Xbox Acquisition |OT| - So We’re Back to Making Lists, Huh?

Gaming
4033

Small number of total games was the biggest Microsoft weakness for several reasons.

  1. Fewer chances to strike gold. The more games you make, the more likely you are to stumble across something that exceeds expectations. People don’t tend to think about the mediocre games Sony put out, they remember the excellent ones.

  2. More games means more chances to satisfy a broader range of customer tastes. If you only enjoy some types of games, it’s easily possible to only get 1 or 2 games a whole gen that satisfy you, even if the company puts out many great games in genres and styles you don’t like.

  3. More games in the pipeline means continual excitement without dry spells. If the next big game is always on the horizon, people are more happy about how things are going.

  4. More games means you can give each game more time to cook. Delaying Halo Infinite was a very heavy decision for them to make, but in the future where there are many more releases per year, delaying one major game is not such a big deal. Letting games iterate and polish for as long as they need to is a major factor in achieving truly great games, and this was challenging for Microsoft over the last 6-7 years because they had fewer total games coming out so any delay could leave critical gaps in their calendars.

As a general comment, there were only about 2-3 Sony games that weren’t matched in quality by one or more Xbox games - but there were just more Sony games especially later in the gen. First year it wasn’t such a difference.

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4034

I agree with that, I think we will see way more high quality from XBGS more than ever before but what I meant was that Sony had more popular exclusives last gen as in games that sold more, it feels like every AAA they released last gen sold over 10 million copies, obviously could be due to the amount of consoles they sold but I’m not entirely sure it was just that, I think their games appealed to the mainstream and were marketed very well, for example Starfield, Elder Scrolls and Halo Infinite (assuming Halo Infinite turns out great) those are games that should easily get huge numbers as well so I’m interested in seeing what impact an exclusive Elders Scrolls would have in console sales etc, we’ll see how it goes.

4035

Just drilling down on this bit. They did enjoy a lot of commercial success, but you’re probably forgetting some of their lower performing titles.

  • Killzone Shadowfall
  • Driveclub
  • Infamous Second Son (?)
  • LittleBigPlanet 3 (*)
  • Bloodborne
  • The Order: 1886
  • Until Dawn (? *)
  • The Last Guardian
  • Shadow of the Colossus remake
  • Detroit: Become Human
  • Gravity Rush 2 (*)
  • Knack 2 (*)
  • MediEvil remake (*)
  • Death Stranding
  • Dreams (*)

Question mark when I’m not sure of sales, bit strongly suspect it’s nowhere near 10 million mainly because they didn’t brag about them. Asterisk were the game is debatably not “AAA”, but I still listed it because it was a notable Sony release. I’m also not even counting VR titles becuase mostly they’re on the smaller side but also they obviously wouldn’t hit anywhere near 10 million in most cases - because the market for them is a subset of PS4.

These games usually sold more like 1-3 million range, Killzone was a bit higher as a launch title, Detroit was 5 million after a while (and on PC). In the last 3 years, they did have several major breakout hits, but this is why I’m talking about their ability to cast wide nets and pan for gold - because for every Uncharted 4, you had a “The Order: 1886”. This is not a slam on Sony, it was one of the strong parts of their strategy last gen. They also learned lessons early on in the gen that allowed them to retool their studios to produce other games that did much better - going from Killzone Shadowfall to Horizon: Zero Dawn was a major upgrade in sales and critical reception for that studio, for example.

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4036

I agree with all that, I think on the Xbox side The Coalition is a studio that should work on other things not because it worked great for Sony but because they are lowkey the 2nd or 3rd most talented studio on Xbox but I feel like they’re not going all out because they’re working on an established franchise and they don’t want to make a lot of changes to it because it already has an established fanbase, similar to 343i with Halo but IMO Gears could use some big changes even more than Halo, I really hope that they are at least on the early stages of another project, put Gears to rest for a long time or something, I’m afraid that that’s a franchise that doesn’t have much left to give but let’s see how they do in the next game.

4037

The funny thing is that many of my favorite games from the last generstion are on this list :stuck_out_tongue: Killzone, Infamous, Driveclub and The Order were fantastic games

4038

I don’t think it’s that simple and 360 is the biggest counterpoint to this…during that era Xbox saw it’s best 3rd party support to date (which directly answers the point you made that we should only care about the games) and since there was a decent Xbox fanbase here back then I could also benefit as a customer from Xbox having a bigger presence at retail due to demand - that meant better deals at games & XBL/MS points cards, more used games, game rentals were also a thing back then e.t.c. All of the above got way worse last generation of course and that’s why I believe that the success of a platform affects us way more than we think.

You also said that MS doesn’t need to chase mainstream mindshare but now it’s a great time to lead exposing the mainstream to new IP’s via Game Pass before Sony catches up…how will that be possible when the mainstream isn’t aware of the tremendous value of Game Pass when they go to a store to get a new console? if you have something as big as Game Pass you promote the hell out of it and that was my point in the first place - MS should be more aggressive with GP because they got something that the competition (at least for now) hasn’t. I can assure you that if Sony creates a Game Pass equivalent the mainstream will definitely know about it simply because their marketing is aggressive af over here.

I guess the chasm between the US and European Xbox marketing/promotion (it’s 2020 and MS Rewards are still not supported in my country to give you an example) is so big that my viewpoints and expectations are so different that they come across as weird to you and the other folks here that live in the US.

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4039

I don’t think you’re that too far off-base, the PlayStation brand in Europe is incredibly strong, generation after generation. So it does beg the question if anything else can be done by MS to bring attention to the service/platform in that market.

I may have been looking at these acquisitions from a North American mindset. It’s fair to say that MS has FPS and WRPGs locked down fairly well at Microsoft Game Studios, both of which are popular in North America and resonate well in Europe. But are there any titles/genres that resonate more strongly?

4040

Assassin’s Creed games are selling very very well here plus the western 1st party output of Sony so I’d say that the action/adventure genre is the most popular (besides sports and the big multiplayer titles like CoD and Fortnite) for the more casual audience. Third person games are also more popular than first person, probably because the audience is not that accustomed to the genre due to the Playstation not having any big and successful FPS IP’s.

Now that you mentioned it Fable could be a pretty big title for Xbox here in Europe.

4041

I think I mis-stated what I meant. I don’t think the Xbox gamer needs to worry about mainstream mindshare because Microsoft will get that. Mindshare won’t be an issue. Game Pass awareness is trending up. It’s adoption is trending up. The platform user base has a much wider net due to PC and eventually cloud.

2nd half of 2021 could realistically see the release of Halo, Starfield and Forza Horizon available to the mainstream on a next gen console for an entry fee as low as $25 next Christmas. Global mindshare of those IPs will explode more than the traditional console exclusive thanks to PC support. In some areas of the world, cloud will contribute by 2022.

Game Pass will drive the platform and awareness cycle. It may take a lot of pages from the Netflix playbooks for growth. The Xbox 360 strategy is antiquated.

My point isn’t to argue that content that has mainstream appeal isn’t important. My point is they have a lot more of that than people seem to be giving them credit for. Even Xbox fans are grossly under-rating how much potential there is with their current group of studios. I do think they need to diversify right now more than pile on with more mainstream stuff. I’d argue that in addition to the Sony game, Western RPGs, shooters and sports drive the mainstream. Microsoft has two of those genres cornered. An EA partnership with Game Pass for the other.

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4042

I don’t think I’ve seen the developer group Avalanche Studios Group brought up before, but I believe they are a private studio group and have worked on some interesting titles and have a history with Xbox now with Second Extinction coming to xbox and gamepass. They’ve worked on some great open world games like Mad Max and Just Cause. The group is three studios.

Seems like the type of studios that you could foster growth with and start putting out some great open world games with if there’s some more budget

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4043

They are owned by Nordisk Film (since 2018), the parent company from Nordisk Film is the Egmont group (which is private)

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4044

Anyone see Vanillaware happening? Great Japanese dev but not super efficient and has no real existing ties to MS.

4045

Here is a list of Steam games ranked by revenue for 2020:

Platinum Tier - Destiny 2, Fall Guys, PUBG, Monster Hunter World, Cyberpunk 2077, CS:GO, GTA V, Doom Eternal, Rainbow Six: Siege, Among Us, Dota 2, RDR2

Gold Tier - Sea of Thieves, Dead By Daylight, Civ VI, Crusader Kings III, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, Borderlands 3, Warframe, Halo: MCC, Phasmophobia, Elder Scrolls Online, BGIII, Ark: Survival Evolved

Silver Tier - Microsoft Flight Sim, Black Desert Online Remastered, Witcher 3, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Total War: Warhammer 2, Stellaris, Hades, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Cities Skylines, Planet Zoo, Raft, Path of Exile, Rust, War Thunder, FFXIV, TF2

Bronze Tier - Death Stranding, FM 2021, Arma III, Farming Sim 19, Wolcen, Fifa 21, NBA 2k20, Human Fall Flat, Don’t Starve, Star Wars: Squadrons, Hunt:Showdown, Apex Legends, Lords Mobile, Age of Empires II, Compand and Conquer Remastered, Dying Light, World of Warships, Satisfactory, No Man’s Sky, DBZ Kakarot, Fallout 4, Terraria, Divinity Original Sin II, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Fallout 76, Ori and The Will of the Wisps, Skyrim, Persona 4 Golden, Half Life: Alyx, Metro Exodus, Sekiro, Stardew Valley, Resident Evil 3, Risk of Rain 2, Avengers, Horizon, Deep Rock Galactic, Rimworld, The Hunter: Call of the Wild, Sims 4, The Forest, Remnant: From the Ashes, Europa Universalis IV, NBA 2k21, Hearts of Iron IV, Tabletop Simulator, Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links, American Truck Simulator, TemTem, Dayz, Pummel Party, Grounded, Jedi Fallen Order, Smite, Wallpaper Engine

Lots of games from Xbox Game studios (even older games are doing better than horizon and DS) and Zenimax games are very popular with PC audience,

XGS will be releasing games to a much larger audience than PS, if games are high quality and received well XGS will quickly gain mindshare (they already had a good 2020). Couple this with the potential of xcloud, Xbox is in a very good place. But most people won’t believe it until they see it.

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4046

Phil Spencer denied a Bloomberg article that they were talking to every Japanese studio so I doubt they’re seriously taking to one they have no relationship with.

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4047

Very good shout, they have also released a game that was published by Bethesda Softworks- Rage 2.

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4048

Been reading this thread and I agree MS will go for big money acquisitions still and asobo seems like a given too.

3 areas I havent seen talked about though that I think MS will 100% invest in are:

1 - Interactive story games (think dontnod recently with twin mirror and before with tell me why and LIS, quantic dream, telltale and the studio behind as dusk falls), this wont be a big money acquisition though, likely they go for dontnod and if as dusk falls is a hit that studio in London too. They could always build a studio for this too or continue funding these games through XGSP, either way gamepass makes me 100% sure they will invest heavily into this (more than the current 1 game per year if as dusk falls is indeed next year. I think they will aim for 2 of these kinds of games per year for gamepass).

2 - Second area is less obvious but Phil has alluded to wanting E rated games and while I do think banjo is being made right now, I dont think it is the only one (studios like playtonic, gears for breakfast and playful), could still of course create a studio or fund these through XGSP too.

3 - Japanese games: I dont think Tango is all they want in Japan, Phil seems to want to invest heavily in Japan, ofc Tango will grow but I also think he is looking at other studios too even if he denied the bloomberg rumors (I think there could be fire in all that smoke). Admitedly it would be difficult to create a studio there but I think funding japanesd games through XGSP is very much possible.

Bonus: I think they are also interested in some specific genres that I think will be difficult to acquire studios in but not impossible: Metroidvania (I think even if not for new IPs they would like to continue Ori, but moon wont be acquired and is also busy, maybe team cherry idk if someone owns them), fighting games (if anything KI will get a sequel at least, not sure if they acquire iron galaxy since double helix is with amazon), souls games (this is a hunch they want this genre covered, I would have said deck 13, but someone acquired them already), horror games (they are definitely interested in this genre, bloober wouldnt surprise me, TEW is as horror as RE pre 7 I think), again they could create studios for these genres too or fund them through XGSP too (very likely).

Thoughts, reality, wishes, hopes and dreams?

@Klobrille would any lf this surprise you at all? Is any of this realistic?

4 Likes
4049

I think there’s some interesting thoughts here, I could see some of it happening for sure. One thing I don’t think will happen is any studio working on Ori other than Moon. I don’t know that anyone else really understands and loves the game like they do, and I think Microsoft will always tap them if they’re looking to continue the franchise. They seem to be good partners.

4050

Sea of Thieves is a dead game :slight_smile:

4051

SoT is doing great, I’ll have to check it out at some point!

Also I am very very happy to see DOOM Eternal on the platinum tier! there is some hope after all for this industry! amazing work by id software and Hugo Martin! :partying_face:

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4052

Yeah, very happy to see that on the best selling games on Steam there are 10 games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda.

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