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

As with any show that pertains to Xbox, always keep expectations tempered. Then you can never be let down.

While Microsoft are getting better at understanding what gets the hardcore hyped, I’m still not fully convinced they’re there yet.

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Seems we come from a similar background. I’ve always had an Xbox, primarily for the Halo series and I would play other exclusives that came out on it as well, but it was never my primary. I started having Xbox as my primary console about mid gen, close to the one S time frame. I could just see where things were going for them and believed that if they delivered on half the things they were talking about then Xbox would be the best place to play and you are starting to see it.

Now with Halo 5. The campaign isn’t that good. Art style is subjective, I liked it and still do. I know others didn’t. For me where it shined was multiplayer. I thought the Halo 5 multiplayer sits up there with Halo 3. If you’re not a multiplayer person then Halo 5 would be hard to recommend someone imo.

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Same. I’ll believe it when I see it. I think they have awesome things coming but I think they will present those awesome things in questionable or sometimes terrible ways. Hopefully this is the year because I always feel like we’ve heard oh wait for the next one after every show. I’ve entered a headspace where I’m excited to watch and see what’s coming but I’m not over hyping myself. Until they prove that I should get hyped I’ll be over here playing games on Gamepass, you let me know when the games you announce will be there lol.

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I get it from your point of view man. I loved the multiplayer in Halo 5 and that was it. I’d argue the cinematics for 2A are better. But I have to admit that being a long time Halo fan, when 5 came out, I was defending it because I wanted Halo to succeed so much

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I agree with this wholeheartedly. With as big as minecraft is im baffled that they cant like, seem to get full support behind them. I dont understand how the super duper qraphics pack got cancelled and the rtx stuff on console is nowhere in sight, despite being one of the things used to first show off the console

Please create a map for XboxEra users when Infinite comes out. We can have our own party there. You could go all travis scott and have a podcast or a show while we’re all trying to shoot each other.

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Hahaha ya that is true. They will probably focus too much on indies. Show a 10 minute gameplay demo of the next call of duty. Cgi for anything from Xbox studios. Show a entendres demo of xcloud.

In all seriousness I hope they finally figure out how to make a good presentation. They always seam to miss the mark a bit. I know their studios have enough firepower to blow the top off, but will they… hopefully.

I honestly thought that the game was gonna be upgraded with the RTX stuff once the S|X launched.

A major part of their issue over the last 5-10 years has been content right?

Like, if the stuff you have to show isn’t looking good or of any interest to anyone, the format it’s presented in is completely and utterly 100% irrelevant.

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Even when they have a good amount of games they make just the weirdest decisions and I know last year there was the pandemic which made things harder and if something isn’t ready then it isn’t ready. But just for example last year all I wanted out of that show was Halo and to see what Hellblade and Everwild where and just 1 cool announcement that wasn’t know about. So we got Halo and I personally wasn’t bummed about the graphics because the game looked fun to play and Avowed and Fable checked the cool announcement box. But after a second trailer I couldn’t have told anyone any more about Everwild than I could a year ago and then why go to Ninja Theory and have someone talk and show nothing? Just strange choices. They have a track record of this too. See Gears 5 or Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Its all about the maturity of the games. They weren’t ready to be shown and they didn’t want to deter resources into making something just to show at e3.

Should no longer be a problem once they have a proper pipeline of games.

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Mojang is a weird one. Now, their success is undeniable, especially under MS. Minecraft is the biggest game of all time (unless you wanna argue Tetris), it’s a massive seller and IP, and the team is big. Like 5 studios big. As such, I reject this underfunded thing, it is well funded for what the games are. The studio still has an indie philosophy as well and MS is hands-off which is a universal good thing.

However, like mentioned, this is an arguable case where they may be too hands-off. Like, Mojang putting their resources behind a PSVR port over optimizing the game for the Series X and S is a really weird choice. Now, part of this is on Mojang for making the choice, but part of it is also on MS for not getting more involved. And not in the dickish “Stop the PS VR port until you make it better for Xbox only” way but more in the, why didn’t MS go to 4J or Panic Button and say “Hey, wanna help optimize the game for us, Mojang is kinda busy”. Now, maybe they are or tried and Mojang refused, idk, but yeah, raytracing Minecraft should’ve been on the system 5 months ago.

Still, I think on the whole their handling of Mojang is a net positive, and set the template well for the other studios.

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Thats Good Patrick Stewart GIF

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Outriders and MLB have demonstrated that MS can easily take pressure off themselves by securing some big Gamepass wins. If they still have time to go for their first party before gameplay can be shown, dropping Battlefield gameplay and Gamepass day 1 and another similar announcement of a fall AAA game will still generate massive hype, coupled with some 1st party CGI if needed.

But I do think we’ll get at last 2 X 1st party gameplay demos this e3. Hellblade 2 and one other.

I mean, the momentum MS have now, for me, all the pressure is off e3 really. I KNOW xbox future is amazing. I KNOW they’ll excite me this year. It’s all a matter of degrees at this point.

As I’ve said before here, to me Minecraft is just a mess. I have no idea how it makes so much money or who is to blame but it feels like a Mojang issue.

Some parts of the game are just broken, as in crashing, freezing etc. Anything that involves spending money is awful.

Fans about RTX in Minecraft: Why don’t you outsource it to Panic Button? The wait sux.

Fans about Panic Buttons patch in FH4: This sux. Why didn’t you do this yourself?

I’m only half joking. Jez has sometimes odd takes about software development. I think this is one of them.

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Some of those look amazing. You should definitely consider hosting some community custom games or something once the custom game browser goes live.

Show Off Season 2 GIF by Ash vs Evil Dead

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Mojang is becoming Atlus

Agreed! There should be something tangible they can show. Gears 5’s first trailer concisted of gameplay and that was 1.5 years before release. And there have been more games like Rise of the Tomb Raider that was still far off by then.

As for Fable and Avowed, I’m sure they showed something to Phil, a pitch and that was a long time ago. You’d think there is something they can show off now. Take Horizon ZD for example, its first reveal had full gameplay and representative of the final product too. We’ll find out this summer.

It’s a bit odd with MS when it comes to this. Years ago during that one E3 they showed off Halo 4, I was floored, along with my buddies, we loved that. They showed of gameplay from several third parties, Ryse had gameplay. Halo Infinite last year had a proper gameplay demonstration it’s just so unfortunate that it was shown in such a unfinished, early state. Had that been a reveal like Halo 4…oh man.

So they have done well before in this regard, but hopefully they’ll do it for more than just Halo this year.

Hopefully Phil reads this forum frequently.