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[nickname_esco]

Microsoft next boss move should be signing up ubisoft+ to GamePass. Don't need to buy or make new studios to hit their goals.

 

[Papacheeks]

I would say that MS already has brands that people flock to, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Forza, Halo. I agree for now Sony has a brand advantage in terms of IP, but until they can solve the logistics in getting a subscription service up and running, then they are nonplayer in the market. It's why MS is acquiring Zenimax and likely acquire other publishers.



I disagree, they want to make moves now before Google and Amazon. The console market has nothing to do with them moving quickly. They are simply establishing an early lead.

How has it turned out for Google with stadia? Not good.

And amazon literally has closed studios and games.

Streaming is not the future at this time.

 

[PooBone]

The Initiative is a AAA studio they built themselves.
That's a slow investment. Takes years for a team to gel, and you may have failed or middling games as a result. I like them buying studios and leaving their culture alone, just because it means more money for more games sooner.

 

[Oppoi]

How has it turned out for Google with stadia? Not good.

And amazon literally has closed studios and games.

Streaming is not the future at this time.

Dude, google the guy you're talking to. You might as well try and reason with the official MS PR twitter account.

 

[phil_t98]

I don't think Psygnosis was exactly AAA, and definitely not comparable to Bethesda, but ok. What else?

They were AAA did you not know how big wipeout was on Ps1 and it was also on the Saturn and if I remember right there was a port for n64, Sony bought them and kept the titles off other consoles. In later years they dwindled down by sony.
Microsoft takes a lot of flak for handling of studios but Sony have done the same with several studios and seem to get a pass on it.

look at this guys who made drive club, they got shut down by Sony and if you look at these forums how high reguardless that game was. People talk
About it being the best racing game last gen but Sony still shut them down

 

[TKOFromTokyo]

They were AAA did you not know how big wipeout was on Ps1 and it was also on the Saturn and if I remember right there was a port for n64, Sony bought them and kept the titles off other consoles. In later years they dwindled down by sony.
Microsoft takes a lot of flak for handling of studios but Sony have done the same with several studios and seem to get a pass on it.

look at this guys who made drive club, they got shut down by Sony and if you look at these forums how high reguardless that game was. People talk
About it being the best racing game last gen but Sony still shut them down

I think MS’s problem is that they really haven’t seemed to improve 1st party offerings, rather franchises like Halo and Gears have declined and they haven’t really had other huge hits. Sony has drastically improved 1st party offerings since the PS1/PS2 eras. So people forget the failures.

 

[phil_t98]

Santa Monica made god of war 2018 in like 4 years? Halo 5 was made in 3, and the "new engine was based off previous" Which I think is where the issues were. If you seriously denying that the studio/project didn't have issues then you are seriously damaging controlling beyond belief. MS has had countless issues with software in both creative, and project management.

I get that creating something new from scratch takes time. Horizon:ZD started initial concept in 2011, and released 2017. But here we have a sequel which possibly could be even larger and it's coming 2021. I get for new studios it takes time, I think my issue is they continued to make sequels to games that were in 360 era showing fatigue. If they want this new future with gamepass to work, then letting your teams like 343, coalition take breaks to work on something new is probably for the best. Gears and halo are not timeless like something like zelda or mario. There's too much stink from inconsistencies with the brands. Move on and let something else define xbox for a while then maybe come back.

Right now I'm not expecting anything else but halo for 2021 for big games.



I think you're reaching on this one. Which well known third party IP/franchise has Sony consumed and made exclusive?

The fact your bringing up old studios shows how much your just reaching.

Wipeout was major when it launched and it helped the coolness of the PlayStation of the time with its music and visuals, it was on other consoles to and Sony bought them and kept them exclusive till they shut them down. Wipeout was huge when it first launched not a reach at all. Was asked for an example and gave one

 

[VAVA Mk2]

Buy Bungie again.

 

[phil_t98]

I think MS’s problem is that they really haven’t seemed to improve 1st party offerings, rather franchises like Halo and Gears have declined and they haven’t really had other huge hits. Sony has drastically improved 1st party offerings since the PS1/PS2 eras. So people forget the failures.

Forza has improved and forza horizon has gone from strength to strength

 

[TKOFromTokyo]

Forza has improved and forza horizon has gone from strength to strength

Dude, compare the improvement of a racing series and offshoot to the laundry list of successful Sony series. Seriously, MS’s track record is the reason for their reputation.

 

[quest]

Dude, compare the improvement of a racing series and offshoot to the laundry list of successful Sony series. Seriously, MS’s track record is the reason for their reputation.

And don't compare teams who had nothing to do with the failures to the failed games. Maybe you should give the guys at obsidian, st albans house and inexile a chance to make a full fledged AAA game before shitting on them.

 

[TKOFromTokyo]

And don't compare teams who had nothing to do with the failures to the failed games. Maybe you should give the guys at obsidian, st albans house and inexile a chance to make a full fledged AAA game before shitting on them.

Ease up on the saltiness. I’m stating the fact that Microsoft has been in this business for almost 20 years now and their first party games are still lacking. Hopefully that will change, but their track record is not good. The same cannot be said of Sony during that same relative lifespan.

 

[Varteras]

They can do both MS is not some tiny company like Atari was when they launched the Jaguar.
They can work on getting those existing games in development to top tier quality while also expanding their 1st party.

They've not proven themselves capable of doing so. A large company having money doesn't mean all of their departments are well-run and competent. Looking at the last 10 years, they need to make sure what they have is working before loading a bunch more onto their plate. Their most iconic franchise was reduced to a meme. A rather painful point for me considering it's one of my all-time favorites. It doesn't matter how many studios they have if they mismanage them.

 

[Genx3]

They've not proven themselves capable of doing so. A large company having money doesn't mean all of their departments are well-run and competent. Looking at the last 10 years, they need to make sure what they have is working before loading a bunch more onto their plate. Their most iconic franchise was reduced to a meme. A rather painful point for me considering it's one of my all-time favorites. It doesn't matter how many studios they have if they mismanage them.

Phil Spencer has done everything he has promised.
Phil came out and stated that after fixing the HW problems they would be working on fixing Xbox' software problems.
So far MS has delivered on every promise Phil has made. I would say they have proven more often than not under Phil and Nadella they will deliver.
Making quality games takes time and it does suck that it took MS this long to take their 1st party more seriously but I have no doubt they will eventually deliver quality games.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

They should invest in a AAA studio that focuses on multiplayer only titles.

Maybe that's Rare?

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Hey, look at this guy. If you don't even know who he is then you should not be concern trolling about Halo in the first place.

Senior Creative Director on the Halo franchise since 2014, i.e. since the franchise was led by 343i and has narratively turned to shit, is not a glowing endorsement. In fact, it’s the complete opposite.

As such, my original point still stands. Halo needs a creative visionary driving the franchise, and one who understands what fans enjoy most about the IP.

 

[kuncol02]

Wipeout was major when it launched and it helped the coolness of the PlayStation of the time with its music and visuals, it was on other consoles to and Sony bought them and kept them exclusive till they shut them down. Wipeout was huge when it first launched not a reach at all. Was asked for an example and gave one

Psygnosis was owned by Sony even before Playstation, but were mostly independent till renamed into Studio Liverpool. That's also moment when they stopped publishing games.

 

[phil_t98]

Psygnosis was owned by Sony even before Playstation, but were mostly independent till renamed into Studio Liverpool. That's also moment when they stopped publishing games.

yeah but they were owned by a different part of sony at the tie, it creates friction as they continued to release on other platforms till Sony Computer Entertainment took over them and created Studio Liverpool. remember before PS1 they released games on other consoles and computers to like the ST and Amiga.

Now in terms of other studios we have lost in Liverpool Bizarre Creations is a huge loss, that was down to mismanagement by Activision when they bought them, shame they didn't stay independent and carry on doing PGR for Microsoft

 

[kuncol02]

yeah but they were owned by a different part of sony at the tie, it creates friction as they continued to release on other platforms till Sony Computer Entertainment took over them and created Studio Liverpool. remember before PS1 they released games on other consoles and computers to like the ST and Amiga.

Now in terms of other studios we have lost in Liverpool Bizarre Creations is a huge loss, that was down to mismanagement by Activision when they bought them, shame they didn't stay independent and carry on doing PGR for Microsoft

How is that most of main racing studios are from UK? Evolution Studio, Studio Liverpool, Bizarre Creations, Playground Games, Codemasters?

 

[Kumomeme]

they buy enough already

so they could use all those established studio knowledge to help creating new own first party studio. they need homegrown studio and ip to prove their capabilities

 

[bxrz]

Senior Creative Director on the Halo franchise since 2014, i.e. since the franchise was led by 343i and has narratively turned to shit, is not a glowing endorsement. In fact, it’s the complete opposite.

As such, my original point still stands. Halo needs a creative visionary driving the franchise, and one who understands what fans enjoy most about the IP.

He did the cutscenes on the Halo trilogy. You should use google better

 

[Bernkastel]

Senior Creative Director on the Halo franchise since 2014, i.e. since the franchise was led by 343i and has narratively turned to shit, is not a glowing endorsement. In fact, it’s the complete opposite.

As such, my original point still stands. Halo needs a creative visionary driving the franchise, and one who understands what fans enjoy most about the IP.

Joseph Staten was the writer for the Bungie Halo games and also the cinematic director. He also wrote many of the Halo novels and the original Destiny story(those Grimoire Cards you read in Destiny 1), but since Bungie scraped his version of Destiny, so he left. He only joined 343i as creative director recently.

Confirmed by Bloomberg: Microsoft brings back Halo veteran Joseph Staten to get Infinite back on track

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-27/microsoft-brings-back-halo-veteran-to-get-delayed-game-back-on-track

www.neogaf.com

Currently Joseph Staten is in charge of all single player stuffs for future and Pierre Hintze (who was responsible for fixing MCC) in charge of all multiplayer.

 

[phil_t98]

How is that most of main racing studios are from UK? Evolution Studio, Studio Liverpool, Bizarre Creations, Playground Games, Codemasters?

simple, Petrol heads lol

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

He did the cutscenes on the Halo trilogy. You should use google better

Cinematics director and writer isn’t the person with chief creative control. It’s not the person whose responsibility is to drive their own creative vision for the franchise. Rather he’s the person fleshing out the vision of the creative lead.

Educate yourself.

Joseph Staten was the writer for the Bungie Halo games and also the cinematic director. He also wrote many of the Halo novels and the original Destiny story(those Grimoire Cards you read in Destiny 1), but since Bungie scraped his version of Destiny, so he left. He only joined 343i as creative director recently.

Confirmed by Bloomberg: Microsoft brings back Halo veteran Joseph Staten to get Infinite back on track

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-27/microsoft-brings-back-halo-veteran-to-get-delayed-game-back-on-track

www.neogaf.com

Currently Joseph Staten is in charge of all single player stuffs for future and Pierre Hintze (who was responsible for fixing MCC) in charge of all multiplayer.

See above.

He only climbed into the creative leadership driving seat in 2014, and the fruit of his labours have been more or less universally maligned by the Halo community.

He seems to have done well fleshing out the expanded universe lore in the books, but his labours on the games, which is the genesis and most important piece of the entire franchise, have been lack lustre at best and at worst bordering on fan-fiction level (Halo Guardians anyone?)

His work on Destiny really speaks for itself. The fact that even the studio leads didn’t believe in it and scrapped it speaks volumes.

 

[cromofo]

I don't mind. I play exclusively on PC. I'd much rather have MS buy studios than Sony. Microsoft buying ZeniMax was the best case scenario for consumers.

 

[Bernkastel]

Cinematics director and writer isn’t the person with chief creative control. It’s not the person whose responsibility is to drive their own creative vision for the franchise. Rather he’s the person fleshing out the vision of the creative lead.

Educate yourself.



See above.

He only climbed into the creative leadership driving seat in 2014, and the fruit of his labours have been more or less universally maligned by the Halo community.

He seems to have done well fleshing out the expanded universe lore in the books, but his labours on the games, which is the genesis and most important piece of the entire franchise, have been lack lustre at best and at worst bordering on fan-fiction level (Halo Guardians anyone?)

His work on Destiny really speaks for itself. The fact that even the studio leads didn’t believe in it and scrapped it speaks volumes.

You have no idea what you are talking about. The original Destiny sounds way better than the mess we got in 2014.


The writers that Bungie hired after that still put parts of his script in the Grimoire cards because they liked it so much.

 

[bxrz]

Cinematics director and writer isn’t the person with chief creative control. It’s not the person whose responsibility is to drive their own creative vision for the franchise. Rather he’s the person fleshing out the vision of the creative lead.

Educate yourself.



See above.

He only climbed into the creative leadership driving seat in 2014, and the fruit of his labours have been more or less universally maligned by the Halo community.

He seems to have done well fleshing out the expanded universe lore in the books, but his labours on the games, which is the genesis and most important piece of the entire franchise, have been lack lustre at best and at worst bordering on fan-fiction level (Halo Guardians anyone?)

His work on Destiny really speaks for itself. The fact that even the studio leads didn’t believe in it and scrapped it speaks volumes.

Why does that matter? Hes been with the franchise since its 1st game. And he was a major part. Hes written lore books. He was a writer for H3 and Reach, two games with good campaigns. How can you sit here and say he doesn’t know what the Halo franchise needs and expect anyone to take you seriously

 

[VincentMatts]

Buying is easier, so buy.

 

[SaucyJack]

Right now? NEITHER!

What I would really like Microsoft to do is manage their existing (large) portfolio of studios and get them to be significantly more productive, whilst giving them the artistic freedom to pursue greater variety in their projects.

Think of a sports team, you can’t just continuously add players to the roster, you also need to put a team out on the pitch.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

You have no idea what you are talking about. The original Destiny sounds way better than the mess we got in 2014.


The writers that Bungie hired after that still put parts of his script in the Grimoire cards because they liked it so much.

None of this is relevant. How does the subquent quality (or lack thereof) of Destiny’s creative direction matter to the former writer’s work on Halo since 2014 and the future of the Halo franchise? It doesn’t.

What matters is the current creative lead’s work on Destiny has since been mostly abandoned, which says enough in and of itself, and his current work on the Halo franchise has brought the franchise to its lowest point in decades.

Why does that matter? Hes been with the franchise since its 1st game. And he was a major part. Hes written lore books. He was a writer for H3 and Reach, two games with good campaigns. How can you sit here and say he doesn’t know what the Halo franchise needs and expect anyone to take you seriously

How can anyone take you seriously when you’re arguing the virtue of the creative direction of the guy responsible for Halo 4 and Halo 5, literally the two worst games in the franchise in terms of both the story and single player campaign since the franchises inception?

No-one else here other than you seems to be under any illusion that the Halo SP campaigns since the OG trilogy have tanked in quality, with the most recent games being the absolute worst.

Next, you’re gonna try and convince us that Halo 4 and 5 narratively have any redeeming qualities.

Regardless, this is all getting heavily OT for this thread.

 

[Salty Popsicle]

None of this is relevant. How does the subquent quality (or lack thereof) of Destiny’s creative direction matter to the former writer’s work on Halo since 2014 and the future of the Halo franchise? It doesn’t.

What matters is the current creative lead’s work on Destiny has since been mostly abandoned, which says enough in and of itself, and his current work on the Halo franchise has brought the franchise to its lowest point in decades.



How can anyone take you seriously when you’re arguing the virtue of the creative direction of the guy responsible for Halo 4 and Halo 5, literally the two worst games in the franchise in terms of both the story and single player campaign since the franchises inception?

No-one else here other than you seems to be under any illusion that the Halo SP campaigns since the OG trilogy have tanked in quality, with the most recent games being the absolute worst.

Next, you’re gonna try and convince us that Halo 4 and 5 narratively have any redeeming qualities.

Regardless, this is all getting heavily OT for this thread.

Joseph Staten was writing the lore of Destiny with Bungie when Halo 4 was released, so he had nothing to do with the narrative or direction in that game. He rejoined Microsoft in 2014 and wrote the story for ReCore during the time Halo 5 was being made, so again, he had nothing to do with that installment of the series. Why are you spreading misinformation when clearly you don't know what you're talking about. The fact that you had to look him up on Google instead of recognizing his name from the get-go just shows you are not a Halo fan from the OG days. Joseph Staten has appeared in pretty much every Bungie ViDoc since the 2004 and is responsible for many of the facets of the Halo universe that made it so popular.

Also, Destiny was panned for having a supremely vague main-story in-game while having an amazing lore that was only accessible through the Grimoire cards, which were written by Staten himself. So I don't understand how you can criticize him for that.

 

[Bernkastel]

None of this is relevant. How does the subquent quality (or lack thereof) of Destiny’s creative direction matter to the former writer’s work on Halo since 2014 and the future of the Halo franchise? It doesn’t.

What matters is the current creative lead’s work on Destiny has since been mostly abandoned, which says enough in and of itself, and his current work on the Halo franchise has brought the franchise to its lowest point in decades.

Except for the novels, he had nothing to do with 343i before Infinite. He wrote the story for Recore(2016). You really don't know what you are talking about.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Joseph Staten was writing the lore of Destiny with Bungie when Halo 4 was released, so he had nothing to do with the narrative or direction in that game. He rejoined Microsoft in 2014 and wrote the story for ReCore during the time Halo 5 was being made, so again, he had nothing to do with that installment of the series. Why are you spreading misinformation when clearly you don't know what you're talking about. The fact that you had to look him up on Google instead of recognizing his name from the get-go just shows you are not a Halo fan from the OG days. Joseph Staten has appeared in pretty much every Bungie ViDoc since the 2004 and is responsible for many of the facets of the Halo universe that made it so popular.

Also, Destiny was panned for having a supremely vague main-story in-game while having an amazing lore that was only accessible through the Grimoire cards, which were written by Staten himself. So I don't understand how you can criticize him for that.

Except for the novels, he had nothing to do with 343i before Infinite. He wrote the story for Recore(2016). You really don't know what you are talking about.

Fair enough. Well, if he had nothing to do with H4 and 5 then that’s definitely a positive in his favour.

Still, ReCore? Lol. At most I’ll agree he still needs to prove his creative leadership chops in the driving seat of the Halo franchise. Lets see how Halo: Infinite turns out then.

 

[Macromolecola]

of course I'd like them to create new studios and new games.

 

[Tmack]

Buying is easier, so buy.

Buying publishers that already publish on xbox doesnt make any difference on the xbox library...

Clearly the last gen xbox lineup wasn`t the cup of tea of a large parcel of people out there. Buying studios that already published on their last gen won`t help them change people minds.

What MS needs to do is create unique experiences and bold games that make them stand out.

Flight Simulator is a good example of such game. It`s unbeliavable this wasn`t a xbox launch game. Microsoft strategy seems very disfunctional.... You can`t buy yourself out of bad decissions and missmanagement.

 

[Metnut]

I don’t mind them acquiring studios but I’d rather them acquire smaller studios and build them up into something better to release killer games they otherwise wouldn’t have been made.

Buying Bethesda doesn’t really accomplish that because we would’ve been able to play on XBox or PC even if they hadn’t purchased. It was a lot of money spent to not really add any new games for XBox owners that they weren’t already getting.

 

[bxrz]

None of this is relevant. How does the subquent quality (or lack thereof) of Destiny’s creative direction matter to the former writer’s work on Halo since 2014 and the future of the Halo franchise? It doesn’t.

What matters is the current creative lead’s work on Destiny has since been mostly abandoned, which says enough in and of itself, and his current work on the Halo franchise has brought the franchise to its lowest point in decades.



How can anyone take you seriously when you’re arguing the virtue of the creative direction of the guy responsible for Halo 4 and Halo 5, literally the two worst games in the franchise in terms of both the story and single player campaign since the franchises inception?

No-one else here other than you seems to be under any illusion that the Halo SP campaigns since the OG trilogy have tanked in quality, with the most recent games being the absolute worst.

Next, you’re gonna try and convince us that Halo 4 and 5 narratively have any redeeming qualities.

Regardless, this is all getting heavily OT for this thread.

How was he responsible for their of those games? Judging by his Linkedin, he was at Bungie from 2007-2013. Halo 4 came out 2012. Clearly he had no involvement in that game as he was involved in making Destiny for 4 years (as his Linkedin says)

He came back to Microsoft 9 months before Halo 5 came out and Wiki states that he was not directly involved with the development of Halo 5

So he had nothing to do with Halo 4 and Halo 5. You really tried to blame someone for games that they had NOTHING to do with. Not sure why you would lie or boost when Google and Wiki are literally free but haters don’t use logic or facts so here we are.