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Phil Spencer Says Studio Acquisitions Are A Good Thing

I always found it odd how they had a HDD in every OG Xbox and then abandoned that with the 360. Also, Sony did the standard wireless controllers thing first, 360 still had wired. N64 had unified RAM prior to Xbox. Just saying. All of your other points stand.
Pretty sure 360 did wireless standard controllers first. Didn't know about the N64 unified RAM. Odd they went away from that for GameCube.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Tell me when they can be played on PC with Linux OS or PS5, and I'm game.

You could play most of Psygnosis' games on PS1 and Windows, both Sony's and Microsoft's platforms. The same can't be said about Bethesda's games.
I'm pretty sure you can play most of Bethesdas games on a Sony or MS platform.

Sony just didn't make it easy for some of the older games.
 
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Drell

Member
I won't get into that "sony good ms bad" or whatever fanboy debate it is, but in my opinion, whatever the short term benefices are for the studios or the consumers, having one single ultra rich company owning a majority of studios is called a monopoly, and I'll never want this.
 
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JasonNR

Neo Member
Yeah Sony would never do that.

Just look at FF7 Remastered, Ghostwire Tokyo and Deathloop as examples of them not keeping games from Xbox.

They are so virtuous with thier money and making sure everyone gets to play the games they don't publish. 🤪

I think many would've preferred timed exclusives like the games you mentioned here instead completely keeping the games from another platform.

Some people think that everyone in the world has reliable internet for xcloud, some can only afford one system and a lot of people also avoid PC because of the higher cost to start.
 

Melchiah

Member
I'm pretty sure you can play most of Bethesdas games on a Sony or MS platform.

Sony just didn't make it easy for some of the older games.

The good guy Phil's last comment on the matter implied they wouldn't be available anymore outside of their ecosystem. Outside of maybe few exceptions, like The Elder Scrolls Online.

I dunno how Sony made it hard to play Psygnosis' games in the 90's, since they were mostly available on PC as well. After all, the availability on PC has recently been the supporting narrative for Microsoft's money hats.
 
Did MS follow Sony when they put a hard drive in every Xbox? What about when they made wireless controllers standard? What about having a single pool of RAM in consoles? What about unified online gameplay system with voice chat? How about achievements? Yup MS is always copying Sony alright.
DirkMagusDCXIX @fanfiction.net strikes again.
MSFT didn't follow OG Xbox with harddrive in every xbox with 360.
You cannot rewrite history even though you
live in fanfiction land
 
Did MS follow Sony when they put a hard drive in every Xbox? What about when they made wireless controllers standard? What about having a single pool of RAM in consoles? What about unified online gameplay system with voice chat? How about achievements? Yup MS is always copying Sony alright.

PS2 had HDD port, PS2 had wireless gamepad, PS2 had a single pool of RAM, Dreamcast had online, even PS2 had online. Well, yeah, Sony copied MS for trophies.
 
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G Boaty

Banned
Well obviously he's gonna say that lol. It's not as if he's gonna say "yeah this thing we've been doing for the last few years to try and build our portfolio, it's actually really shit, don't support it."
 

martino

Member
No phil It's not absolute. And if it's still okaish given current context if the consolidation becomes too important it will be bad for the industry.
 
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Kagey K

Banned
I think many would've preferred timed exclusives like the games you mentioned here instead completely keeping the games from another platform.

Some people think that everyone in the world has reliable internet for xcloud, some can only afford one system and a lot of people also avoid PC because of the higher cost to start.
You can easily switch systems if one has more games than the other.

Only you are stooping yourself from playing those games.
 
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kuncol02

Banned
Xbox is always behind Playstation. Sony pushed the power narrative in 2013 then Microsoft started doing that in 2017. Sony pushed the subscription and cloud gaming narrative with PS Now in 2015 then Microsoft started doing that in 2018. Sony pushed the first party games narrative in 2018 now Microsoft pushing the first party games narrative in 2021. Now according to Jim Ryan they are working on bringing their huge IP’s to mobile market because mobile is the biggest cash cow in 2021 just ask Roblox or CoD/Activision. When PS games does come to mobile, I expect Xbox to follow suit after a few years late once again.




You are idiot. You know that?
 

Godot25

Banned
Of course it is good thing.

Obsidian was on brink of going under multiple times and Microsoft acquisition make them more stable and they can finally focus only on making games. Same for Ninja Theory, inXile, Compulsion. Same for Housemarque.

And Bethesda? Outside of Fallout and Elder Scrolls and maybe Doom games they struggled. They produced many great games (Dishonored, Prey, Wolfenstein) that didn't sell well, because they didn't chase trends. That's why they started to chase trends with Wolfenstein Youngblood and Fallout 76 and it backfired. Now, under Microsoft they can focus on making best games possible without worrying about stupid shit.

It's great when studio like Moon Studios (Ori) refused buyout because they value their independence and they found success without being acquired. But that doesn't mean that M&A are evil.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
5f37tb.jpg

The picture is funny at first glance but the reality is MS wants to reach far greater audience than your typical 3rd party publisher like EA, Ubi, Acti etc. ever will, ranging from smartphones, TVs, laptops, tablets, new and old consoles, and PC, literally everything that has a screen, at this pace it's just a matter of time when Tesla cars will offer GP as well, so from a gamer's perspective, the more studios they have the better.

But what Spencer meant is that studios working under an umbrella of a much larger publisher (once they become big/profitable enough a.k.a. "organic growth" ;)) means that the studio has lesser chance for failure/closure, and actually can continue to grow even further, because A) those big publishers have means to make a game more successful than a bunch of programmers who made the game ever will, and B) even if a game does't break the bank there are always other games/studios within that publisher who might make enough money to fund 10 new games, so at the end of the day the publisher is profitable anyway, whereas if you're all by your own if you fail once, it's over, and nothing will save you.

Take Minecraft as best example - do you think Notch would ever be able to make it as huge as is today by himself? Do you think he would've been able to make 2BLN$ on the game? Obviously not, the game has grew so much only because MS had the needed means, resources, and know-how. But like Spencer said, the studios have to go through those initial stages, prove their value, prove they can be successful and exist on teh market for more than just a year or two.
 
The picture is funny at first glance but the reality is MS wants to reach far greater audience than your typical 3rd party publisher like EA, Ubi, Acti etc. ever will, ranging from smartphones, TVs, laptops, tablets, new and old consoles, and PC, literally everything that has a screen, at this pace it's just a matter of time when Tesla cars will offer GP as well, so from a gamer's perspective, the more studios they have the better.

But what Spencer meant is that studios working under an umbrella of a much larger publisher (once they become big/profitable enough a.k.a. "organic growth" ;)) means that the studio has lesser chance for failure/closure, and actually can continue to grow even further, because A) those big publishers have means to make a game more successful than a bunch of programmers who made the game ever will, and B) even if a game does't break the bank there are always other games/studios within that publisher who might make enough money to fund 10 new games, so at the end of the day the publisher is profitable anyway, whereas if you're all by your own if you fail once, it's over, and nothing will save you.

Take Minecraft as best example - do you think Notch would ever be able to make it as huge as is today by himself? Do you think he would've been able to make 2BLN$ on the game? Obviously not, the game has grew so much only because MS had the needed means, resources, and know-how. But like Spencer said, the studios have to go through those initial stages, prove their value, prove they can be successful and exist on teh market for more than just a year or two.
Success was there before MSFT touched Minecraft.
 

Helghan

Member
It's not like Microsoft has any other choice at the moment. Development costs are way too high to randomly start a new studio and hope for the best that it works out. Sony has been creating and developing their studios since the beginning, that's why they don't need that many acquisitions, they've already manifested a pool of talent.

Microsoft/Xbox leadership dropped the ball around the last years of the Xbox 360 all the way until Phil Spencer got a bigger budget a couple of years ago. They could've created new studios in the 360 generation to generate a proper library of games. Since they didn't, and building games got much more expensive, they are now obligated to buy studios. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just more expensive this way to compete with Sony.
 

JasonNR

Neo Member
You can easily switch systems if one has more games than the other.

Only you are stooping yourself from playing those games.

Not as easy as you say, some have put a lot of money and/or have all their friends in one platform. I'm getting a PC whenever Corsair decides to ship it, but I still understand how others will not be able to afford another platform or may have other problems like unreliable internet for xcloud. I still think many would've preferred timed exclusives instead of not getting a game at all, which was my original point and was what you were comparing it to.
 

chonga

Member
He's basically openly admitting he is buying studios that have a high chance of making crap content the market doesn't want.

Talking endlessly about the risk and short-sightedness, so in other words if you make turd games and no one buys it, you're done for, but if you sold it to Sugar Daddy Phil, he'll pick up the tab.
 

MadPanda

Banned
For now… we are in the honeymoon phase of all this. Wait till some of these studios go over budget and underperform and/or Game Pass begins losing subs.
People like you have been saying "for now" for years already. Maybe one day you'll be right. One day.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
The honest truth is that nobody really knows how this recent raft of Xbox acquisitions is going to turn out. Its unprecedented basically.

That being said the historic pattern of most first-party studios is that inevitably they become treated like any other corporate unit, a thing that is judged based on expectations for productivity, profit, and synergy with the whole. And should they fail to hit these targets they will be reshuffled, downsized and/or merged, because rather than being seen as an individual entity they are just part of the team.

This is why the whole notion of a corporate parent being "hands off" is such a big deal; its essentially saying that the tighter the integration the more quickly and forcefully these corporate effects will come into play.
 
Because he was not commenting on what Sony did? He was in the podcast and Ryan asked him a question about acquisitions?

He just congratulates Sony on Housemarque purchase.

Maybe watch a video...
Yes, he's always 'congratulating' Sony on things and commenting on them, which is quite unusual for two extremely competitive businesses. Sony never comes out and comments/congratulates on Xbox things so I'm not sure why Phil Spencer keeps doing it... it's a very strange dynamic. I'm just wondering what the tactic is here, because businessmen rarely do things out of the goodness of their hearts for their competitors.

I'm not going to watch the full podcast just to hear exactly what the title of the thread said.
 
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Tommi84

Member
Because that article is about "next-gen only" exclusive games.
Exclusives, are exclusives. Both the generation exclusive and platform exclusives are the same thing - they block a certain players from playing the game. So he doesn't like one type of exclusivity and praise the other one? Funny enough, he praises the type he currently endorse.

And while I can understand generation exclusives (and why I don't like the idea of Sony's stance on GT7 and Horizon being cross-gen), buying out studios and making next installments of known franchises is something I'm not fond of.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
Yes, he's always 'congratulating' Sony on things and commenting on them, which is quite unusual for two extremely competitive businesses. Sony never comes out and comments/congratulates on Xbox things so I'm not sure why Phil Spencer keeps doing it... it's a very strange dynamic. I'm just wondering what the tactic is here, because businessmen rarely do things out of the goodness of their hearts for their competitors.

I'm not going to watch the full podcast just to hear exactly what the title of the thread said.
What are you talking about? :messenger_tears_of_joy: It’s not unusual at all outside of little internet bubbles like NeoGAF.

Here’s an example for you;









Even in competitive sports, where there’s hundreds of millions of pounds at stake, Football clubs like City and Liverpool and their managers always congratulate each other when their opponent wins the league. It’s called not being a little bitch.
 
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kuncol02

Banned
Both MS and Sony had mobile games in the mid 00s.

Banjo-Kazooie, Age of Empires, Ape Escape, Ratchet & Clank, Socom and many others were on Java phones.
But it's not about mid 00s, but now. Gears was released less than two years ago. There is Forza game released last year. If anything it's Sony who is following MS steps there.
 

Hawke502

Member
Man, its funny how these threads go, if you only read the thread you would think he just started to talk about acquisitions out of nowhere as a random PR speech, when in reality he was on an IGN podcast and Ryan asked him about it among a number of other things he talked about.
 

Godot25

Banned
Exclusives, are exclusives. Both the generation exclusive and platform exclusives are the same thing - they block a certain players from playing the game. So he doesn't like one type of exclusivity and praise the other one? Funny enough, he praises the type he currently endorse.

And while I can understand generation exclusives (and why I don't like the idea of Sony's stance on GT7 and Horizon being cross-gen), buying out studios and making next installments of known franchises is something I'm not fond of.
What? I'm talking about context of an article which is most important thing in article.

Spencer was talking about fact that cutting Xbox One generation instantly ie. making games next-gen exclusives only is bad...
 
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