PC too has potential, and even Xbox One.
According to the last earning calls date, we should get the next one end of January. It could be interesting.
I think it will take off with mobile devices, people that can’t shell out for a console or aren’t home much can play the native hits on their phone or iPad. People pay for pretty terrible phone games, now they’ll have access to great ones and 100s for a monthly sub. Also think about things like Minecraft on the go.
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A AAA release every quarter is the best XGS can manage unless they buy out the entire industry basically. I don’t think anyone here would want that… right?
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Nope I don’t
Not really. Here’s what I’d like to see. Studio additions combined with growth internally and increasingly fund more gaming education programs to generate more game developers like more coding bootcamps and invest in programs at schools near the studio locations. Increase the talent at your studios but also generally the talent in the industry.
As far as the studio growth they have plenty of studios that can be grown to add more teams working on AAA game, add a team to each of Bethesda, idTech, The Coalition, Double Fine, Rare, Arkane, inXile and Turn 10. That’s probably an internal billion dollar investment but gives you 8 more teams generating AAA games. If you assume they put one out every 4 years, your basically adding 2 AAA games per year by doing this.
Then on top of that, purchase 6-8 studios. Say they purchased WB, Moon, Asobo and Kojima and also assuming 4 year dev time, they’d add around another 2 AAA games per year.
Given they are already going to be outputting around 4 per year starting in 2020, I think this is very doable and does not consolidate the entire industry.
I think this obsession of having Xbox release numerous AAA games a year is a nice sentiment, but a bit misguided.
The way I look at it, adding a major AAA game to the service works as a Trojan horse. Gets people invested in the first place, but I do see many people staying because of other things they’ve found in the service after the fact.
Plus, the term AAA is kinda moot imo when we have games like Ori, Cuphead, Hellblade, Inside, Hades, Dead Cells, PUBG, Rocket League, etc. constantly taking the world by storm every couple of months.
Hey, the more high quality games, the better. I just don’t think higher budgets more often is necessarily the needed route. Game Pass could be easily marketed with adding major games on a set basis and many more smaller and older titles being dropped constantly. Not to mention service titles.
This is part of the reason why I feel studios like SuperMassive (Dark Pictures/Until Dawn), Tripwire Interactive (Killing Floor/Man Eater), etc. could really help bolster the lineup.
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I think where my opinion differs is when we talk about the scale of the number of subscribers. When you talk 100s of millions I think they things to get people drawn in and staying in need to be diverse. Essentially Microsoft needs to engage the casual users, younger people, older people, people that have less than 0 interest in an RPG or shooter etc. They need to put out enough AAA games that they cover enough genre bases.
They’ll probably need a AAA game in: Action, RPG, Shooter, Party Drama/Suspense/Story, E rated/Kids game, Strategy, Niche focused
Every single year with a base of users in the 100s of millions. Then you also need a ton of AA content.
They also can’t count on other publishers to be around to fill content gaps if they want to own the gaming market.
Not every game needs to be AAA. And it is not plausible to think that Microsoft could publish one AAA game a month. Those kinds of games take years to develop, not to mention the post-launch support.
A year with Halo Infinite, Wolfenstein 3, Starfield and Forza Horizon 5 would already be massive. Then fill the voids with games like The Medium, The Ascent, Psychonauts 2, Scorn, Tunic, The Gunk…
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Your thinking on today’s scale, they are aiming to hit the Netflix subscriber scale. Look at what Disney is doing to get there. The same idea applies here. They need the AAA games and they need a very diverse set of them. They’ll get there but they need to add way more teams internally and add probably 6-8 studios they intend for AAA development or major hit development. About half the acquired studios need to put out e rated content.
I also feel like we need to dilineate between AAA games and “hit games”. Fall Guys and Among Us are hit games that will be remembered as we look back on 2020 as much as Ghost of Tsushima.
Fall Guys being a PlayStation exclusive. I’m curious if it drove PS+ subscriptions for all those kids that have a PS4 for Fortnite (where no sub is required to play online), plus you got it with a PS+ sub at launch.
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I know what you mean, but it is just not possible to publish one AAA game a month. Each AAA game takes a minimum of 4 years to be developed. Microsoft has today 23 studios, but not all of them are capable of developing AAA games – there are studios focused on mobile games, MMOs, etc.
Let’s say that 12 studios are capable of developing AAA games. If they all publish their games in a single year, there will be nothing for 4 years (roughly speaking, of course).
You can compare Game Pass to Netflix, but there is no way to compare developing games to making movies.
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4-6 AAA games is great
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To all who are saying it’s not realistic to have 12 AAA titles a year just dont know the scope of things. Gamepass is 5 % of Satya Nadella compensation package, so start thinking big instead of small.
Someone watched Brad Sams video 
12 AAA games a year is a bit far fetched imo, it would be like 5-10 years from now if it were to happen. 4 AAA games a month with AA and indies monthly would be easily a goal for the next 2-5 years.
edit: and like others have said just saying AAA is very very vague, are we talking about a 12 hour AAA platformer or a AAA 150 hour RPG. AAA to me just means a lot of money has been put into the game, which doesn’t just mean it’s going to be a big massive epic game that everyone would love.
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Yes I did lol, on serious note that’s huge that gamepass is directly tied to his compensation package better believe he will shop again on level of the Zenimax deal, and not e rated game studios Phil Spencer wants.
I wouldn’t want 12 AAA games a fucking year. That’s crazy.
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Ok here is a year release window sort of thing I will expect in future, using old/new games though just to make it easier. This is to get an understanding of what I think will be the case in future, the amount, size and placement of games. just look at the size of the game not quality just for the purpose of this.
January: Bleeding Edge, ReCore, Crackdown
February: The Medium, Gears Tactics, Super Lucky’s Tale
March: Forza Horizon, Minecraft Dungeons
April: State Of Decay, Tell Me Why, Wasteland
May: The Falconeer, As Dusk Falls, The Ascent
June: Ori, Hellblade, 12 Minutes
July: Fable, Call of The Sea, The Gunk
August: Battletoads, Exomecha, Phantasy Star Online, Tunic
September: Gears, Dead Rising, Deep Rock Galactic
October: Grounded, Sea of Thieves, Perfect Dark, Viva Piñata.
November: Halo Infinite, Everwild, The Outer Worlds , We Happy Few
December: Ryse Son of Rome, Psychonauts , Age Of Empires, Halo Wars
Something like this would be a huge year, the most notables would be;
- Ori
- Gears
- Hellblade 2
- Fable
- Halo
- Ryse
That would be a mega year, but I would not expect something that packed for at least 2-5 years honestly, but I do 100% think they can get there for sure.
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Sounds like SEGA to me!
Sonic - iconic, family friendly
Yakuza - classic IP that continues to experiment and has become a Game Pass mascot
Persona - one of the most beloved JRPGs out there
Two strategy studios, both of which have worked on Microsoft IP before (Halo Wars 2, AOE4)
A literal plethora of dormant IPs to choose from or fill up Game Pass
Shadow - award winning, gritty, story-driven games /s
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Don’t see 12 AAA games a year. That’s just not going to happen. At best, 6 AAA games a year but my guess would be 3 or 4 AAA games a year which is perfect in my opinion.
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