It’s worse, but my point is Nintendo has a first party that can run things on their own if necessary. Third parties will come if you sell enough units.
I think Nintendo consolidating their console and handheld was genius. That helped build a base for the third parties to come.
Agreed, and I also definitely think rebuilding relationships with third parties is easier than rebuilding your first party capability. To be clear, I don’t expect Xbox to suddenly be at PS or Nintendo levels, I just expected them to be… well, a bit better than where they are right now.
I just hope next year is the year.
Considering where xbox was at where he started the role vs now, I think it’s fair to say he’s done a fantastic job, one that’s hard to rival
The one big downside is simply the games taking so long to come on a consistent basis but considering they fixed their first party right before Covid started and how long games take to make these days, it’s understandable
It’s disappointing but I get it, thankfully next year looks stacked and I imagine it will be that way going forward
The only problem I have with Xbox right now is the first party software, and I understand why that is they way it is. Late investment + a global pandemic = things take time.
Also untrue, the 3DS bled support (Vita actually had more third party support than 3DS did). It’s just, the few third parties that stuck around on 3DS put their biggest heavy hitters on it (mostly Capcom and Atlus), and 3DS had Pokemon.
Definitely, I would say Phil Spencer has dome amazing work at rebuilding the Xbox brand on every front except for the games front, the games front is so far where I would say Xbox is lacking the most (in fact right now I would say the first party Xbox showing is the worst it has ever been for my tastes), but, again, I can only hope next year marks the winds of change
I find it hard to blame Phil for 1st party games being delayed and most of them not coming soon, they’re just going through the normal requirements of AAA development which is a lot of time. The blame would lie with MS for not investing in Xbox more until 2017/2018, but that’s where Phil’s influence comes in, without his leadership it wasn’t likely Xbox would’ve been able to grow first party, certainly not allocated billions for it. Waiting sucks, but this is not waiting just being thrown around for nothing, it’s waiting because it’s the reality of AAA game development and there’s stuff we saw and we know are coming to look forward to. This doesn’t remove any disappointment from this year and the delayed releases, but we have to realize the reality of game development too, and the fact that they can’t buy time.
Phil’s vision is also not just first party, Phil’s vision can already be seen with how crazy the first half of 2023 is looking for the Xbox platform across first party and 3rd party on Game Pass. That is an incredible vision and platform advantage that we haven’t seen on any other place before.
I don’t think Xbox ghosts the community, they are in fact more interactive with the community than others, but maybe except fot communication about games in development which I agree but I think that’s also a part of letting the developers do what they want at their own pace and choice of communicating what they’re doing is up to them.
There’s smaller but important stuff I’m frustrated about with you too. Even that they have all the great hardware options and GP is on fire and when first party is delivering throughout the year, I’m still waiting to see them push globally with marketing, presence, and localization. I just haven’t been convinced they are focusing on that stuff now. It’s really embarrassing how their biggest games lack localization and regional marketing in some important markets around the world.
I don’t remember the guys name but before Phil got into his new position where he only has to answer to Satya Nadella, he answered to someone else and from what I read a while ago this guy was keeping Phil back. I think I read this back on RE, but it was a very interesting read. Because at that time we had plenty of people saying “Phil this and that, but where are the games.” and then we found out about this dude. I’m sure someone knows what I mean here.
Thank god Phil isn’t being held back anymore and he can do what he wants.
I get it, we want the big games that really show what XSX can do, new IP that is. But we can’t underestimate what the guy has already done so far. Since TGA I’ve seen people on social media saying Phil is great, but horrible for actually getting games, comparing him to Jim Ryan. That while Phil is more likeable, Jim does get the games out. If not for Phil Bethesda would not have been on team Xbox now, and we probably wouldn’t have had Obsidian, NT, PG, etc on board either. Under Mattrick this wasn’t happening.
2023 is going to be the year where we’re gonna start see things coming to fruition, results of all these acquisitions.
For me personally, It’s an A+… Without Phil Xbox would have probably call it quits back in like 2015-2016 i think, those days were so dark. I think under Phil, Xbox division convinced MS to go all in on gaming finally… Phil help Xbox get Minecraft, and then i think? it was in 2018 that Phil started the Xbox 1st party studios expansion… If i remember correctly before that Xbox 1st party studios, only had like 6 studios total it is now more then 23!!! thanks to Phil.
What really made me give Phil an A+ is the Bethesda purchased. With that one move alone they have me locked in as a Xbox customer/Consumer/Fan for life… I Love BGS games, Elder Scrolls, Fallout etc… Love them all!!! Gamepass too forget to mention Gamepass a brilliant consumer friendly move, that is helping me save so much money.
Anything else Phil is helping Xbox get like ‘ABK’ or any other move after is just icing on the cake.
My only real concerned are the new games taking longer than expected to come, but that is ok for me because of Gamepass i always have something to play every month and my backlog is still huge and will take years just to play them all.
FWIW, I choose B. I think they could have been more aggressive signing third party content in the early days. Like why was it Sony that got to Deathloop and not Microsoft?
I suppose it could be the Game Pass focus being a crutch when it comes to that kind of thing.
Ironically 3DS had more “vita” than Vita. And as always it proved that Nintendo does not need third party support.
It’s not even that, that’s easy to understand economically why they don’t third party money hats, at least big ones, but as I said in another’s thread the publishing games should’ve been the ones to fill the gaps. That was the other method of getting games more efficiently and early than 1st party but those are also similar in timeline to 1st party and a lot are still early development per info.
3DS’ big ace up its sleeve was Pokemon; I think any system with mainline Pokemon is guaranteed to do well, I think even a stinker like Wii U would have done better had mainline Pokemon been on it.
So, yes, definitely, Nintendo first party has an amazing capability of selling expensive hardware, that’s for sure.
A and it’s not even a question to me.
When you compare Xbox now to Xbox when Phil first took over, it is quite literally night and day. It’s not his fault that it takes years to move a ship as huge as Microsoft. Hell, it took him years just to convince Satya to go all in on gaming and open the cheque book. It’s also not his fault that he had to see out a bunch of pre-existing deals and multiplatform games when they acquired the studios; it was the right thing to do for the creators and for the industry, even if Xbox as a platform would have benefited from immediate exclusivity for everything. He also can’t magically make games take less time to make.
Of course, there have been misteps along the way (Recore, Crackdown 3, the current drought of games), but without Phil, we would still have 5 studios and there wouldn’t be any hope for the future of Xbox. I genuinely believe that and he gets an A in my book.
Sony probably offered more money however many years ago that deal was signed. Xbox has been hesitant to sign big AAA third party timed exclusivity deals since the backlash to Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Yeah it’s on this aspect I’m not sure if there will be big change. One of my biggest frustrations and it does not even involve me lol. Tired of hearing about people talking about how bad Xbox localizations are (or how nonexistent they are), even Halo Infinite (supposed to be the face of the platform) apparently had some bad translations in the Japanese version, and images always showing that retailers in these regions sometimes don’t even carry Xbox, Xbox sending hardly any stock to them… I want to Xbox to be a global brand, not just an American brand.
Yeah that’s what I was talking about in my post, there was some obstruction there that didn’t want Xbox to grow and wanted it gone. That’s not something Nintendo had to deal, obviously nobody in Nintendo wanted their console business gone lol.
Tbh, I think Phil and Xbox need to be less concerned about forum console warriors shouting their criticisms (such as for the Tomb Raider exclusivity deal, where the criticism was bullshit to begin with). I think they need to do what is necessary to get the best outcome for their business. It’s not like Sony or Nintendo are playing nice or too concerned about the criticism they get.
That’s fair, but it’s not like Rise set the world on fire for Xbox. Similarly, Deathloop and Ghostwire didn’t set the world on fire for PlayStation. You win some, you lose some.
I’m sure if they had known about the acquisition at that time, they would have tried to stop those deals from going ahead, but it’s always easy to say in hindsight.
Right, but the point I am making is, one exclusivity deal with backlash, and the game not doing too well after that, should not inform your entire business strategy in this regard. Can you imagine, for example, Nintendo stopping with this after Bayonetta 2 (also a very criticized exclusivity deal for a game that ultimately didn’t do too well)? Or, as you pointed out, Sony stopping after Deathloop?
I’m gonna be honest I don’t think Xbox stopped doing big 3rd party exclusives because of RotTR backlash, yeah maybe that helped a bit but I also think 3rd party exclusives mostly don’t align with their vision and they are a bad investment. They know the game, they played it before, and they aren’t doing it anymore because it doesn’t work for them and their vision.
A solid C+.
Having arguably the worst 1st party year in Xbox’s existence is pretty tough lol.
End goal wise ? It’ll probably be an A once these games come into fruition.