided during the development of Halo Infinite that it would come out on the Xbox One. I am confident that if one (or at least Microsoft) wanted to release Halo Infinite only on the XSX they could have made that transition a few years ago. Developers create games for target specs on next generation consoles and calibrate as things become crystallized. Now, if the argument is, "343i decided to support the Xbox One and therefore you can't say the XSX version is limited by a version that the developer chose to support" then I guess you are right in a technical sense. However, when people say 343i's vision is limited by current generation hardware I think that is just kind of a fact. If what Phil means when he says the Xbox One isn't holding their developers back because the developers know they are making a game for both systems and have calibrated their expectations from the start, I think that's a pretty weak statement right?

And to really see my point just look at the counterpoint in Sony. They have been adamant about a transition to the next generation hardware. They told their developers that and the public. So whenever a developer started making a game for Sony within the last couple of years they could design their game with the next generation PlayStation in mind. They are effectively not held back back the PS4. Will that result in stark difference in Sony and Microsoft exclusives? We will see.

But I don't think there is much of an a

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Well I think there is a difference here, but I don't know the dev schedule. I look at Halo as if it's like Nintendo and Zelda BotW. That game didn't take advantage of Switch but it was designed with Wii U in mind because Switch wasn't a thing. If they redesigned it with Switch in mind, it wouldn't have been released at the same time.

It's probably safe to assume a lot of work on Infinite was done before launching on Series X was decided. Obviously, if they decided later on to go exclusive to Series X, we'd have either gotten a game designed with Xbox One in mind, with some bells and whistles, or they would have had to redo a lot to expand the scope of the game for the new hardware.

I think this is a different scenario than a game starting development now, that is forced to be on Xbox One as well.

 

[McScroggz]

Well I think there is a difference here, but I don't know the dev schedule. I look at Halo as if it's like Nintendo and Zelda BotW. That game didn't take advantage of Switch but it was designed with Wii U in mind because Switch wasn't a thing. If they redesigned it with Switch in mind, it wouldn't have been released at the same time.

It's probably safe to assume a lot of work on Infinite was done before launching on Series X was decided. Obviously, if they decided later on to go exclusive to Series X, we'd have either gotten a game designed with Xbox One in mind, with some bells and whistles, or they would have had to redo a lot to expand the scope of the game for the new hardware.

I think this is a different scenario than a game starting development now, that is forced to be on Xbox One as well.

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Look at it this way: what is the difference between Halo Infinite and The Last of Us Part II (or the original)? Both are arguably the biggest budget, biggest profile games for the Xbox One and PS4 respectively. Both are launching in the same year as the next generation versions of those consoles are released.

To me, TLOUII was Naughty Dog and Sony focusing on squeezing every ounce out of the PS4, knowing it will be BC for PS5 so sales isn't an issue. Now let's say they scheduled TLOUII to release alongside the PS5 and they had a PS5 version. Even without knowing the development schedule we can know intuitively the game isn't going to be what it could have been if they made it exclusively for the PS5.

Conversely Microsoft is positioning Halo Infinite as the next generation of Halo (in many ways). We don't have to know the development schedule to know that because they are supporting the Xbox One that Halo Infinite isn't what it could have been were it exclusive to the XSX - that's not a controversial statement. We can quibble over how far into development Halo was when Microsoft had a decent idea of specs and launch window of the XSX or whether Microsoft could have afforded to launch Halo Infinite exclusively on XSX. My point is that you cannot say Halo isn't being limited by the Xbox One when there is such a difference between it and the XSX. Like, they can't just turn up graphic settings, and even if they could that doesn't account for all of the other big and small improvements a theoretical XSX only Halo would have. Considering Halo is Microsoft's showstopper, it being underwhelming visually or from a general design standpoint (I'm sure it will be fun) has a dampening effect on hyper for Halo and the XSX. A big point of having something like Killzone: Shadow Fall or Horizon Forbidden West is to get people excited for the console.

And although I know why you make the comparison to BOTW I don't think it's actually a great fit.

 

[Renna Hazel]

Look at it this way: what is the difference between Halo Infinite and The Last of Us Part II (or the original)? Both are arguably the biggest budget, biggest profile games for the Xbox One and PS4 respectively. Both are launching in the same year as the next generation versions of those consoles are released.

To me, TLOUII was Naughty Dog and Sony focusing on squeezing every ounce out of the PS4, knowing it will be BC for PS5 so sales isn't an issue. Now let's say they scheduled TLOUII to release alongside the PS5 and they had a PS5 version. Even without knowing the development schedule we can know intuitively the game isn't going to be what it could have been if they made it exclusively for the PS5.

Conversely Microsoft is positioning Halo Infinite as the next generation of Halo (in many ways). We don't have to know the development schedule to know that because they are supporting the Xbox One that Halo Infinite isn't what it could have been were it exclusive to the XSX - that's not a controversial statement. We can quibble over how far into development Halo was when Microsoft had a decent idea of specs and launch window of the XSX or whether Microsoft could have afforded to launch Halo Infinite exclusively on XSX. My point is that you cannot say Halo isn't being limited by the Xbox One when there is such a difference between it and the XSX. Like, they can't just turn up graphic settings, and even if they could that doesn't account for all of the other big and small improvements a theoretical XSX only Halo would have. Considering Halo is Microsoft's showstopper, it being underwhelming visually or from a general design standpoint (I'm sure it will be fun) has a dampening effect on hyper for Halo and the XSX. A big point of having something like Killzone: Shadow Fall or Horizon Forbidden West is to get people excited for the console.

And although I know why you make the comparison to BOTW I don't think it's actually a great fit.

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Well let me ask you this, if Last of Us 2 was changed to a PS5 launch title internally a year or so ago, would the game be drastically different, or would it just be a PS4 game with some graphical bells and whistles? I think if Naughty Dog would have to delay or change the game to really get the most out of PS5. If Halo was mostly content complete as an Xbox One game before moving to Series X, I don't see that as it being held back.

But I really don't know how the dev cycle worked. I'm also not too invested in defending Phil Spencer, as I'm not a fan to begin with. I simply wont call him a liar for this particular comment.

 

[zoltek]

Phil is an amicable, charismatic, and intelligent man who, you can tell, truly enjoys videogames. He has talked the talk for many years but, aside from GamePass (which is a big win, I agree), has yet to walk to walk.

 

[JackBauer24]

I honestly feel like he saw that it was extremely difficult for MS to do a 180 in order to right the ship. Game Pass became successful and a new vision emerged. What they'll lose in gamers and exclusives, they'll win back some through a service. Better for them to get a fraction of $120 per year than 100% of nothing. Xbox employees talked and talked how this generation would be different, but through 2 events I cannot see MS winning back even 10 million more gamers. The exclusives simply aren't there. The Gears, Halo, and Forza trio seems to be it. Sure there may be a decent game here or there sprinkled in, but they have yet to justify the need for the Series X. They are so deadset on not losing current generation Xbox gamers, that they're not giving early adopters any reason to shell out money for a new console. Sure next gen consoles rarely have a must have launch title, but the Series X cannot grow the Xbox base with Halo Infinite alone. It's been 3 years of empty promises. There wasn't a single game shown yet running on near complete hardware that convinces me otherwise.

 

[oni_gank]

I like Phil Spencer, I think he's a genuinely passionate gamer and good face of the company.

However, Phil has been saying a lot of things and promised many things in the past. Sometimes they worked, but other times they were just confusing and contradictory.

The way I see the message from MS: grow the user base; throw a bunch of services (Gamepass, live, xcloud, play anywhere with PC, release some games to other platforms, etc) and make them (gamers) hooked on the ecosystem; release powerful consoles as selling points to the "hardcores". Too bad their video streaming strategy (mixer) is dead.

I think the conversation that they would like to have over the internet is how good is "the value" of joining their ecosystem. For some people that was not enough, they demanded to see more great games coming from their studios.

 

[Deleted member 75594]

I mean he did say the first 2 years were cross gen, and none of these games looks like it's coming before that. The BS he pulled tho was the whole I hate timed exclusive content, and then he fills half the show with it. Like wtf phil.

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I thought that was just about exclusive DLC / add-ons ...
Paying the same price for a game as somebody on another platform, but receiving less content.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

I thought that was just about exclusive DLC / add-ons ...
Paying the same price for a game as somebody on another platform, but receiving less content.

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Here is the quote from 2015:

"My strategy is more around our own first-party franchises, and investing in franchises that we own. I want to have strong third-party relations, but paying for many third-party exclusives isn't our long-term strategy," said Spencer.

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Here is the quote from two weeks ago (ERA had the thread about this):

I find it completely counter to what gaming is about to say that part of that is to lock people away from being able to experience those games. Or to force someone to buy my specific device on the day that I want them to go buy it, in order to partake in what gaming is about. Gaming is bigger than any one device…

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[Poimandres]

Well I think there is a difference here, but I don't know the dev schedule. I look at Halo as if it's like Nintendo and Zelda BotW. That game didn't take advantage of Switch but it was designed with Wii U in mind because Switch wasn't a thing. If they redesigned it with Switch in mind, it wouldn't have been released at the same time.

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BOTW is a strange one because it was clearly repositioned from a Wii U title to a primarily Switch game part way through development. Initially the Wii U controller was going to play a much greater part (displaying the map etc, different to the main screen) but this was removed because Switch didn't support this.

Wii U owners got screwed over because of the Switch version lol.

 

[McScroggz]

Well let me ask you this, if Last of Us 2 was changed to a PS5 launch title internally a year or so ago, would the game be drastically different, or would it just be a PS4 game with some graphical bells and whistles? I think if Naughty Dog would have to delay or change the game to really get the most out of PS5. If Halo was mostly content complete as an Xbox One game before moving to Series X, I don't see that as it being held back.

But I really don't know how the dev cycle worked. I'm also not too invested in defending Phil Spencer, as I'm not a fan to begin with. I simply wont call him a liar for this particular comment.

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I think you are really overstating how unprepared Microsoft and their most prominent studio was or would be. Halo Infinite AND the new Xbox were already announced a year ago (roughly). That counterpoint is kind of missing my point entirely. Microsoft and 343i could have decided 3 years ago to target next gen only (this is something that happens every console cycle)...and if they had, Halo Infinite would be fundamentally different. Because the game is releasing on a system that was released in 2013 and subsequently has 2013 (middling) hardware and a mechanical hard drive, it would be more fair to position Halo Infinite as a current generation game that is launching with a prettier Xbox Series X version and being marketed as a next generation Halo game that is resetting the franchise - that's the charitable description. Halo Infinite is either being held back by the required Xbox One version or it is being held back because Microsoft/343i didn't want to risk launching their biggest IP on a next generation console exclusively. We can discuss if that decision was a smart assessment of the industry, overly cautious, whether we personally agree with it, etc.; what I don't think should be something so hard to concede is that Halo Infinite is being held back by the Xbox One.

Frankly I'm not entirely sure why you are so reluctant, especially when I even specified I wouldn't call Phil a liar.

 

[Necromorph]

Same with the original plan, but some developers decided to jump completely to the next gen because the old hardware doesn't help.

 

[Bold One]

Why are the Forza people rebuilding their engine?

Why are the Halo people building a new engine?

 

[Deleted member 75594]

Here is the quote from 2015:


Here is the quote from two weeks ago (ERA had the thread about this):

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yikes-
it sounds like he's trying to have it both ways

 

[platocplx]

Here is the quote from 2015:


Here is the quote from two weeks ago (ERA had the thread about this):

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they definitely made it clear that "Gaming is bigger than any one device…" based on the. Going all in on game pass trying time convince people to buy a XSX.
but yeah definitely lip service and trying to have his cake and eat it too.

 

[Gamer17]

Basically everything Phill has been saying in the last few years felt apart in one hour :
- Cross gen because we are pro consumer
- No 3P timed exclusives
- Cross gen won't hold next gen back
- No announcements when game is far from release
- GP won't lead to GaaS content

Good guy Phill says a lot of things people want to hear.

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Damn never thought about it that way. You are kinda correct and thats a messaging problem. they really need to work on their messaging imo.

 

[Chettlar]

Basically everything Phill has been saying in the last few years felt apart in one hour :
- Cross gen because we are pro consumer
- No 3P timed exclusives
- Cross gen won't hold next gen back
- No announcements when game is far from release
- GP won't lead to GaaS content

Good guy Phill says a lot of things people want to hear.

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Yup. Pretty annoying and disappointing.

 

[Chettlar]

He got dumped on pretty hard here for saying that and now that it might not be true he is getting dumped on again. MS can't win with some of ya'll.

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....wat?

He got dumped on for the same reason. The first time because people doubted him, and yet again because they were apparently right to. What is your point here? There's nothing contradictory about this.

Also, if I don't want someone to do something they promise to do, and then they don't even do it because they were lying the whole time...like those are two separate criticisms. The first because I thought the thing was bad. The second because you were lying and that's dumb and bad. Again, not contradictory. Like if you say you're going to do a thing, while the whole time in the background you aren't actually doing it, and the big reveal comes and we all see you're not doing it...like you deserve to get raked over the coals for that. Just like in any scenario.

 

[scaryrobots]

Phil is an amicable, charismatic, and intelligent man who, you can tell, truly enjoys videogames. He has talked the talk for many years but, aside from GamePass (which is a big win, I agree), has yet to walk to walk.

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People said: Xbox has no games.
People said: They're all just Halo/Gears/Forza.
People said: They're not really gonna invest in PC.

So far we have a lot of games being made for Xbox and PC, and they're making some stuff that's very different from what they've had in the past. I don't know, it sure seems likes he's doing a good job.

 

[Deleted member 13077]

People said: Xbox has no games.
People said: They're all just Halo/Gears/Forza.
People said: They're not really gonna invest in PC.

So far we have a lot of games being made for Xbox and PC, and they're making some stuff that's very different from what they've had in the past. I don't know, it sure seems likes he's doing a good job.

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I agree with your rebuttals of points 1 and 3.

On point 2, the main issue to me is that Microsoft haven't managed to establish any other tent pole franchises since Gears 15 years ago. Every time they come up with a new IP, they abandon it immediately if it doesn't sell amazingly out of the gate or it doesn't review well.

At least Fable is coming back so assuming they're willing to invest in it as an IP going forward, that's something.

 

[Grayson]

Basically everything Phill has been saying in the last few years felt apart in one hour :
- Cross gen because we are pro consumer
- No 3P timed exclusives
- Cross gen won't hold next gen back
- No announcements when game is far from release
- GP won't lead to GaaS content

Good guy Phill says a lot of things people want to hear.

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That much is clear.

 

[Cloud-Strife]

How long are they going to keep the support for the base Xbox One on Halo Infinite?

 

[Horp]

"Since so many of our true fans love having cake in the fridge, we're going to keep it there"
Next day:
"Since so many of our fans love cake, we're obviously going to eat it"

 

[Steiner_Zi]

Two years only and every game shown for 2020 and 2021 are cross gen, where did they lie about?

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You realise that's 1 year and 1 month right

 

[Matty H]

People are confused because they are trying to determine the date where all games are next gen only. It won't be like that. There'll be a year or two of cross-gen only, then another couple years where some games launch on Xbox One but not all games, then it will eventually transition to next gen only. But by then we'll have more iterations of hardware and people will keep being confused about when next gen actually starts and when last gen actually stops.

I don't think MS have lied because they don't have solid plans beyond next year. Things can change, so they're just trying to be as open with their plans as is possible.

 

[arsene_P5]

You dont... seriously believe that right? Guerilla has multiple teams. They were prototyping Horizon in 2011

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Killzone Shadow Fall was in development for 2-2.5 years. At least GG seems to believe this. Do they have a insider tag?

Why are the Forza people rebuilding their engine?

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The reason Turn10 got more time is to rebuild the franchise. It's not (entirely) about the engine.

 

[CommodoreKong]

I don't know, seems like Microsoft showed off a decent number of cross gen games and the stuff that seemed further out because they were CGI trailers weren't cross gen. It's kinda what I was expecting.

 

[Ivanovic]

He must have left it in the same place as his "buying exclusivity is bad" stance I guess.

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But you see he's only buying exclusives because evil Sony forced him into it.

 

[reclaimerzzzzz]

You dont... seriously believe that right? Guerilla has multiple teams. They were prototyping Horizon in 2011

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It's true, Killzone 3 came out in 2011, thats when they started the trifecta of a new IP, a new engine and shadowfall. I can't find the source but Guerrilla pretty much said they used shadowfall as a test bed for the new engine because they already had experience with first person shooters or something along those lines. So yeah, they made shadowfall within 3 years.

 

[arsene_P5]

It's true, Killzone 3 came out in 2011, thats when they started the trifecta of a new IP, a new engine and shadowfall. I can't find the source but Guerrilla pretty much said they used shadowfall as a test bed for the new engine because they already had experience with first person shooters or something along those lines. So yeah, they made shadowfall within 3 years.

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Yep, albeit 3 years is a bit to long.

Herman Hulst, Guerrilla Games (Killzone: Shadow Fall)
I can very simply share with you that when we did Killzone 2 and 3, we probably maxed out with a team size of 125. We have 150 now, so it's marginally bigger. This is about a two-and-a-half year development cycle, which is roughly similar. It includes a hardware transition, so that explains potentially the six months of extra time.

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news

news

www.gamasutra.com

 

[Mubrik_]

If there's one thing I've learned about Xbox marketing over the past 15 years or so that the platform has existed, it's that it seems to have inherited the rather combative spirit Sega of America had in the '90s. Almost all of their marketing tends to be built around their competition: "our console is more powerful", "we don't do things the way THEY do", "we think [thing] is anti-consumer", etc. The identity of the Xbox platform always seems to exist as a counterpoint to Playstation in this weird next-generation "Genesis does what Nintendon't" kind of manner.

Phil Spencer in particular is a very smooth talker and he's very good at positioning those kinds of contrast-marketing talking points in a way that makes him sound reasonable and pleasant to an observer. He loves to tell people what they want to hear, and that's fine, that's PR's job, but the problem arises when your PR talking point is something YOU KNOW you'll be contradicting very shortly but you proceed down that path anyway.

And Phil has walked into a bunch of those bear traps this past year or so when he could've easily avoided them by just being a little bit more honest in the first place.

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Two things have become clear post-showcase:

- By "XGS games will be crossgen for the first couple year", they really meant "XGS doesn't have any games in the first couple years, except some yet-unreleased Xbox One games that are already announced." It's possible this could change, if MS has a Global Publishing game they haven't announced yet, but beyond that, it looks like ALL of their studios are accounted for with no games set to release in 2020 or 2021 outside of Psychonauts 2.

- Cross-gen absolutely holds back their games. Halo Infinite looks like it suffers a whole lot from being designed for Xbox One. And don't tell me it would have been impossible for Halo to target next-gen only because it's been in dev so long. Halo 1 was a launch title! Killzone Shadow Fall was clearly never a PS3 game either! It's quite possible, they just didn't do it.

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It takes a lot of confidence in your audience's sympathy to spin a gap in your own software pipeline as a pro/anti consumer issue against your competitor.

A more candid approach earlier on might still have elicited disappointment but at least it wouldn't have set fire to his credibility. It's baffling why he would offer narratives with such a limited shelf life. And to store up the fallout until closer to launch to boot. He knew the penny had to drop eventually.

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Came in, Read the thread.
Pointless to add anymore discussion/defence as the posts above cover everything.

 

[Iwao]

It's true, Killzone 3 came out in 2011, thats when they started the trifecta of a new IP, a new engine and shadowfall. I can't find the source but Guerrilla pretty much said they used shadowfall as a test bed for the new engine because they already had experience with first person shooters or something along those lines. So yeah, they made shadowfall within 3 years.

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Yep, albeit 3 years is a bit to long.

news

news

www.gamasutra.com

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Based on their GDC and SIGGRAPH presentations, looks like 2.5 years is right.

Spoiler: GDC 2014

Spoiler: SIGGRAPH 2014

 

[meenseen84]

I don't think he lied. They just showed games that are past the cross gen period. Games like Tell Me Why, Infinite, and Psychonauts seem to fit what they were saying.

 

[jroc74]

People are confused because they are trying to determine the date where all games are next gen only. It won't be like that. There'll be a year or two of cross-gen only, then another couple years where some games launch on Xbox One but not all games, then it will eventually transition to next gen only. But by then we'll have more iterations of hardware and people will keep being confused about when next gen actually starts and when last gen actually stops.

I don't think MS have lied because they don't have solid plans beyond next year. Things can change, so they're just trying to be as open with their plans as is possible.

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Ppl are confused because many tried to argue the start date for the XGS cross gen period was 2019, because it didn't look so bad if that was the start time. But 2019 logically never made sense. Some tried to say yeah the start date is 2019, because they meant BC. Okay....at that point I just conceded.

Now some of those same ppl are conveniently forgetting that and trying to say....where's the confusion. Not saying you, the folks that did it know who they are.

And this:

Two years only and every game shown for 2020 and 2021 are cross gen, where did they lie about?

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You realise that's 1 year and 1 month right

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I've said before for the sake of sanity I'll consider the last two months of 2020 as the first year. Instead of Nov 2020 to Nov 2021. But yeah....lol.

But even that post and some recent ones doesn't highlight that so many claimed 2022 was impossible to be the 2nd year. Or that their next gen only games will show up before 2022. Bad faith, disingenuous, not sure if all were. But some were, trying to make the XGS cross gen period look better than it was.

That's where most of the confusion comes from.

 

[SeeingeyeDug]

Look at it this way: what is the difference between Halo Infinite and The Last of Us Part II (or the original)? Both are arguably the biggest budget, biggest profile games for the Xbox One and PS4 respectively. Both are launching in the same year as the next generation versions of those consoles are released.

To me, TLOUII was Naughty Dog and Sony focusing on squeezing every ounce out of the PS4, knowing it will be BC for PS5 so sales isn't an issue. Now let's say they scheduled TLOUII to release alongside the PS5 and they had a PS5 version. Even without knowing the development schedule we can know intuitively the game isn't going to be what it could have been if they made it exclusively for the PS5.

Conversely Microsoft is positioning Halo Infinite as the next generation of Halo (in many ways). We don't have to know the development schedule to know that because they are supporting the Xbox One that Halo Infinite isn't what it could have been were it exclusive to the XSX - that's not a controversial statement. We can quibble over how far into development Halo was when Microsoft had a decent idea of specs and launch window of the XSX or whether Microsoft could have afforded to launch Halo Infinite exclusively on XSX. My point is that you cannot say Halo isn't being limited by the Xbox One when there is such a difference between it and the XSX. Like, they can't just turn up graphic settings, and even if they could that doesn't account for all of the other big and small improvements a theoretical XSX only Halo would have. Considering Halo is Microsoft's showstopper, it being underwhelming visually or from a general design standpoint (I'm sure it will be fun) has a dampening effect on hyper for Halo and the XSX. A big point of having something like Killzone: Shadow Fall or Horizon Forbidden West is to get people excited for the console.

And although I know why you make the comparison to BOTW I don't think it's actually a great fit.

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The thing is, unlike Sony and Nintendo's first party, Microsoft's studios are making their first party games for PC as well as console. So the games are being designed with ways to improve various things through beefier hardware. This game is also releasing on PC. There's articles about the campaign running on PC hardware comparable to the Series X. They've been designing with those capabilities from the start, even if they weren't sure exactly what the next Xbox would have for hardware years ago.

 

[Scottoest]

Seems to be a lot of half-remembered bollocks flying around about what Spencer has actually said about exclusives, so here are his actual quotes on the subject:

As for what Spencer doesn't want to do, he said, "Paying marketing funds so another console's base can't play a piece of content doesn't feel like growth."

This might sound like a dig at Sony's timed-exclusivity deal with Activision for Call of Duty and Destiny DLC, but Spencer doesn't see it that way. "People getting worked up on this," he said when someone suggested he was being hypocritical. "Never said Xbox has never done this, not calling out others, just not practice I like, that's it."

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Source

The ethics of locking content behind marketing deals remains a point of contention within the gaming community, and Xbox head Phil Spencer has once again come out and stated that he does not like the idea of paying for exclusive content.

"People always knock me on this; I've been on record… I don't love the idea or practice of us paying so other platforms can't play or use a certain gun in a game or do a certain level," Spencer told GameSpot at the Brazil Game Show. "I know I say that and, Xbox history–DLC exclusivity windows with Call of Duty–I understand the fingers are pointing right back to Xbox. I can only be who I am. It's not the best PR answer. But I don't like that."

...

There are also times that games come along that give Spencer a reason to invest in them, like Cuphead. "When there are games that come along, Cuphead is a good example, and the team had certain ambition about what they wanted to go do, and together with them we wanted to invest more. We saw more opportunity. And what that turned into was us having an exclusive game on our platform. That's a game that probably wouldn't have happened the way it did if we didn't invest the way we did."

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Source

"My strategy is more around our own first-party franchises, and investing in franchises that we own. I want to have strong third-party relations, but paying for many third-party exclusives isn't our long-term strategy," said Spencer.

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Source

If it isn't clear from the quotes above, his problems are primarily with exclusive deals for in-game content, not third-party exclusivity period. And does it even warrant mentioning the obvious - that saying you personally "don't like" a standard business practice, isn't the same as an iron-clad promise as an executive that you'll fall on your sword rather than doing what your competitor is doing?

The irritation some people have with Phil Spencer, and his business strategy of representing Xbox as "pro-consumer", continues to be equal parts baffling and hilarious.

 

[Scottoest]

Ppl are confused because many tried to argue the start date for the XGS cross gen period was 2019, because it didn't look so bad if that was the start time.

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People argued that because Matt Booty said "the next year - two years", in December 2019. And when someone says "the next year", they don't typically mean "the next year starting a year from now"

I always had questions about the logic of that, when the Series X didn't even come out for another year at that point, but it wouldn't be the first time an executive used corpo-speak to make something sound more amazing than it is upon further reflection. Plus he'd have the wiggle room of there already being a "family" of devices at the time - the Xbox One S, Xbox One X, and PC.

 

[dunkzilla]

Can you assure us that the titles that are not crossgen are going to be released in a couple of years? Because that was the intention, crossgen titles for the Xbox Studio Games released in the next 1-2 years. Game released outside that window is going to be only on next gen.

I see no lies.

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This makes their conference even more disappointing to me. That means only one of the Xbox Game Studios games they showed is coming soon if I remember correctly. Everything else is miles off then.

Seems to be a lot of half-remembered bollocks flying around about what Spencer has actually said about exclusives, so here are his actual quotes on the subject:



Source



Source



Source

If it isn't clear from the quotes above, his problems are primarily with exclusive deals for in-game content, not third-party exclusivity period. And does it even warrant mentioning the obvious - that saying you personally "don't like" a standard business practice, isn't the same as an iron-clad promise as an executive that you'll fall on your sword rather than doing what your competitor is doing?

The irritation some people have with Phil Spencer, and his business strategy of representing Xbox as "pro-consumer", continues to be equal parts baffling and hilarious.

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Isn't the Tetris Effect multiplayer content timed exclusive for XSX? Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Munroe]

So everyone kept mentioning that Phil said no timed exclusives, or he hates time exclusive etc. However I was doing a search and couldn't find anything saying there wouldn't be any timed exclusives. The only thing I could find was articles mentioning that he dislikes exclusive DLC, he doesn't believe that one console should have access to content whereas the other console does not even though the same game is available on both.

Edit: Edited poorly summarised opinion.

 

[TheDarkKnight]

So everyone kept mentioning that Phil said no timed exclusives, or he hates time exclusive etc. However I was doing a search and couldn't find anything saying there wouldn't be any timed exclusives. The only thing I could find was articles mentioning that he dislikes exclusive (timed or not) DLC, he doesn't believe that one console should have access to content whereas the other console does not even though the same game is available on both.

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So explain Tetris Effect

 

[Munroe]

So explain Tetris Effect

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That's still coming out to other platforms though. Ah I guess you're questioning ' mentioning that he dislikes exclusive (timed or not) DLC' sorry, that's me putting words in Phil's quote. Well it's not even his quote, that's just me poorly summarising. It should be just 'mentioning that he dislikes exclusive DLC'.

I'm not trying to defend or anything more playing the devil's advocate. If people have an issue with what Phil has said in the past at least reflect accurately what he has said. If he has actually said 'There would be no timed exclusives' then fair enough, but where's the evidence?

Ah it's basically what Scottoest has mentioned.

 

[EagleClaw]

nvm...

 

[Salty Rice]

Hey i get that Phil Spencer is maybe a nice guy but that doesnt mean you have to defend him for the bullshit he says sometimes.

The "He is our guy" persona some people think of him is so hilarious. He is still a corporate man that tells you stuff you want to hear if it benefits him and his brand like everybody else.

 

[dlauv]

I'm assuming the Tetris Effect DLC is part and parcel to getting the game on the platform at all. The fact that this DLC is going to other platforms later for free is good, but it's weird to see so much handwringing over a title that's spent two years exclusive from Xbox (Nov 2018 to presumably Nov 2020). It's not like they're keeping the base game from another platform.