Phil is the one who reverses the narrative on a dime. Projecting these flip flops to deflect criticism should be on a bingo board at this point.
Phil's cross-gen "pro-consumer" plan: where was it?
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Phil is the one who reverses the narrative on a dime. Projecting these flip flops to deflect criticism should be on a bingo board at this point.
There's a such thing as project scope. Halo 1 and Killzone: Shadow Fall, from day 1, were being developed for the respective consoles they released on. It will have been over 5 years since 343i released Halo 5 when Halo Infinite drops, and prior to that, they had never gone more than three years in between releasing games. I truly doubt that Microsoft went into Halo Infinite's development in 2015, knowing that their next generation would be launching in 5 years, and were like "that's the date we're shooting for!"
Then perhaps they should have. And if they didn't, they could have switched gears 2 or 3 years in. They simply didn't, and we end up with this result.
"Forced" is strong, I think he's just putting out fires maybe. All companies will happily lie to consumers, they don't lie to the shareholders. What Phil tells us all is very different from the company line is all. Credit where it's due, he's made some good changes, but this is the forth year they've had nothing for us... My benefit of the doubt is spent.
Make one then and maybe we'll have a good laugh at their next presentation in August
Yeah but they def knew in 2016, and honestly I'm pretty sure MS started next gen planning at minimum since 2016-17.it takes years to plan these systems,esp when partnering with AMD and align with their roadmap.
It's pretty clear that Halo Infinite has had a development road map filled with issues. It's been heavily rumored for a while now, especially when lead developers on the project were leaving. Given their development history, and the holes they've had for release schedules this generation, I truly think they were planning on originally releasing this game in 2018-2019.
Most of their games are on PC. Xbox is going to have less and less exclusives.
He's experimenting. If it doesn't work he'll drastically change course and do something else. I don't have a problem with that, for the most part.
Yes, maybe forced is to strong.
Of course they tell you what they think you want to hear, deep inside they are salesmen.
But overpromising some guidelines, with some vague words, can give someone a bad look.
Even more so if you make some little hints to the guidelines of other companies in the business.
And of course they are also trying to oversell ideas to shareholders, but with the same vague words.
If they started dev in 2015 and had the "10 year Halo platform" plan in place from the start on top of developing a brand new engine, they absolutely should have known right then that they should not be supporting Xbox One. Do they plan on only developing Halo content for the next 10 years that has to support XB1? Thats insanity given the CPU and SSD jump between gens.
Also Halo CE wasn't originally developed for Xbox, it was made for Macs
Then why say it? It's naive to think he was not aware of these obvious contradictions. If shit goes left he will be made the scapegoat and will be replaced. I hope he realizes that.
If those games don't come out till 2022 or later what the hell have some of their studios been doing ? They knew they had a console coming right ?
Phil Spencer : "All 1st party games will be crossgen for the next 2 years!"
Also Phil Spencer : "Most of our games come after 2022 btw"
Also Phil Spencer : "Most of our games come after 2022 btw"
I've touched on this before, but when Microsoft says they have a 10 year platform in mind with Halo Infinite, it's not alluding to the game being Destiny esque. It's a soft reboot of the franchise, and instead of continuing on the story that's been ongoing for two decades, they've decided to soft reboot into a narrative splintered off from that - which they plan on continuing moving forward.
To be fair, I doubt MS can afford Halo releasing exclusively on a newly launched console. It would be a huge sacrifice financially and a bad look for their biggest IP. Halo 1 was the first game of an IP that no one knew before that point.
I think MS's approach with Halo infinite is the best they could do based on the fact that it's been 5 years since last Halo and the IP needing a large user base. What's unfortunate is that they don't have any other big title to showcase the power of the console. It does look like none of the titles that are well in development are targeting the Series X.
This seems disingenuous. You know this isn't how people think of exclusives when people are talking about consoles.
Exactly. As a PC gamer I don't really care but acting like keeping things off your competitor's console isn't engaging in the very activity he was publicly bemoaning earlier seems like a deliberate break from rational thinking
OP
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He wanted to sell XGS games being cross gen for a couple of years as a point of differentiation when it really was "we don't have much XGS games in the first two years." He pushed a point that he knew he wouldn't have to back up in any meaningful way because he already knew the timelines of XGS games and how most would fall outside of that two year window.
That's not a complaint. That's me saying how about we don't take every single PR thing Phil says in the future without perhaps considering that its a cover for a defiency.
Sort of like how Jim Ryan will downplay BC because their BC isn't up to par.
Well, clearly, it would be better for the game to release alongside the console. And I don't know why they couldn't afford to put it out on PC and Series X only when their whole strategy revolves around deemphasizing consoles anyway. And Halo 1 was exclusive to a brand new, unproven console.
Their promise was that the titles releasing soon would be cross gen, inherently so I would imagine, since they would have been in dev for both platforms already. I do think that there promise was a little hollow in the end, but it's fine. It's expected even... it's just not the cross gen support that some seemingly wanted. Ultimately if you want to play next gen games for any reasonable length of time, you're going to have to shell out on new hardware, I think the appeal for a lot of people was that they wouldn't have to.
It puts PC in an even stronger spot if anything. Since all of those games, even those that don't release on X1, will see a PC release. Everything they're doing seems like a big win for PC gamers.
It puts PC in an even stronger spot if anything. Since all of those games, even those that don't release on X1, will see a PC release. Everything they're doing seems like a big win for PC gamers.
It takes a lot of confidence in your audience's sympathy to spin a gap in your own software pipeline as a pro/anti consumer issue against your competitor.
A more candid approach earlier on might still have elicited disappointment but at least it wouldn't have set fire to his credibility. It's baffling why he would offer narratives with such a limited shelf life. And to store up the fallout until closer to launch to boot. He knew the penny had to drop eventually.
No matter how much they are deemphasizing consoles right now it won't change the fact that releasing a new Halo title on a console with no install base and PC where Halo's presence has been rocky in the past, will severely limit sales. Especially when GamePass on PC is still on a cheap beta state.
My hopeful guess is that they either have some deals lined up with independent devs to pad out their first 12-24 months, but I honestly can't think of many candidates to work with them.
My more realistic guess is that they'll very aggressively pursue deals with publishers to bring games to Game Pass soon after their initial release, but that'll prove costly.
I would have to imagine a smarter move would have been to prioritize quality of the game, even if it limits their audience. More than likely, if the game turned out amazing, it would become such a must-buy that people would pick it up with the console even if they bought it 12 months later.
Maybe someone can correct me, but this was the list I got from an article
Presumably crossgen...
Halo infinte
The Gunk
PSO2
Tetris Effect (2020)
Crossfire X
Grounded
The Medium
Outerwilds DLC
Psyconauts 2
Tell Me Why
As Dusk Falls
Echogeneration
Exomecha
Balan Wonderland
Presumably XSX only...
Avowed
Fable
Warhammer Darktide (2021)
Stalker 2
State of decay 3
Unclear
Everwild
Forza Motorsport
Does that seem right? So aside from Darktide, I doubt any of the 5-6 others come in 2021, some of them honestly look like 23 titles.
Does make you wonder if they have games for 2021 though
Presumably crossgen...
Halo infinte
The Gunk
PSO2
Tetris Effect (2020)
Crossfire X
Grounded
The Medium
Outerwilds DLC
Psyconauts 2
Tell Me Why
As Dusk Falls
Echogeneration
Exomecha
Balan Wonderland
Presumably XSX only...
Avowed
Fable
Warhammer Darktide (2021)
Stalker 2
State of decay 3
Unclear
Everwild
Forza Motorsport
Does that seem right? So aside from Darktide, I doubt any of the 5-6 others come in 2021, some of them honestly look like 23 titles.
Does make you wonder if they have games for 2021 though
True but then you have the issue of IP relevance. Especially when there is a TV series in the works. Anyway, imagine if Series X didn't have Halo this holiday season...
I fail to see how the game skipping the Xbox One would lower its relevance. Just spend money on marketing.
Pretty much. Xbox really loves to lean into fanning fanboy flames when it's convenient for them to do so - beyond their marketing statements, they also LOVE partnering with extreme fanboys for podcasts and other community outreach projects - but they get super defensive whenever they're on the back foot or when people call them out for making false promises.
I meant relevance in regards to the time passed since the latest release.
Ah, well I'm not suggesting they should have delayed the game past 2020 / whatever's the tv show's release date, I'm just saying if Xbox One is the reason the game looks so visually poor, they should have cancelled that version a long time ago.
That's disingenuous, because Halo Infinite was in development for 5 years and Killzone Shadow Fall for 2 years. As I recall Halo Infinite development started before Series X, while PS4 was in mid development when production of Killzone started.
Well sure, if we subscribe to the idea that design was locked in 5 years ago, it would have been hard for them to target next-gen specs... but they could have done that or developed the game on PC / alongside the new console over time. There's ways they could have done this, it's absolutely not impossible. Like I said, the original Halo did exactly that!
You dont... seriously believe that right? Guerilla has multiple teams. They were prototyping Horizon in 2011
I expect them to sign a huge deal with a publisher like thq Nordic at some point where all their games launch day 1 on game pass
I'm glad that a bunch of Xbox games announced are for Xbox Series X.
The big pro-consumer moves Microsoft is making are:
GamePass
Backwards Compatibility
xCloud / playing Xbox games on other devices
Lockhart / Series S, a console that will let you play all the next-gen Xbox games but won't cost nearly as much as a Series X or a PS5.
Xbox One needs to die ASAP. The faster Microsoft decouples Xbox One from Xbox Series X (aside from BC) the better IMO.
That said, Phil says some things that don't actually happen. Like Project Scorpio (Xbox One X) at E3 2016. They said Scorpio would support "High fidelity VR"
But in 2017 as Xbox One X was nearing, Phil backed away from VR publicly.
The big pro-consumer moves Microsoft is making are:
GamePass
Backwards Compatibility
xCloud / playing Xbox games on other devices
Lockhart / Series S, a console that will let you play all the next-gen Xbox games but won't cost nearly as much as a Series X or a PS5.
Xbox One needs to die ASAP. The faster Microsoft decouples Xbox One from Xbox Series X (aside from BC) the better IMO.
That said, Phil says some things that don't actually happen. Like Project Scorpio (Xbox One X) at E3 2016. They said Scorpio would support "High fidelity VR"
But in 2017 as Xbox One X was nearing, Phil backed away from VR publicly.
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recent marketing just feels like papering over the cracks. Howdo you have a 7 year long generation and not be able to plan a couple exclusives for launch window to buy the new box? Worse than that it might be two years before you have exclusives ready. So instead you have to play distraction games which get holes poked in them as soon as they have to show things so why do it?
all this Phil turning the boat around - isn't having meaningful content for your platform kinda job one there?
Do you genuinely believe that 343i is able to meet their ambitions for Halo Infinite with the much lower performance and especially the mechanical hard drive of the Xbox One when the XSX exists and will be out when their game comes out?
Ultimately 343i is limited in their vision for Halo Infinite because they have to account for the Xbox One. This isn't something that can be rebuffed I don't believe. If you compare Halo to something like Miles Morales or the new Ratchet and Clank, Insomniac will be able to do whatever they have the time, creativity, and skill to do. They aren't limited by the PS4. They have the freedom to make the game they want to make, within reason.
So respectfully, I don't agree with your assertions. It just sounds like reiterating PR speak.
motorsport seems more like 2022. No real footage other than a couple of small scenes rendered not in real-time so not necessarily indicative of what it'll look like. They repeated the same one corner over and over from different angles with only one car model with different lint jobs. It's super early. Even Dan Greenawalt said it was early. And xsx only so holiday 2022 earliest based in MS statements about cross gen
did playground used to piggyback on the T10 engine? So motorsport would go first then horizon built off that? If so horizon is even further out - but maybe they are more separated teams now? Bloody hope so - I don't want to wait until 2023 for Fh5
There was a handfull or more games shown that are also gonna be on xb1 . There was also a handful of games shown that are probably a year or two away that aren't gonna be on xb1 .
Not really anything to be upset about here imo .
As for timed exclusives ....sony is not going to stop doing it so why would MS?
Nobody likes it but it is what it is . Its gonna happen on all platforms so not sure why people are mad about that either .
Not really anything to be upset about here imo .
As for timed exclusives ....sony is not going to stop doing it so why would MS?
Nobody likes it but it is what it is . Its gonna happen on all platforms so not sure why people are mad about that either .
True, but i think nitpicking is different from this particular case. MS PR, with Spencer as the clear lead, had been quite vocal, using interviews, statements, social media, going beyond the usual PR that paint their product as better as possible. Has used the pro consumer flag, which as a side effect, i would say intentionally, makes others, well, less pro consumer. So it is not only making you product look the better you can, which is fair, but also generating the opposite side for the competition. How many threads have we had about this guy lately?
So in a forum that people make a big deal of really tiny things, i find it quite normal that he receives a bit of backlash.
It's always a lose-lose with Xbox, huh?
"Cross-gen? HE'S HOLDING BACK PROGRESS!"
now
"Where's all the cross-gen?! Phil broke his promise!!"
And as always, now gaming "media" are picking up this narrative to spread the cynicism.
Wasn't the reponse on ResetEra from Xbox fans: "'Most of their games will be releasing after that transition period!''
The only two surprises in that regard are Forza Motorsport and Everwild. No Xbox fan was expecting cross-gen Avowed, Fable or Hellblade 2.
Or it shifted from, "cross gen will hold games back!" for many - and when I look at Halo Infinite it's like...yeah I see it - to, "wait you're supporting cross gen because you don't really have much for two years."
Can you actually not see how both complaints have validity and they aren't contradictory?
I know I'm on the precipice of console warring so I want to be careful, but I don't understand why there is this undercurrent of being willfully obtuse about the criticism some have with Microsoft's approach to next gen, their PR for it and how it's somewhat hypocritical, and how those two things are related.
This thread is hilarious.
Matt Booty made his comments back in 2019 and people got wildly hyperbolic. "MS isnt making next gen games, oh no!" "Xbox one is going to hold back the generation"
Rational thinkers said "calm down, there will be cross gen to start with, but by the end of 2021 we'll get next gen exclusives." This really isnt some radical strategy.
Now it turns out the rational interpretation of Booty's words is somehow just as offensive as the hyperbolic interpretation.
Matt Booty made his comments back in 2019 and people got wildly hyperbolic. "MS isnt making next gen games, oh no!" "Xbox one is going to hold back the generation"
Rational thinkers said "calm down, there will be cross gen to start with, but by the end of 2021 we'll get next gen exclusives." This really isnt some radical strategy.
Now it turns out the rational interpretation of Booty's words is somehow just as offensive as the hyperbolic interpretation.
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Both studios use ForzaTech, which is T10's game engine. Having said that, while it is T10's engine, Playground also contributes to it.
Not necessarily. It's quite possible that Playground will use a modified FH4 engine for Forza Horizon 5. This is likely why Horizon 4. and not Motorsport 7, was given Series X support at launch. Playground will buy Turn 10 an extra year of development on Motorsport and ForzaTech 2.0 (or whatever iteration it's on now). Horizon 6 is when we will see the Forza Horizon series running on Turn 10's latest ForzaTech game engine.
So long and short of it:
2021:
Forza Horizon 5 (built on a tweaked Forza Horizon 4 game engine)
2022:
Forza Motorsport (built on an overhauled ForzaTech engine for Series X)
2023:
Forza Horizon 6 (based on the 2022 Motorsport engine)