Xbox Game Studios |OT4| This is for Studio talk. Studios. It's the Studios OT. Studio talk here (Part 1)

[andrew_schmidt (HaloGaming08)]

@MaskoPower

Since I struggle finding enough time to beat games and interesting in Halo Infinite, I began thinking about campaign hrs? For example, if it’s as long as Prey? between 20 - 50 hrs, I think I won’t play Halo.

Luckily, Halo always consider as a short game. 5 was 6-7 hrs, so maybe Infinite jump to 10 - 12 hrs and it’s OK for me personally. But for hardcore Halo fan, this duration means Twice the previous game : )

Probably the longest halo with how massive in scale it seems to be

[MaskoPower (The Game of X)]

@DeoGame

Joe Staten did beat it twice in a week after all.

Plus considering him as the new team leader and wanted to check the game slowly, he might tried everything in the campaign including all side quests and he managed to beat it twice, So?

My guess the campaign last for 15 hrs maximum.

And even shorter “at launch”, if the team planing to add quests/ expansions in the map similar to Forza Horizon series.

[andrew_schmidt (HaloGaming08)]

@MaskoPower

Plus considering him as the new team leader and wanted to check the game slowly, he might tried everything in the campaign including all side quests and he managed to beat it twice, So?

My guess the campaign last for 15 hrs maximum.

And even shorter “at launch”, if the team planing to add quests/ expansions in the map similar to Forza Horizon series.

Who knows

[javycane (Javier Ruiz)]

@Mort

That’s what a rusher would say…

Nah

[Mort]

@javycane

Nah

[javycane (Javier Ruiz)]

@Mort

Had those 3 Dishonored games under my belt already so Prey was just a natural extension of that.

[PoderickPayne (Travis Norris)]

@javycane

Had those 3 Dishonored games under my belt already so Prey was just a natural extension of that.

Hey, hey, hey. This is not the place to talk about extensions for what’s under your belt

That’s what reddit is for

[andrew_schmidt (HaloGaming08)]

@javycane

Had those 3 Dishonored games under my belt already so Prey was just a natural extension of that.

Prey is very underrated

[Ed_Comment]

@Sikamikanico

You’ve said it in a much more polite way compared to my acquisition rant from last week

It’s probably going to continue on till we hit May and the Summer Game Mess™ train starts chugging. It’s just understandably we’re in a “There is no news” period and a lot of companies are holding their cards till the mess. Especially as they will only just be timetabling employees return to Studios by the time we hit June and mass vaccination is available.

I’m interested to see what other companies XGSP are collaborating with. We’ve seen possibilities on LinkedIn between Avalanche Studios, Sumo Digital. There’s that Kojima Productions hint Phil had on his shelf and Stadia rejecting a Kojima pitch that was heavily cloud based (I wonder who else has big cloud compute capability). Harmonix said that they had a game nearly finished for Stadia that google dropped publishing for. That could be a pick up. As could some projects that were cloud focused and pitched to Google that they rejected/dropped. Yu Suzuki apparently pitched and got rejected at Stadia too (Gotta admire the neck on Phil Harrison turning those down). That’s what I would love to see along with what XGS/Bethesda are working on as well. If anything I’d love to see rumors of that (That are not Crackdown related please stop)

It’s just till there’s news and games to talk about. We’re in the endless cycle of “Who’s MS acquiring next”. And if that Sega rumor hasn’t gone away for the last 20 bloody years. It’s not going away now.

[brunopcosta1 (Bruno Costa)]

I believe everyone is more than happy about the current state of Xbox Game Studios, especially when compared to just a few years ago. The problem is that we don’t have much to discuss about most of those studios at the moment.

We don’t even know what genre Everwild is. We haven’t seen gameplay for State of Decay 3, Hellblade II, Perfect Dark, Elder Scrolls VI, Starfield and Forza Motorsport. Ghostwire Tokyo and Deathloop are PS5 timed exclusives. We don’t know what Compulsion Games is doing. Obsidian, Inxile and The Coalition have shipped games recently and we won’t hear about them for a while.

Obviously this is all justified. Making games take time. But it also leaves us with nothing much to talk about – to the point that we end up discussing new job openings in a studio.

When we discuss acquisitions it doesn’t mean we think Microsoft NEEDS more studios or that we aren’t happy with what we have now. It just means we have run out of things to talk about the current studios’ projects. I mean, it’s been more time since XGS released a new game then it has been since Microsoft acquired a new studio lol And the recent talks between Microsoft and Discord involving billions of dollars just add more fuel to the conversation.

[ChuckeRearmed]

@brunopcosta1

When we discuss acquisitions it doesn’t mean we think Microsoft NEEDS more studios or that we aren’t happy with what we have now.

I personally think that MS needs more studios - I expect MS to have 50 in the future. Also I - like Cato The Elder - like saying that Carthage aka Playstation should be destroyed.

I am aiming to predict what steps MS might do to cripple Playstation and gain the marketshare. But for example being out of touch I could not envision Discord because I don’t use it. Also I have a personal grudge with Playstation due to its attempt to moneyhat Starfield.

I mean if Sony were to moneyhat that - who would benefit from that? We would have just got 50-70$ game on Playstation and PC (probably either Steam or EGS if Bethesda took EGS deal). At this stage Sony’s moneyhats are detrimental to the accessibility. Literally no benefits to anybody.

[ProgStopper]

@Jeans

You’re going places, I see. You could be an insider next.

The realest fake insider since @Shpeshal_Nick

[javycane (Javier Ruiz)]

@brunopcosta1

I mean, it’s been more time since XGS released a new game

Quite literally the last AAA big release from an XGS (NOT XGP or Stuff finished after xbox acquired X studio) was Gears 5 in 2019 (not counting Minecraft Dungeons) .

[brunopcosta1 (Bruno Costa)]

@javycane

Quite literally the last AAA big release from an XGS (NOT XGP or Stuff finished after xbox acquired X studio) was Gears 5 in 2019 (not counting Minecraft Dungeons) .

I don’t think we should disconsider XGP when talking about XGS, though. Nonetheless, we had Gears Tactics, Flight Simulator, Minecraft Dungeons, Battletoads, Bleeding Edge, Tell Me Why and the Grounded Game Preview since Gears 5. But yeah, the last release from XGS was in August and Microsoft announced Bethesda in late September.

[ChuckeRearmed]

@brunopcosta1

I don’t think we should disconsider XGP when talking about XGS, though. Nonetheless, we had Gears Tactics, Flight Simulator, Minecraft Dungeons, Battletoads, Bleeding Edge, Tell Me Why and the Grounded Game Preview since Gears 5. But yeah, the last release from XGS was in August and Microsoft announced Bethesda in late September.

In AAA space we only had Gears. Everything else - aside of course Flight Simulator which is not on Xbox and in a league of its own - we really did not have any AAA game for a long time.

[Ser_Bloodraven (Hand of the King)]

@ChuckeRearmed

In AAA space we only had Gears. Everything else - aside of course Flight Simulator which is not on Xbox and in a league of its own - we really did not have any AAA game for a long time.

It’s hard to find platformers with as high production values as Ori. If it’s not considered “AAA” then I’m not sure any platformers can be. It’s a “AAA” experience in my perspective.

[ChuckeRearmed]

@Ser_Bloodraven

It’s hard to find platformers with as high production values as Ori. If it’s not considered “AAA” then I’m not sure any platformers can be. It’s a “AAA” experience in my perspective.

Let’s be honest - no matter high quality Ori is or even Hades - it won’t replace Assasin’s Creed for example.

[javycane (Javier Ruiz)]

@brunopcosta1

I don’t think we should disconsider XGP when talking about XGS, though. Nonetheless, we had Gears Tactics, Flight Simulator, Minecraft Dungeons, Battletoads, Bleeding Edge, Tell Me Why and the Grounded Game Preview since Gears 5. But yeah, the last release from XGS was in August and Microsoft announced Bethesda in late September.

Im just talking in house full fledge AAA stuff. Its literally been only Gears. Grounded 1.0 is not out yet.

Flight Sim is not in house, a niche game for all intents and purposes and its not on xbox to begin with.

[Mort]

@javycane

Im just talking in house full fledge AAA stuff. Its literally been only Gears. Grounded 1.0 is not out yet.

Flight Sim is not in house, a niche game for all intents and purposes and its not on xbox to begin with.

I have to agree. Gears 5 was the latest proper release from Xbox on that level. That’s a damn long time ago. Of course we are going to discuss whatever we have to talk about, at least we get new studios so acquisitions kind of fill a void.

[andrew_schmidt (HaloGaming08)]

@Mort

I have to agree. Gears 5 was the latest proper release from Xbox on that level. That’s a damn long time ago. Of course we are going to discuss whatever we have to talk about, at least we get new studios so acquisitions kind of fill a void.

Yea next release is Pyschonaunts 2 most likely