Looks like Xbox is building a team in Costa Rica. They used to have these open positions before they announced the hiring freeze in July 2022, but now these positions are coming back. I remember they had positions in Chile as well pre-hiring freeze, so they could come back as well.
Although Costa Rica might be just one of the possible remote work locations in the world. That being said, they hired someone to work with Latin American game devs, so this could be a support team for that purpose.
I’ll keep an eye out for more indie games coming to Game Pass from this region in the coming years.
I wonder if some people from Activision would climb to the top of Xbox, people like Lulu Cheng or marketing teams. When MS bought Bethesda some talents that created Orion (Id Software) moved to MS cloud gaming. I imagine that something similar will happen with Activision but on a larger scale as it is the largest and most successful publisher.
I could see that, I don’t mind a 1 year out announcement like that. They could do something like they did with the Gears 5 but with Kait with a 2024 release date
Historically, Xbox has often announced games 18 months out. Sunset Overdrive, Halo 5, Gears 5, Starfield and Redfall before they got delayed. I’m expecting the same for Gears 6 and Midnight.
A short E3 trailer announcing the game and maybe a cutscene in the game or CGI with a date for release the next year then show it again at the E3 in the launch year with a gameplay trailer and then 3 months out do a deep dive Xbox Direct for the game.
I believe very strongly that Project Midnight needs to be announced with gameplay, like Horizon 1 and GoW 2018. A new IP from an unproven team would not show well with a CGI trailer, but with stunning gameplay it would blow people away. Especially since it’s been development for 4-5 years and is hopefully coming in the next 18 months.
Bethesda’s next wave of games is going to be very interesting. We don’t really know what’s coming except for Indiana Jones (I think TES VI is the next wave after that).
I imagine the next wave of Bethesda titles will be Indy, the ZOS game, whatever SpyTeam is, I guess Roundhouse and maybe Arkane Lyon.
I’m quiet happy Zenimax has been kept as an independent/limited integration organization, they had a unique way of doing games. They delivered an amazing wave of single player games in 2016-17, most of which bombed due to puzzling marketing. That clearly led to cash flow problems - unfinished Fallout 76, shoehorned microtransactions, accepting moneyhats from Sony… Hopefully now that they’re under Microsoft, their games can generate enough engagement among the Game Pass subscribers that Microsoft pumps more money into them. Starfield is a slam dunk winner, but I’m curious how Redfall performs.
“We try to be very clear that there are no microtransactions and there is no store in the game. We’re very proud of that. If you find a costume in the game, then you can have it, as simple as that.”
I really like when games treat cosmetics as an in-game reward. Ghost of Tsushima and Mario Odyssey are great examples. That said, I’m not sure what’s the purpose of costumes in a first person shooter if you’re playing solo. Halo Reach had 3rd person cut-scenes to show your custom spartan, but I think Redfall will be completely first person.
Should do pretty well. Sea of Thieves did 2 million week 1 when gamepass was little more than a joke to Xbox haters. So with 30 million…i expect at least double. If it does more than 5…thats going to be something to talk about.
