I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. I think every publisher has had to have these discussions because online-only and/or multiplayer focused games are seemingly where the industry is headed, at least as far as consistent revenue generators are concerned. It sucks, but games keep getting more expensive to make, so it’s probably going to keep getting worse.
Hopefully under Xbox not. I mean they have Halo, Gears , FM and FH for multiplayer.
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I get the impression MS studios won’t be forced to do this if they don’t want. Gamepass kind of changes that dynamic, and as you said, they already have several huge franchises that cover those bases.
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Going live with Forza Horizon 4 DLC
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Yup, plus also upcoming Global Publishing titles like Contraband and the IO Dragon game and more.
Bethesda as a whole was definitely to bolster their SP offerings, something which Phil agreed with too about needing more of.
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It’s absolutely mandatory to dunk on Xbox every freaking time which they are shamelessly agreeing.
I’m not a game dev but even I can understand this meme. It also works on the Cybertruck.
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Tresure Island?
I love that DLC
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A Forza and Sea of Thieves crossover?
Pretty sure it’s Fortune Island. 
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Prior to the acquisition, Zenimax was owned/funded largely by private equity firms. Providence Equity Partners was one of those firms.
There have been all kinds of rumors over the years about the “meddling” the PE firms were doing in Zenimax’s business decisions. The more prominent ones include:
- The recent focus on multiplayer/online
- The recent focus on MTX
- The incomplete state FO76 launched in
- The whole Wolf Youngblood mess
- The inability to update Creation Engine the way Todd wanted (too long/costly)
- The almost closure of Arkane Lyon for financial reasons
I don’t have sources and can’t verify any of those, but those rumors have been out there for years. This is one of the reasons I was so thrilled with the Xbox acquisition - it could/should let Zenimax operate the way it wants to without financial pressure from investors.
I haven’t heard any rumors about Redfall specifically, but obviously it’s been in development for a while. The 4-player co-op + MTX (from the leaks) may indicate that investor pressure influenced its design.
Of course, even if true that does not mean the game can’t be great. If it plays great, has a great story, and is polished then no one will care that you can buy skins or whatever in a store.
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Some of those reminds me of Double Fine , how because of Xbox they managed to bring back cut boss fights and other things. BGS now under Xbox means they have a much higher budget, so if a new engine or big update for Creation Engine 2 is needed for TES VI I bet there will be no problems for that at all. Much higher budget means much more possibilities. I believe they have found a great home with Xbox.
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Oh yeah fortune island…
yep makes a lot of sense.
So many people are still worried about bullshit live service MTX fest in Starfield even after it’s already been confirmed to be a singleplayer game, guess the launch of FO76, the awful Youngblood mess, etc kinda made people wary of such things poisoning future BGS games forever. Starfield just gotta launch and be great without any of this mess which I’m sure Todd is being very careful about, and BGS will be back on top.
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On one hand Bethesda had really a 1-2-3 punch of bad launches (between F76 disaster, Youngblood underwhelming and mtxs infested, Rage 2 full of bugs ans also not really jawdropping), on the other hand many are only “concerned” because of Xbox. The point was already moot after Doom Eternal, moreover after Deathloop and the only “sin” of games like TEW 2, Dishonored 2 and Prey (the predecessors of the thre underwhelming games) was selling low, which is not really a sin, but a symptom of the current market, where not all single player only games are automatically groundbreaking successes, Sony also had some duds.
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Yeaaah, Redfall might as well have been a product of this mess, of course the game could still turn out to be great, I trust Arkane and Harvey Smith to pull it off, but it still rings of certain remnants of a Zenimax that was starting to get into this whole live service stuff at the time.
The co-founder of Arkane, Raf Colantonio left Arkane years ago after heading Prey 2017 at Austin, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was at least some element of these private firms influencing these studios causing such high profile departures. In one of the earlier interviews last year or something, he said how he’d grown tired of AAA as of late and how after some point, AAA development was just becoming more and more like making products than games. In a recent interview, he also explicitly mentioned that he didn’t like the Prey 2017 game to be called Prey, implying Arkane was kinda forced to use that license to fit the game he was trying to make which is just weird to me, but makes sense why he’d be pissed, imagine fucking over the studio that was making the “actual” Prey game, then getting sued by that developer, then having them form a new studio under Bethesda itself. All the while the Arkane Prey game gets blasted for just having the name “Prey” without actually being a Prey game even if it was a great game on its own. Zenimax/Bethesda was kinda fucking up left and right prior to the acquisition, hope much of that is left behind in the past now that they’re under MS.
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Another day seemingly without fps boost
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It’s never happening… give up.
This video… is for most of you.
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Phil is our superhero!
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Betteridge’s Law dictates the answer is obviously no.
But for me, it was never about Xbox needing one of these Superhero games, but something that would certainly help the portfolio in a great way, while bringing in large swathes of casual audiences based on a super recognizable popular culture anchor. It’s also obviously not about “copying Sony” for me cuz I’d similarly want Sony to expand their palette and offering too, like Xbox has. Wouldn’t want all of this discourse to get poisoned by the extremes of “Xbox is doomed if they don’t pursue these licensed IP”, “where is Xbox’s answer to Wolverine?!1!” or any of that alarmist BS. It’s simply something that adds great value to the portfolio in the same way E-rated games and JRPGs shall, much to Phil’s own admission. If I can think of one studio under XGS that has expressed great interest in licensed IP, it’s InXile who pursued Baldur’s Gate 3 but lost that to Larian, but Brian Fargo has still expressed on twitter how much he loves Star Wars and IIRC would love to make a game in that universe. That’s something that would be great to see in the future if the right pitch is made. All this while, “Star Wars RPG” has meant “KOTOR”, but there’s so much potential outside that IP but still within the genre, InXile would nail that I think.
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