How many people on that team do you know personally? Because that's the version I got from the horses mouth as it were.
And where was Uncharted's online mode? (released in Nov 2017 a whole 7 months before the Studio London project was cancelled).
As to Studio Liverpool, do you want me to reel off the names of projects that spent in, in some cases, YEARS of pre-prod without much in the way of creative direction and zero chance of getting greenlit? Want to talk to me about Combat Games, the initial re-thinks of Shadow Of The Beast, B-Boyz?
Again. I know people personally.
Yes resources were re-allocated to Evo in Warrington, mainly to work around consultation periods for mass layoffs... and what happened to Evo hmmm.
You don't get to dictate the parameters of public discussion.
Dude, I've pitched literally dozens of projects over the years. I know how the system works.
It means a lot. Not only do you need to hire, but you then need to integrate all the new hires into a functional team. Until you have a group that's been working together for some time, you're still on the learning curve. And no, Playground do not count because it was formed around a core of ex-Codies staff, just down the road in Leamington. Most of all making a racing game is comparatively easy compared to creating a RPG, the former is mostly code and art, the design part is mainly about tuning and structure, whereas with the latter there are shit-ton of other plates to keep spinning. Climax discovered this the hard way when they went from mostly racing titles to making Sudeki back in the early oughts.
Speaking of Climax, there's another cautionary tale about over-aggressive expansion, but I'll save that for another day.
Its a freshly created spin-off. So no.
Stop making excuses for your preciouses. Delays are delays, and noone outside the studio gives a shit as to the exact reason why unless it fits into their rhetorical narrative.
Pffft, yeah right. 3 years to put out a CG trailer says they are going through the sort of growing pains I described. The "best" people tend to have the biggest "opinions", you can't magically create a studio culture.
From my persective in terms of output they are precisely where Black Tusk was. Remember them?
Pre-Spencer? The problems were at the worst when good old Phil was most directly involved in development.
Yeah, lets see how relaxed and hands off they are as the newer, more valuable acquisitions like those part of Zenimax and ABK start taking their spots and they start falling down the pecking order!
Doesn't matter. Performance is always metricized and low return units get disbanded or reorganized. The amount of available resources is irrelevent because its about efficiency and ROI.
How are you this grizzled industry veteran and still this invested in console fanboyism?
Most of your responses have no substance, and involves you name-dropping. Still no credible answer for why you think the Initiative should have had a shipping title out by now after just getting started off in 2018, and why, with your alleged industry connects, you had no idea how and why the team was set up. Still no credible explanation from you which teams you imagine were a better fit for a Fable revival in 2017.
More tellingly, your 'experience' from hanging around underachieving, inefficient studios (as you've put it yourself) doesn't really give you any insight into how Microsoft's first party is being run. And that's evident in your illogical claim that the likes of Obsidian and Ninja Theory, two studios with ambitious plans for a Gamepass-friendly regular release cadence, would 'fall down the pecking order' and be supplanted by other studios.
20+ Years in the business says I know more than you.
Spencer's got way more years in the industry than you claim to have. Didn't stop you from rubbishing his decision to accept Playground's Fable pitch, did it?