Xbox Studios in 3 years

[Clive]

@Hindle

I’ve gone after Zhuge numerous times before whilst he was on Gaf, and the early days of Era. However as the years have gone on, I feel he has become less biased, and more neutral. I think that info he had may have been based on the previous years of xbox.

Of course it was. And everyone in the industry was saying the same thing at that time.

[Wom]

Biggest difference is Game Pass nowadays. Microsoft is all-in on that service and the studio’s are a part of the bigger plan. I only expect to have more games available on Game Pass, also from 1st party. Even people unfamiliar with Game Pass are starting to take notice of that service. Even the big toy shops are advertising it now in their adverts.

[Bits-N-Pieces]

https://youtu.be/4cia_v4vxfE

[FairyEmpire]

The tweet from Zhuge was, in hindsight, probably false. But either way, it’s very noticeable that things indeed changed. Around then, our main games to look forward to were… Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2, Crackdown 3 and Cuphead with Ori 2, a new Halo and a new Gears that would arrive eventually. Not to shit on any of these games, but if you look at the what Microsoft is publishing this year alone, and how much more they still have actively announced for the next years, it’s night and day really. And these are just the games: there’s the width of the backwards compatibility, their cross-play push, Game Pass, the excellent One X and Series X|S and so on too. Mistakes were made by Microsoft, but they’ve corrected course spectacularly.

The future’s exciting.

[CallMeCraig]

@Clive

I don’t see anything wrong with that tweet or with Ahmad in general. Xbox fans need to chill a bit.

It was really clear in 2017 that Xbox was going nowhere and lacked Microsoft funding. Spencer went to Nadella to convince him to unlock that funding, it worked and he became VP of gaming in a senior leadership team.

From August 2017, no one could have forseen what would happen to Xbox now. It’s so easy for people to judge afterhands when they actually know what happened.

Nobody could have forseen this? Then why make such a definitve statement “the future of Xbox has already been decided. Don’t expect the status quo to change anytime soon”?

[Knottian (Daniel)]

@CallMeCraig

Nobody could have forseen this? Then why make such a definitve statement “the future of Xbox has already been decided. Don’t expect the status quo to change anytime soon”?

I agree, and the actual facts (acquisition budget, Phil’s promotion, One X launch, etc.) completely disprove Ahmad’s tweet. Again, had he said this in 2014 I would agree but that’s like saying the PS4 Pro was the most powerful console of current gen after the One X had been out and proved to be otherwise. I feel like there’s a lot of historical revisionism going on with this. I mean even if you just look at the One X, building a considerably more powerful console than the competition with the accompanying R&D costs seem to be a direct contradiction to Ahmad’s tweet… and that was even teased at 2016.

[OneBadMutha]

All right friends, let’s not make this thread a debate about an outside influencer. Obviously a lot has changed for Xbox in 3 years and a lot changed since the statement in the tweet. If this thread is about the change at Microsoft/Xbox, it can stay open for discussion. If it’s to debate the credibility of a tweet, this thread will be closed.

[Knottian (Daniel)]

@OneBadMutha

All right friends, let’s not make this thread a debate about an outside influencer. Obviously a lot has changed for Xbox in 3 years and a lot changed since the statement in the tweet. If this thread is about the change at Microsoft/Xbox, it can stay open for discussion. If it’s to debate the credibility of a tweet, this thread will be closed.

Completely fair. I’d like to pose a better question in the faith of the original discussion, could any of us have guessed that in three years Xbox Game Studios would have effectively tripled in size, and Bethesda would be part of that family? I mean that’s the sort of hair-brained, alcohol influenced dream hypothetical.

I guess Phil wasn’t just playing PR when he said they wouldn’t be beaten in power or price either after the unveil of the Series S and X, both consoles that are incredible leaps in computing capability. I still marvel from time to time what was achieved with the One X and what developers delivered on an already outdated Jaguar CPU; as a software engineer, I can only imagine how incredible of a jump Zen 2 will be for devs, and then you throw in SSD standardized, RDNA 2, and a much higher memory bandwidth. I think this is going to be an incredible generation for Xbox, even if we don’t get any other studios brought into the fold, I think it’s safe to say it’s never been brighter for Xbox (and gaming at large)!

[OneBadMutha]

@Knottian

…amily? I mean that’s the sort of hair-brained, alcohol influenced dream hypothetical. I guess Phil wasn’t just playing PR when he said they wouldn’t be beaten in power or price either after the unveil of the Series S and X, both consoles that are incredible leaps in computing capability. I still marvel from time to time what was achieved with the One X and what developers delivered on an already outdated Jaguar CPU; as a software engineer, I can only imagine how incredible of a jump Zen 2 will be for devs, and then you throw in SSD standardized, RDNA 2, and a much higher memory bandwidth. I think this is going to be an incredible generation for Xbox, even if we don’t get any other studios brought into the fold, I think it’s safe to say it’s never been brighter for Xbox (and gaming at large)!

Where they’re at now? No. I knew they were going to buy lots of studios after the restructure. Became more clear after they announced all 1st party games would launch day 1 on Game Pass. When they gave a heads up to investors this year that there would be acquisitions for Game Pass, knew it was going to be an expensive year for Xbox. Still never would have predicted Bethesda though.

Very happy that all this talent can leverage the Series X hardware. The most under-rated part of next gen though is not the hardware. It’s the tools. The continued evolution of tools. Microsoft being all in on tech that helps developers become more efficient and be more innovative is the sleeper story of next gen.

[Knottian (Daniel)]

@OneBadMutha

Where they’re at now? No. I knew they were going to buy lots of studios after the restructure. Became more clear after they announced all 1st party games would launch day 1 on Game Pass. When they gave a heads up to investors this year that there would be acquisitions for Game Pass, knew it was going to be an expensive year for Xbox. Still never would have predicted Bethesda though.

Very happy that all this talent can leverage the Series X hardware. The most under-rated part of next gen though is not the hardware. It’s the tools. The continued evolution of tools. Microsoft being all in on tech that helps developers become more efficient and be more innovative is the sleeper story of next gen.

Yeah, we’ve definitely been having a field day since the SEC declaration in August, but I was thinking a couple of individual studios (of varying sizes) would be the ultimate outcome… I never imagined Bethesda, or any publisher, being a reality. I think this has opened so many possibilities for further acquisitions, and I know @Sikamikanico and others say there’s at least two still in the works, so it’s incredibly exciting to think of all the content coming to Game Pass.

You’re also absolutely on point with the tools comment. When DX12U was announced to share the entirety of its code across Xbox and PC, my mind started racing with how much easier this will make developers’ lives, and the impact it will have across the development side of things is incalculable. Not having to rescript code to call different APIs alone is massive. Then when you think about Nvidia utilizing Velocity Architecture, and the list goes on, it creates a sense of excitement for the possibility of industry-wide adoption of some, if not all of, Microsoft’s industry-leading toolset. Sorry I could nerd out on this all day, but the possibilities are endless.