Tencent already own 9% of Frontier:
Hell, right now I’d rather Frontier fix the bugs in Elite Dangerous.
if you put the onus of recurring user engagement on the subscription, you free the games from it 
this was pretty clear from the moment they presented gamepass, but i guess people need to hear it spelled out
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exactly this. thank you.
This is why xbox games (like Grounded and SoT) are selling great on steam despite being on gamepass on pc. Sea of Thieves in fact had the biggest month in its history soon after launching on steam. I’ve been waiting for someone to come along and say the words I’ve had stuck in my head regarding this for a long ass time and finally I’m glad it’s out there for everyone to assess and understand for themselves, jesus fuck I’m done with these concern trolls lmao
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This was such a definitive, transparent interview. I’d love to see something similar out of PlayStation.
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Eh, if I’m being honest, the more Jim Ryan speaks, the less I like him and, more importantly, his product.
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Jim Ryan reminds me of Don Mattrick in too many ways. I’m buying PS5 based on my faith in Herman Hulst, not Jim.
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I don’t see them being public as the obstacle many seem to think it is here; I mean sure, that means that shareholders must be notified and agree, and the secrecy of the deal is near impossible, but Microsoft has purchased public companies before and these type of deals occur all the time. I do think Tencent’s partial ownership could create problems, but as many pies as they have their fingers in, I don’t imagine they’d start a bidding war over one of their investments.
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It’s a fascinating interview, where he has been able to explain some things better than in previous interviews. Like his stance on XGS games on the Switch, his vague answers regarding Bethesda and their content plans.
Good stuff.
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I’m not necessarily saying they should buy Frontier (although I’d be totally ok with that), but even if they don’t, they can still contract them for Viva Pinata.
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Excellent interview. I really like his thoughts on single player games and Compulsion games. I’ve been saying for a long time now that they should focus on more single player experiences. RDR2, Hellblade, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and most of Sony’s 1st party line up all have proven that there is still a huge market for single player games. Those types of games also seem to be the most likely to win awards at the end of the year and that would bring even more recognition to their platform.
I’m also excited to see what Compulsion Games is working on next. I think we are all expecting great things from the Initiative, but I also believe that Compulsion will come out and surprise people. The Cost of Joy documentary covering the development of We Happy Few really showed how much passion that team has and how they are quick to adapt and learn. With the right resources, I’m so excited to see what they can do now.
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Great interview. I guess that I just really appreciate the overall transparency in general by the Xbox team compared to the competition much of the time.
I’m very concerned about the single-player talk… the reason I’ve always preferred Xbox is because they always did such a great job of having a co-op option on almost everything. And looking at their first-party line-up now, I only see Halo and possibly Everwild. Please, please, please don’t become Sony. Don’t over correct.
Although, ironically, Sony is now getting into co-op and multiplayer with Sackboy, Destruction Allstars, Godfall, Ghost of Tsushima…
State of Decay 3, Mojang’s Next Game and Gears 6 should have co-op. Forza Motorsport and Horizon, Doom “3”, Gears 6, Arkane Austin’s next game and supposedly Wolfenstein 3 will probably have MP.
Double Fine is hard at work on an online multiplayer project as is Zenimax Online with a new MMO.
I wouldn’t worry too much. Above all, they need a balance.
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I have no idea why you’re concerned, the docket that Xbox released this year alone has had a nice mix of single-player and multiplayer titles. Phil is just acknowledging that, for a couple of years due to the previous management’s stupid decisions, there were almost no single-player games and he wants to bring more to the platform and GamePass where they can thrive. I don’t know why you’d think they’d forego anything because of that statement; between the bevy of devs saying they get to make what they want and all of the titles shown even at the July showcase being a healthy mix, it just seems a bit silly to be concerned.
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the initiative’s game is also said to have a multiplayer aspect to it.
Quite simply, I believe it’s best to make campaigns that can be played solo or co-op, like Gears, Halo, and Borderlands have always done. That’s how everyone wins. And it seems they’re moving away from that in their new franchises. I know it’s popular to say on the internet that making a game playable in co-op takes away from its single-player, but I don’t agree. Never have.
And I really don’t see this “healthy mix” in the July showcase either.
Hope so. And also hope Fable does. We shall see. I hope they grab someone like Turtle Rock soon.
There’s also Grounded, too.
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.trueachievements.com/n42587/all-games-announced-xbox-games-showcase
You may want to check again because over 14 of these titles discussed have co-op and/or multiplayer. So I say again, there’s very clearly a healthy mix. Furthermore “everyone wins” with Xbox when everyone has content they’d like to play; some people like single player games. Variety is key to Xbox’s vision and they are bringing at least eight new studios into the fold, where they could make some of those single player experiences without sacrificing any of those other experiences. I don’t get why so many fall into the fallacy of the zero-sum game; with as many studios and teams Xbox has now they can do both.
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And again, I think they can do both in the same games most of the time. I’m not saying these are gonna be bad games. They’re just not my preference and not why I have always been an Xbox fan. Don’t take it this hard.
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