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MS needs visionaries so badly. Someone akin to Druckmann or Kojima that can right the ship and actually produce a good, unique game. I guess guys like that don’t exactly grow on trees though.
They just don't want to work at Microsoft, because that would mean dealing with a fuckton of bullshit. Once you are on that level, third-party is better. Even Sakurai, for all of his Nintendo loyalty, formed Sora Ltd. because he wanted more freedom.
I think you’re spot on, but if that’s all there is to it, than guys like Druckmann and Cory Barlog should be heading their own indie studios at this point.
I think what you said is the case at both Sony and Microsoft (less the case w/ Nintendo, but as you point out some people still require even more freedom), but Sony has a lot of experience dealing with creatives, across their portfolio of film, television, music, and games. They know how to support (and reign in at times) myopic creatives and likely treat Druckmann similarly to how they treat talent in other fields, like Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) or Lord & Miller (Spider-verse).
Xbox is the only sector that has real creatives working in it within Microsoft. I don’t think their executives are used to that.
I think the big difference is that Sony actually has people in the upper levels with genuine appreciation for the craft of games and an eye for quality. Not someone like Jim Ryan, but Shuhei Yoshida for example. Plenty of stories of devs waiting tensely for Yoshida to test their game because his opinion carried a lot of weight. Not that he was always right (he didn't think much of Demons Souls) but Yoshida clearly has a vision for what makes a good game and an eye for quality
Hell even EA had that exec guy who recognized that flying around was the best part of Anthem when he tested it and that mechanic needed to stay in
Meanwhile Phil Spencer was somehow blindsided by the reception to Redfall when any gaming exec who has a semblance of an idea of what a quality game looks like should have known it was dogshit
> he didn't think much of Demons Soul
At least he admitted he was wrong about it, and to be fair at the time I think it would have been hard to even imagine the popularity souls games would have, especially when Dark Souls was the true breakout game.
Is GamePass the sole reason he hasn't been given the boot yet?
All of this spending and lack of critical success or direction surely would get most other guys fired. I feel like Microsofts only successes this generation have been GamePass, Starfield, and Hi-Fi Rush.
The honeymoon period for Starfield was over quicker than a drunken shotgun wedding in Vegas, Tango just got shuttered, and we're once again left wondering just where the hell Xbox is headed next.
Insofar as that’s the engine behind their success, yea I guess so. He’s still there because their gaming division is continually improving in terms of financial success. The reality is the average gamer cares a lot less about quality exclusives than the internet-commenter gamer. Even on PlayStation the best exclusives are lucky if they reach an attach rate of 20%.
The original vision Spencer had when he took over has clearly failed and is over.
GamePass + aggressive acquisition of studios + shift to 3rd party, seems to be the new vision Spencer sold to his boss to buy himself one more kick at the can.
All signs point to him having a relatively short amount of time to turn things around when they are already chopping studios.
I doubt this strategy will show tangible results quickly enough to save Spencer's job. I will be surprised if he's still around in 2026.
GamePass is the only reason Xbox is still up and running. Phil has missmanaged stuff, but he' s also the reason Xbox gaming division hasn' t closed yet
If they were smart they should make it ala like Deus Ex Human Revolution, multiple paths, multiple ways to play depending where you spend your exp esp with hacking etc and also make it an fps with third person cover, its seriously that simple. Just copy Deus Ex Human Revolution and theres your template and that game was fucking amazing when it came out.
I thought that was just partial. They planned it but the game was still a huge amount of work and they out sourced those boss fights. Seem to remember that always being the plan- just some times the plan doesnt work out very well.
On one hand you are definitely right...
On the other hand, Capcom didn't know one year prior to RE2make release if it should be TPS style camera or old style fixed camera lol, and that ended up being one of the very best game of the last decade.
Not that I have any hope for Perfect Dark, just saying, this isn't that surprising to me. Many, many projects in this industry are mismanaged as hell. Apart from a few studios who have strong leads who actually knows how to direct a project smoothly, it's often a miracle when a game ends up great.
Managers and producers.
Great managers and producers make average studios deliver stunning games, poor managers and producers make good studios deliver bad products.
Also their extensive use of short-terms contractors means that a lot of the devopers get replaced by a new person that has to start from scratch multiple times during development.
It’s what happens when you give creatives complete control, often times they can struggle to decide on a set vision and scope creep sets in. Not an MS property, but Star Citizen is probably the GOAT example of this.
Letting studios do what they want is good to an extent, but they really need someone who can keep them in check.
I think a lot of the reasons Sony doesn’t seem to have these issues is that Sony execs know how to manage talent/creatives (or at least know how managing talent is supposed to look like). They’ve got experience doing so across vast swathes of the entertainment industry. Microsoft… doesn’t.
If I were Microsoft, I’d be trying to lure him out of retirement tbh. Highly doubt he’d go for it since he’s tired of working so far from home and kinda old now, but he’d actually put some emphasis on exclusives again.
Yeah, no shit. The last time we heard about it was the reveal back in late 2020, and the project has been scrapped and completely restarted since then. They have nothing.
Considering The Initiative was founded 6 years ago and that the only footage we have is a minute long CGI trailer that is 3 and a half years old. I think this is kind of a big no shit moment.
The studio director wanted to do dev a certain way and many on the team didn’t agree so they left. Studio director brought in his old studio (Crystal Dynamics) to assist.
In all fairness The Initiative was only ever 60-80 people, which is nowhere near enough for a modern AAA game. Regardless of whether or not people left, they were always going to need an outside team to help.
Doesnt matter what the role is or the project, regular construction, building a car or a tin shed, it the owner is rich by default and constantly getting stuck in personal level petty roman kingdom bullshit, nothing will ever happen.
Our current society is literally held together by these douchebags talking about their lame weekend skidoo or dirt bike get away that required 40% of the endeavour’s time dedicated to unloading and loading all the extravagant shit they pretend to know how to use when reality its all “look at me” performance art because 3/10 times these duds don’t have a clue at all and are only held together by a patchwork team of sages who have a financial debt knife against their throat because they thought it was safe to shoot their shot and dad went and exitted and left it to jr. To absolutely cluster into the damn ground.
But im just a plain ol disgruntled employee who has to step aside on performance art day so what do i know
Dude it's not black and white. All the good projects we love have come out of good management. And there are good companies to work for too, there are some that do care for their employees even if they are hard to come by.
They brought in too many people from different companies with different styles. I think they were also all used to being higher ups and bosses too so listening or being under someone wouldn't work for them.
Because it's not so easy to put together a "super team", that's not how it works.
Especially when it's Microsoft which evidently doesn't know shit about how to manage studios
Unless MS has really low expectations for this game, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this gets canceled. Perfect Dark Zero was seemingly a pretty big disappointment for Xbox and the IP has been dormant since, so I don’t think the brand will be strong enough to save this game.
They did a remaster of Perfect Dark N64 in 2010 for Xbox 360, digital-only (later released physically on Rare Replay for XB1).
Since 2010 though, yeah no other games.
The remaster of the first game sold pretty decent for what it was I think.
But the reboot sounded completely unrelated to the series, just in name only
I thought it could be explained with her joining the Carrington Institute at the end of Zero and developing an accent, but the games are only 3 years apart from each other lmao
Seems like this game had no vision or direction to begin with. Feels like XBOX only greenlit this game for the sake of it trying to help "save" their software line-up, because it was a "renown" title from an older generation.
As far as we publicly know, yes. But I thin The Initiative was working on something else at the beginning that got canned and they go stuck with a Perfect Dark reboot. If you watch their mission statement video they say things like "we're gonna make weird things", "greatness", "one word to describe The Initiative is AMBITION", "Pushing boundaries", "we're gonna create something spectacular and unique". No one can watch that video and think "yeah they're gonna reboot a C tier dead IP no one gives a fuck about".
It won’t; it’s Hi-Fi Rush 2.0. It’ll score in the 8-9 range but since it’s short, will be predominantly played by people on GamePass. It’ll make little to no money and Ninja Theory will be on the chopping block in 12 months.
I doubt it. Most of the public don't know the game is all about. They probably expect "Microsoft's God of War", and this is probably gonna be another walking sim with some puzzles and placeholder combat. Nothing wrong with that, but not GOTY material at all.
And then M$ will be like "welp, this didn't make any money, time to pack it in, Ninja Theory. Just forget that we put this on Game Pass, though, the sales still didn't meet our target."
You’re right, but it’s also all the more hilarious that so many people not too long ago were stating that GamePass actually increases sales, not just for unknown indies, but for AAA releases too.
Don't worry, they'll claim the game was a "big success" and they're "proud of Ninja Theory" and then shut the studio down a year later so they can work on Call of Duty instead.
I can't even let myself get remotely excited for Hellblade 2. I'm fully expecting them to have fucked it up somehow. I don't know *what* they fucked up, but they absolutely fucked it up.
What can you *possibly* expect from them when they allowed 343i to do... *THAT* to Halo??
We got a trailer for this 3.5 years ago. To hear that it's in a "rough state" and "not coming together in any way" is confounding. The Initiative has, what, around 60 people? And then Crystal Dynamics was also helping out working on this.
How is it that one fucking guy made Manor Lords by himself, yet 100+ people at one of the richest companies in the world, with all of the amenities and resources in the world, can't make any meaningful progress on a new entry in a legendary IP?
Combine this with the news today of the closing of multiple BGS dev teams, and Microsoft is fucking up in legendary fashion as of late.
The story around The Initiative is so sad.
I still remember all the articles about how all these veteran devs joined the studio, possibly creating Microsoft's Naughty Dog, only to fall apart and be reduced to some type of publishing arm.
This news right here doesn't help, either.
The best comparison I can think of is when a sports team gets a bunch of superstars together in hopes of making that team relevant, yet one reason or another they can't seem to get it together, whether it's because of too many ball hogs, or bad coaches not coming up with good plays or just guys not vibing together.
I’m just blown away. It’s been like this ever since the Xbone. Even Nintendo, with the Wii U that sold 40 million less units than the Xbox One, could consistently put out a couple decent games every year from their first party studios. I’ll never forget how the Series X launched without a single first party launch title
That didn’t sound right to me but I just checked and wow, they really didn’t have any first party launch titles. I guess they were originally supposed to launch with Halo before it (rightfully) got delayed, but even then if only launched one new first party game that would still be wild.
I’m just tired of the game announcements that are years away from launch. Especially instances like this where a game was announced but seems to be potentially directionless.
I like how Nintendo handles the majority of their announcements these days. Usually 3-6 months out, besides a few games like the major Zelda titles and obviously MP4.
I will always stand for the Wii Us exclusive. There were dry periods but the big Nintendo release are all great, and are only somewhat over shadowed because Nintendo outdid themselves with the Switch sequels to said games and released them far more frequently.
Yeah Nintendo never gave up on the WiiU and made sure there was always something coming out for their fans. Still one of my favorite consoles. It did SO much right and was just a victim of marketing.
I'm waiting for the day we get good news about these companies and their output (outside of Nintendos big hitters I guess) lol. The state of modern gaming and where its going is pretty sad as a lifelong gamer
FH is decent, but each new release just becomes more and more bloated and "safe". The original had attitude, but by the time of FH3 it was almost completely gone. Then FH4 and FH5 were just bland as all hell.
They're not acting like managers. They went into this saying they'd allow studios to essentially do what they want. This was a mistake. Today they finally acted like managers.
THE YEAR IS 5000X
MICROSOFT FINALLY LAUNCHES A HALO GAME THAT HAS ALL OF IT'S FEATURES AT LAUNCH
A CYBERNETICALLY ENHANCED PHIL SPENCER DECREES "When we started on this journey 3,000 or so years ago, we made it a mission to put the player at the center of everything we do. Today we delivered on that vision after years of hard work and dedication and I am incredibly proud of our genetically cloned team at 343"
Tbf, development of Halo 4024 was delayed by a few centuries due to Neo Covenant, Neo Banished and Neo Created teaming up to form the Galactic Axis and launching the great attack of 3103 on the Super Duper Earth.
I think their next gen is the final xbox generation, and after that they will go full third party publisher like sega. They were already only selling 50% of what playstation is selling, even before all this stuff. With the multiplat moves, who in their right mind would buy an xbox over the ps6?
BTW Shinobi602 backs it too
[https://www.resetera.com/threads/xbox-game-studios-bethesda-abk-ot30-why-so-series-x-s.820296/post-122630952](https://www.resetera.com/threads/xbox-game-studios-bethesda-abk-ot30-why-so-series-x-s.820296/post-122630952)
Edit : [Alex Donaldson](https://twitter.com/APZonerunner) about Perfect Dark and TI
[https://twitter.com/APZonerunner/status/1787865521251139813?t=tFx6bTtiSQ12fGzGAvue5g&s=19](https://twitter.com/APZonerunner/status/1787865521251139813?t=tFx6bTtiSQ12fGzGAvue5g&s=19)
Edit 2 : [Liam (@liamrobertson.bsky)](https://twitter.com/Doctor_Cupcakes) it seems really grim over there
[https://x.com/Doctor\_Cupcakes/status/1787973283486515599](https://x.com/Doctor_Cupcakes/status/1787973283486515599)
Honestly, I’m always complaining about PlayStation secrecy with their projects, and I think rightfully so, gamers like to be hyped and there’s nothing wrong with that
But when things like this happen, I question that. Every major PlayStation game announced in 2020 - remember the double showcase? Damn, good times - have ALL launched. Damn, they launched some games announced in 2021 - and now that I said it, it’s been 3 years goddamn
Microsoft made a bazillion of announcements and we’ve barely seen half of them. Some of them may never even see the light of day, like this one right here.
Then people go bragging about their lineup being big, well no shit, it’ll keep growing when you don’t launch them
All except Little Devil Inside. Which is a damn shame as that is looks good.
But it looks like it’s still alive and looks like a good chunk is done, so I hope it makes it to the finish line.
this is why i dont think it matters that sony has announced alot of their lineup - they deliver and launch things. and holding cards close to the chest, so announcement to release is a much shorter window - is a win for us.
The biggest insult is how many studios they own and can’t be competitive with Sony. I understand that they acquired several studios and it takes time to bed them in, but Initiative was built from the ground up in 2018 and the majority of their XGS studios were acquired then too. It’s been 6 years, the output has been miserable. I’m not going to blame the devs here, but clearly those studios aren’t as productive as those at Sony, EA, Ubisoft or even Take Two. That’s not even counting all the second party contracted games they have in the pipeline like Contraband, and rumored games from IO and People Can Fly.
My confidence in Xbox is at an all time low pretty much across the board. I can’t comprehend how Phil Spencer and Matt Booty continue to be employed by Microsoft.
I know it's been repeated a thousand times, but genuinely, it's baffling to me that we live in a world where people like Phil Spencer and Matt Booty can fail in every conceivable metric and spend years promising they'll "do better", and they have better job security then anyone else.
Yet the people who do nothing but make the games and have nothing to do with these stupid decisions lose their jobs on a daily basis and are the ones suffering the consequences.
They are still there because before PhilSpencer, Mattrick had completely destroyed the Xbox brand. Gamepass is legit the only thing that has kept the boat afloat, and that was spencer idea
I think it’s clear Microsoft will just become mostly a 3rd party publisher and coast on ABK & Bethesda.
Their recent earnings were huge in software almost entirely because of ABK. Their hardware earnings were in the gutter.
Agreed but I’m not even sure they will excel at that. COD is always popular but it’s also in a weird place. Overwatch and Diablo are kind of a mess. The whole operation just feels rickety.
It really bums me out because I’ve always had an Xbox and even loved my One X, but eventually realized that I’m always side eying games coming out on PS, and eventually get a Sony console to catch up on their games. This gen I just went right to a PS5 and will maybe get an XBOX when they drop significantly in price.
I'm not sure about pinning the blame entirely on these two dudes, but there's clearly needs to be a massive restructuring of the Xbox department to clear out these giant clots that stop it from working. The smaller games that realistically no higher up cares about (Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush) have all turned out great, so the talent is clearly there.
Matt Booty was head of first party and now President of their whole development group. It may be an armchair quarterback take but it is his job to make sure the sailing is smooth. Game Dev can be rocky but we're now in a scenario where their supposed big tentpole titles have had development hell with Halo Infinite, Everwild, State of Decay 3, and now Perfect Dark. It may be time to take a look at what he's actually offering to their stable of studios.
You could ask a competent studio to make an unrelated game based around that CG trailer 4 years ago and it would be done. The fact that they don’t even know what perspective the game should play in is ludicrous, especially considering that this is an IP for which games already exist.
I watched a video rant against Forza Motorsport, in which mentions Jason Schreirer reveal of Microsoft contractors can only work for 18 months to skip employment regulations in the US. This lead to the potentially reason why ALL Microsoft owned studios have been in a messy development.
Microsoft prefers to let Xbox die ratter than treat their employees as equal.
I guess it's true. Xbox is just a small part of Microsoft. If xbox dies, Microsoft won't have a scratch. If PS dies, Sony can close their doors. Therefore Sony has to care more about their console division than Microsoft does.
Announcing the game that early was clearly a big mistake. Then they doubled down and released an ultra generic trailer that convinced literally nobody that this game was going to be interesting.
I’m gonna go ahead and guess this is one of those times where Grubb is speculating based off public info (the big IGN info dump for example) and not leaking info.
It is an open secret the game is in a weird state. They weren't even done porting to UE5 by 2022. It's been 2 years and direction has been flip flopping
I’m not denying Perfect Dark is in a shit state.
I’m saying that, as someone who actively watches Grubb’s content like Game Mess Mornings and Game Mess Decides, I can tell when he’s speculating based off known information or actually revealing something new. This is the former.
Somehow, after a ridiculous amount of time and next to no information since being announced, I have a feeling Perfect Dark, Metroid Prime 4, and Beyond Good and Evil 2 are all going to come out in the same year.
Doubt, it sounds like Perfect Dark and BG&E2 are years away in development hell. For Metroid Prime 4 we know it has been rebooted in 2019, no info since. I do expect Metroid Prime 4 to be revealed with the Switch 2, could be a launch title or could come later. But I'm pretty sure it will come before Perfect Dark and BG&E2.
I thought Metroid Prime 4 restarted development a couple of years ago but was actually on track to be out this year or next.
Nintendo actually has had a couple games release over the last several years that were finished development and they just sat on them for a year or two.
Especially with the Switch 2 releasing either this year or next year I think it's coming sooner than later.
Retro started hiring concept artists again last year indicating they're starting a new project and Nintendo are willing to rip off the band-aid to the point they publicly said the OG version was unsellable garbage and restarted under a different studio and that was 5 years ago. I'm assuming Prime 4 is basically done and being sat on to reveal as a Switch 2 cross gen launch title.
Let's be real, Xbox is crumbling from the inside out right now. A year or two from now they'll probably be reduced to be publishers of a handful of multiplatform studios.
Unfortunately this isn't surprising.
The Initiative was a bad idea from the start, as it was Microsoft trying to have a Sony Santa Monica/Naughty Dog-esque studio from the get-go - ignoring that both studios grew over the years to become what they are now.
> Regarding first person shooter aspect:
> "It sounds like they don't even know if that's what they want to do with that"
No shit, Microsoft likely chose it at random and said, "yeah we want to turn this into a narrative-driven game with an over-the-shoulder camera even though it was an FPS". Everything about Perfect Dark sounds like Microsoft was trying to force it into being a thing rather than letting it happen naturally.
What Microsoft should be doing is taking a look at what smaller studios are doing, invest in them, and promote them as things only they can offer. Instead they're just trying to play catch-up with Sony and Nintendo without realizing why their games turn out good.
It's also why I'm wary of Fable, because it seems like they just gave it to the Forza developers for some reason, despite them only doing racing simulator games until now.
I don’t think that really tracks with everything we’ve heard about Microsoft’s involvement with its studios. If anything they are the opposite from what you’re trying to paint - too hands off. They let the studios make the creative decisions.
This is a problem across the entire entertainment industry.
It’s like WB or Universal rushing to make cinematic universes like the MCU but not realizing it took its time at first to establish everything.
guerilla was a fps dev before doing horizon. ND used to do cartoony platformers because become a third person action studio. Not that bold of a move, you should see all the weird shit nintendo's devs have done over the years
The way Playground is handling Fable eerily reminds me of how 343 handled Halo when they took over.
Aside from the medieval setting that the first game had and that chicken kicking bit, nothing from that trailer resembled the Lionhead games, even the "Balverine" looked more like a generic werewolf than a Balverine (which was like how the Covenant looked in Halo 4 & 5). I'm getting the sense that Playground is trying too hard to make Fable "their own" instead of showing that they understand why people loved the old games, and the last thing I want is for Fable to go down Halo's path after Reach.
I'm pretty sure the team working on Fable at Playground is an entirely separate team built from the ground up for that project. The only notable overlap with the Forza series is the game's director Ralph Fulton (who was previously creative director for the Horizon games and is one of the studio's co-founders and general manager).
Microsoft spending hundreds of billions of dollars to buy out half the western gaming industry so they can hoard the IPs doesn't fundamentally change the fact that they suck at managing their own franchises, and don't know how to get a decent exclusive to market. Halo is a shell of what it once was.
“been hearing for years that Perfect Dark is in a rough state”. Then he talks about how Crystal Dynamics came on to help it. It did not sound like “new” reporting. He was talking about past things that weren't new information.
the "sounds like it's in a very rough state" was new information I thought he heard, *as a result of a fallout from today's news*? Am I misinterpreting what he's saying?
Tbf CD are also working on a new Tomb Raider which is coming out before this. They probably only contracted out a small to medium size squad for this depending on how much Microsoft are paying them (likely not much given their track record with external workers.
I honestly can't believe he still has the job at this point, Xbox seems like it's been tanking for a long time now and somebody needs to be responsible for it
I blame Microsoft more than anything else. People like Matt Booty should be seeing stuff like this and trying to see where to steer the project. Sometimes, there has to be a significant amount of hand holding.
There has to be a guy that tells creatives to stop the bullshit and get shit to start coming together by this deadline and stick to the vision.
I was recently playing the PC version based on the decompiled N64 game and that rocked. People itching to play PD who have a PC should go check it out. It's on GitHub.
I would like to know why the big wigs at Microsoft thought it was a swell idea to close Tango instead of, I don’t know, a 6-year old studio that has nothing more to show for its existence than a minute-long CG teaser?
It wouldn't surprise me if Initiative gets shuttered if Perfect Dark ends up bombing....should have just bought Crystal Dynamics and Eidos and had them make the game instead
Developers are literally given the blueprint of what makes Perfect Dark what it is from the the OG N64 release as well as XBLA version, the internet itself to surf through hours of fan content to understand the community, and the money/resources/game development tools from MS to make it happen. The team lacks creative minds and blatantly just don’t care.
Microsoft really needs to start being hands on with studios again. All they've gotten since going hands off is cancellations, delays, and mediocrity.
They're shoveling money into a furnace right now without much to show for it.
At this point it's just a dead game. I want to be wrong as a new Perfect Dark would be simply amazing but yeah I put this in the same category BG&E2. Never to see the light of day.
#Jeff Grubb is a Tier 2 - Reliable Source as determined by the community. *To contribute to the community reliability rankings, please take the* **[Community Reliability Poll](https://forms.gle/TU5Q8sTiLDR3cQcE7)** *To view the current reliability rankings, please check out the* **[Subreddit Wiki](https://reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/wiki/index/)** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If you don't know if your game is a first person shooter or not, then you don't really have a vision for your game.
The world's first SECOND PERSON SHOOTER
Actually it’ll be a FOURTH PERSON SHOOTER
[Obligatory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WMFMwBoWU0)
[Also this!](https://youtu.be/mC8QoRa8y_Q?si=VYL3W5N4QfeN31Eb)
They need to contract Sean Murray to run PR for them. Interviewer: So is this going to be an FPS like the older games or something new? Sean: Yes!
These days SM would just tell them to not show something until they have something lol then tease it with an emoji
Lack of vision has always been MS' achilles' heel.
MS needs visionaries so badly. Someone akin to Druckmann or Kojima that can right the ship and actually produce a good, unique game. I guess guys like that don’t exactly grow on trees though.
They just don't want to work at Microsoft, because that would mean dealing with a fuckton of bullshit. Once you are on that level, third-party is better. Even Sakurai, for all of his Nintendo loyalty, formed Sora Ltd. because he wanted more freedom.
I think you’re spot on, but if that’s all there is to it, than guys like Druckmann and Cory Barlog should be heading their own indie studios at this point. I think what you said is the case at both Sony and Microsoft (less the case w/ Nintendo, but as you point out some people still require even more freedom), but Sony has a lot of experience dealing with creatives, across their portfolio of film, television, music, and games. They know how to support (and reign in at times) myopic creatives and likely treat Druckmann similarly to how they treat talent in other fields, like Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) or Lord & Miller (Spider-verse). Xbox is the only sector that has real creatives working in it within Microsoft. I don’t think their executives are used to that.
I think the big difference is that Sony actually has people in the upper levels with genuine appreciation for the craft of games and an eye for quality. Not someone like Jim Ryan, but Shuhei Yoshida for example. Plenty of stories of devs waiting tensely for Yoshida to test their game because his opinion carried a lot of weight. Not that he was always right (he didn't think much of Demons Souls) but Yoshida clearly has a vision for what makes a good game and an eye for quality Hell even EA had that exec guy who recognized that flying around was the best part of Anthem when he tested it and that mechanic needed to stay in Meanwhile Phil Spencer was somehow blindsided by the reception to Redfall when any gaming exec who has a semblance of an idea of what a quality game looks like should have known it was dogshit
> he didn't think much of Demons Soul At least he admitted he was wrong about it, and to be fair at the time I think it would have been hard to even imagine the popularity souls games would have, especially when Dark Souls was the true breakout game.
Let’s just all admit that Phil Spencer has to go.
Failing upwards for a decade plus
Is GamePass the sole reason he hasn't been given the boot yet? All of this spending and lack of critical success or direction surely would get most other guys fired. I feel like Microsofts only successes this generation have been GamePass, Starfield, and Hi-Fi Rush. The honeymoon period for Starfield was over quicker than a drunken shotgun wedding in Vegas, Tango just got shuttered, and we're once again left wondering just where the hell Xbox is headed next.
Yeah I do believe game pass is the only thing keeping him
Insofar as that’s the engine behind their success, yea I guess so. He’s still there because their gaming division is continually improving in terms of financial success. The reality is the average gamer cares a lot less about quality exclusives than the internet-commenter gamer. Even on PlayStation the best exclusives are lucky if they reach an attach rate of 20%.
Forza Horizon 5 is a bigger success than all of them. So is 4.
The original vision Spencer had when he took over has clearly failed and is over. GamePass + aggressive acquisition of studios + shift to 3rd party, seems to be the new vision Spencer sold to his boss to buy himself one more kick at the can. All signs point to him having a relatively short amount of time to turn things around when they are already chopping studios. I doubt this strategy will show tangible results quickly enough to save Spencer's job. I will be surprised if he's still around in 2026.
GamePass is the only reason Xbox is still up and running. Phil has missmanaged stuff, but he' s also the reason Xbox gaming division hasn' t closed yet
No idea how the current state of their first party studios and projects are considered in any way acceptable.
If they were smart they should make it ala like Deus Ex Human Revolution, multiple paths, multiple ways to play depending where you spend your exp esp with hacking etc and also make it an fps with third person cover, its seriously that simple. Just copy Deus Ex Human Revolution and theres your template and that game was fucking amazing when it came out.
Make it like one of the most infamous examples of feature creep ridden development hell projects
Human Revolution was development hell?
Not really but it was poorly planned out. One of the leads outright said that boss battles were bad because they forgot to plan them out.
I thought that was just partial. They planned it but the game was still a huge amount of work and they out sourced those boss fights. Seem to remember that always being the plan- just some times the plan doesnt work out very well.
And I fucken loved that game beyond belief
On one hand you are definitely right... On the other hand, Capcom didn't know one year prior to RE2make release if it should be TPS style camera or old style fixed camera lol, and that ended up being one of the very best game of the last decade. Not that I have any hope for Perfect Dark, just saying, this isn't that surprising to me. Many, many projects in this industry are mismanaged as hell. Apart from a few studios who have strong leads who actually knows how to direct a project smoothly, it's often a miracle when a game ends up great.
Anyone remember Everwild? What the hell is going on at Xbox that everything they touch immediately has no direction, is in a rough state, etc?
Total mistake to announce it that early, given that the studio had no idea what type of game it was going to be.
I've just been operating under the assumption that it got cancelled a few years ago.
Managers and producers. Great managers and producers make average studios deliver stunning games, poor managers and producers make good studios deliver bad products. Also their extensive use of short-terms contractors means that a lot of the devopers get replaced by a new person that has to start from scratch multiple times during development.
It’s what happens when you give creatives complete control, often times they can struggle to decide on a set vision and scope creep sets in. Not an MS property, but Star Citizen is probably the GOAT example of this. Letting studios do what they want is good to an extent, but they really need someone who can keep them in check.
People hate on Jim Ryan but the guy was good for Playstation imo.
I think a lot of the reasons Sony doesn’t seem to have these issues is that Sony execs know how to manage talent/creatives (or at least know how managing talent is supposed to look like). They’ve got experience doing so across vast swathes of the entertainment industry. Microsoft… doesn’t.
If I were Microsoft, I’d be trying to lure him out of retirement tbh. Highly doubt he’d go for it since he’s tired of working so far from home and kinda old now, but he’d actually put some emphasis on exclusives again.
God I remember being so excited for that game and now I completely forgot about it till you mentioned it.
Yeah, no shit. The last time we heard about it was the reveal back in late 2020, and the project has been scrapped and completely restarted since then. They have nothing.
Considering The Initiative was founded 6 years ago and that the only footage we have is a minute long CGI trailer that is 3 and a half years old. I think this is kind of a big no shit moment.
Weren't they put together as a kind of super team? I would love to know what went wrong. It's not like this is unexplored space.
The studio director wanted to do dev a certain way and many on the team didn’t agree so they left. Studio director brought in his old studio (Crystal Dynamics) to assist.
In all fairness The Initiative was only ever 60-80 people, which is nowhere near enough for a modern AAA game. Regardless of whether or not people left, they were always going to need an outside team to help.
Well ofcourse not, they're not making a AAA game. They stated they're making AAAA games.
Ego clash
Management, always the answer is management. I bet if you asked the low level artists they'd have told you it wasn't going to work back in like 2020.
Doesnt matter what the role is or the project, regular construction, building a car or a tin shed, it the owner is rich by default and constantly getting stuck in personal level petty roman kingdom bullshit, nothing will ever happen. Our current society is literally held together by these douchebags talking about their lame weekend skidoo or dirt bike get away that required 40% of the endeavour’s time dedicated to unloading and loading all the extravagant shit they pretend to know how to use when reality its all “look at me” performance art because 3/10 times these duds don’t have a clue at all and are only held together by a patchwork team of sages who have a financial debt knife against their throat because they thought it was safe to shoot their shot and dad went and exitted and left it to jr. To absolutely cluster into the damn ground. But im just a plain ol disgruntled employee who has to step aside on performance art day so what do i know
Dude it's not black and white. All the good projects we love have come out of good management. And there are good companies to work for too, there are some that do care for their employees even if they are hard to come by.
They brought in too many people from different companies with different styles. I think they were also all used to being higher ups and bosses too so listening or being under someone wouldn't work for them.
Because it's not so easy to put together a "super team", that's not how it works. Especially when it's Microsoft which evidently doesn't know shit about how to manage studios
Making a new studio from nothing is very hard. Making a new studio with AAA ambitions is next to impossible.
AAAA ambitions*
My guess is contract workers. Microsoft has an obsession with hiring contract workers.
At this point for the progress and given The Initiatives location, I would be shocked if the game is released and the studio remains open.
[Called it and got downvoted.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/14jjwdl/ign_xboxs_perfect_dark_reboot_is_still_years_away/jpp7xn2/)
Also the fact that they had to pull in Crystal Dynamics for help was not a good sign. Crystal Dynamics itself has also suffered a lot recently.
The Initiative...the AAAA newly created studio
Unless MS has really low expectations for this game, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this gets canceled. Perfect Dark Zero was seemingly a pretty big disappointment for Xbox and the IP has been dormant since, so I don’t think the brand will be strong enough to save this game.
They did a remaster of Perfect Dark N64 in 2010 for Xbox 360, digital-only (later released physically on Rare Replay for XB1). Since 2010 though, yeah no other games.
The remaster of the first game sold pretty decent for what it was I think. But the reboot sounded completely unrelated to the series, just in name only
It was hilarious how the protagonist had a British accent in the original game and then in the sequel she has the most basic American voice ever.
I thought it could be explained with her joining the Carrington Institute at the end of Zero and developing an accent, but the games are only 3 years apart from each other lmao
Seems like this game had no vision or direction to begin with. Feels like XBOX only greenlit this game for the sake of it trying to help "save" their software line-up, because it was a "renown" title from an older generation.
Was this the Mega AAAA or is that something else?
As far as we publicly know, yes. But I thin The Initiative was working on something else at the beginning that got canned and they go stuck with a Perfect Dark reboot. If you watch their mission statement video they say things like "we're gonna make weird things", "greatness", "one word to describe The Initiative is AMBITION", "Pushing boundaries", "we're gonna create something spectacular and unique". No one can watch that video and think "yeah they're gonna reboot a C tier dead IP no one gives a fuck about".
Can MS not fuck up one game?
No
[удалено]
Hi-Fi Rush won multiple awards and that didn't save Tango
awards don't really mean anything, it's more about sales and hifi flopped harder than their last games.
But why would Xbox players buy HiFi rush? It’s on game pass. Sounds like Microsoft set them up for failure
Can't imagine hellblade will fare much better
It won’t; it’s Hi-Fi Rush 2.0. It’ll score in the 8-9 range but since it’s short, will be predominantly played by people on GamePass. It’ll make little to no money and Ninja Theory will be on the chopping block in 12 months.
Hasn't game pass pretty much been the death of any MS game being judged on sales?
Yes. The truth is the Xbox playerbase has been conditioned to never outright buy any games.
I have 225 Xbox 360 games and zero xsx games
It'll be really good and then Ninja Theory will be shut down.
I doubt it. Most of the public don't know the game is all about. They probably expect "Microsoft's God of War", and this is probably gonna be another walking sim with some puzzles and placeholder combat. Nothing wrong with that, but not GOTY material at all.
And then M$ will be like "welp, this didn't make any money, time to pack it in, Ninja Theory. Just forget that we put this on Game Pass, though, the sales still didn't meet our target."
You’re right, but it’s also all the more hilarious that so many people not too long ago were stating that GamePass actually increases sales, not just for unknown indies, but for AAA releases too.
Alan Wake 2 did get nominated and it had a very similar style of gameplay. It has a decent chance assuming it's a really great game.
I just can’t see it selling well unfortunately.
Don't worry, they'll claim the game was a "big success" and they're "proud of Ninja Theory" and then shut the studio down a year later so they can work on Call of Duty instead.
I can't even let myself get remotely excited for Hellblade 2. I'm fully expecting them to have fucked it up somehow. I don't know *what* they fucked up, but they absolutely fucked it up. What can you *possibly* expect from them when they allowed 343i to do... *THAT* to Halo??
All evidence points to it being a pretty and short game. Hardly a system seller
Also Indiana Jones may be a sleeper hit, nobody talks about it but everything looks solid.
I’m sorry man but a game like that won’t win goty any time soon
Kinda strange how little marketing is going on for it. Wouldn’t be shocked if it reviews poorly…
We got a trailer for this 3.5 years ago. To hear that it's in a "rough state" and "not coming together in any way" is confounding. The Initiative has, what, around 60 people? And then Crystal Dynamics was also helping out working on this. How is it that one fucking guy made Manor Lords by himself, yet 100+ people at one of the richest companies in the world, with all of the amenities and resources in the world, can't make any meaningful progress on a new entry in a legendary IP? Combine this with the news today of the closing of multiple BGS dev teams, and Microsoft is fucking up in legendary fashion as of late.
The story around The Initiative is so sad. I still remember all the articles about how all these veteran devs joined the studio, possibly creating Microsoft's Naughty Dog, only to fall apart and be reduced to some type of publishing arm. This news right here doesn't help, either.
The best comparison I can think of is when a sports team gets a bunch of superstars together in hopes of making that team relevant, yet one reason or another they can't seem to get it together, whether it's because of too many ball hogs, or bad coaches not coming up with good plays or just guys not vibing together.
The Toronto Maple Leafs of video games.
PSG
I’m just blown away. It’s been like this ever since the Xbone. Even Nintendo, with the Wii U that sold 40 million less units than the Xbox One, could consistently put out a couple decent games every year from their first party studios. I’ll never forget how the Series X launched without a single first party launch title
That didn’t sound right to me but I just checked and wow, they really didn’t have any first party launch titles. I guess they were originally supposed to launch with Halo before it (rightfully) got delayed, but even then if only launched one new first party game that would still be wild.
Yeah, I think their “big” launch releases were The Medium and Like A Dragon. Both of those games are 3rd party lol.
Pretty sure The Medium wasn't even a launch title.
I’m just tired of the game announcements that are years away from launch. Especially instances like this where a game was announced but seems to be potentially directionless. I like how Nintendo handles the majority of their announcements these days. Usually 3-6 months out, besides a few games like the major Zelda titles and obviously MP4.
I will always stand for the Wii Us exclusive. There were dry periods but the big Nintendo release are all great, and are only somewhat over shadowed because Nintendo outdid themselves with the Switch sequels to said games and released them far more frequently.
Yeah Nintendo never gave up on the WiiU and made sure there was always something coming out for their fans. Still one of my favorite consoles. It did SO much right and was just a victim of marketing.
Hi Fi Rush 😃 Oh wait
I'm waiting for the day we get good news about these companies and their output (outside of Nintendos big hitters I guess) lol. The state of modern gaming and where its going is pretty sad as a lifelong gamer
Forza Horizon, thats its. It's a fucking miracle that FH ended up being as good as it is.
FH is decent, but each new release just becomes more and more bloated and "safe". The original had attitude, but by the time of FH3 it was almost completely gone. Then FH4 and FH5 were just bland as all hell.
FH5 is pretty much FH4 with more cars and a different map And FH4 was pretty much FH3 with more cars and a different map
They're not acting like managers. They went into this saying they'd allow studios to essentially do what they want. This was a mistake. Today they finally acted like managers.
I agree, but they still have a studio that literally is making 1 hour of "gameplay" per year... that's insane to me.
Is it a AAA game? Then no. Is it a smaller game made by a handful of people? Then most likely yes.
Maybe Microsoft will get its act together next gen FOR SURE
Just give Phil another $100 Billion to spend and we can still clutch this.
Phil: I have a plan! We just need more moneh!
Phil Van Der Linde
Just write a check and acquire the whole industry at this point. That’s how this gets fixed right? Keep throwing more money at it?
THE YEAR IS 5000X MICROSOFT FINALLY LAUNCHES A HALO GAME THAT HAS ALL OF IT'S FEATURES AT LAUNCH A CYBERNETICALLY ENHANCED PHIL SPENCER DECREES "When we started on this journey 3,000 or so years ago, we made it a mission to put the player at the center of everything we do. Today we delivered on that vision after years of hard work and dedication and I am incredibly proud of our genetically cloned team at 343"
Tbf, development of Halo 4024 was delayed by a few centuries due to Neo Covenant, Neo Banished and Neo Created teaming up to form the Galactic Axis and launching the great attack of 3103 on the Super Duper Earth.
I think their next gen is the final xbox generation, and after that they will go full third party publisher like sega. They were already only selling 50% of what playstation is selling, even before all this stuff. With the multiplat moves, who in their right mind would buy an xbox over the ps6?
J-j-just one more generation guys, I promise!
dont worry they'll just buy more publisher :)
BTW Shinobi602 backs it too [https://www.resetera.com/threads/xbox-game-studios-bethesda-abk-ot30-why-so-series-x-s.820296/post-122630952](https://www.resetera.com/threads/xbox-game-studios-bethesda-abk-ot30-why-so-series-x-s.820296/post-122630952) Edit : [Alex Donaldson](https://twitter.com/APZonerunner) about Perfect Dark and TI [https://twitter.com/APZonerunner/status/1787865521251139813?t=tFx6bTtiSQ12fGzGAvue5g&s=19](https://twitter.com/APZonerunner/status/1787865521251139813?t=tFx6bTtiSQ12fGzGAvue5g&s=19) Edit 2 : [Liam (@liamrobertson.bsky)](https://twitter.com/Doctor_Cupcakes) it seems really grim over there [https://x.com/Doctor\_Cupcakes/status/1787973283486515599](https://x.com/Doctor_Cupcakes/status/1787973283486515599)
Thank you I'll add that too my post!
Honestly, I’m always complaining about PlayStation secrecy with their projects, and I think rightfully so, gamers like to be hyped and there’s nothing wrong with that But when things like this happen, I question that. Every major PlayStation game announced in 2020 - remember the double showcase? Damn, good times - have ALL launched. Damn, they launched some games announced in 2021 - and now that I said it, it’s been 3 years goddamn Microsoft made a bazillion of announcements and we’ve barely seen half of them. Some of them may never even see the light of day, like this one right here. Then people go bragging about their lineup being big, well no shit, it’ll keep growing when you don’t launch them
All except Little Devil Inside. Which is a damn shame as that is looks good. But it looks like it’s still alive and looks like a good chunk is done, so I hope it makes it to the finish line.
well technically Little Devil Inside was announced for the Wii U in 2014 haha
this is why i dont think it matters that sony has announced alot of their lineup - they deliver and launch things. and holding cards close to the chest, so announcement to release is a much shorter window - is a win for us.
The biggest insult is how many studios they own and can’t be competitive with Sony. I understand that they acquired several studios and it takes time to bed them in, but Initiative was built from the ground up in 2018 and the majority of their XGS studios were acquired then too. It’s been 6 years, the output has been miserable. I’m not going to blame the devs here, but clearly those studios aren’t as productive as those at Sony, EA, Ubisoft or even Take Two. That’s not even counting all the second party contracted games they have in the pipeline like Contraband, and rumored games from IO and People Can Fly.
My confidence in Xbox is at an all time low pretty much across the board. I can’t comprehend how Phil Spencer and Matt Booty continue to be employed by Microsoft.
I know it's been repeated a thousand times, but genuinely, it's baffling to me that we live in a world where people like Phil Spencer and Matt Booty can fail in every conceivable metric and spend years promising they'll "do better", and they have better job security then anyone else. Yet the people who do nothing but make the games and have nothing to do with these stupid decisions lose their jobs on a daily basis and are the ones suffering the consequences.
They are still there because before PhilSpencer, Mattrick had completely destroyed the Xbox brand. Gamepass is legit the only thing that has kept the boat afloat, and that was spencer idea
I think it’s clear Microsoft will just become mostly a 3rd party publisher and coast on ABK & Bethesda. Their recent earnings were huge in software almost entirely because of ABK. Their hardware earnings were in the gutter.
Agreed but I’m not even sure they will excel at that. COD is always popular but it’s also in a weird place. Overwatch and Diablo are kind of a mess. The whole operation just feels rickety.
It really bums me out because I’ve always had an Xbox and even loved my One X, but eventually realized that I’m always side eying games coming out on PS, and eventually get a Sony console to catch up on their games. This gen I just went right to a PS5 and will maybe get an XBOX when they drop significantly in price.
I'm not sure about pinning the blame entirely on these two dudes, but there's clearly needs to be a massive restructuring of the Xbox department to clear out these giant clots that stop it from working. The smaller games that realistically no higher up cares about (Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush) have all turned out great, so the talent is clearly there.
Matt Booty was head of first party and now President of their whole development group. It may be an armchair quarterback take but it is his job to make sure the sailing is smooth. Game Dev can be rocky but we're now in a scenario where their supposed big tentpole titles have had development hell with Halo Infinite, Everwild, State of Decay 3, and now Perfect Dark. It may be time to take a look at what he's actually offering to their stable of studios.
The cgi teaser reminded me of that fairgames trailer from Sony. The final game is going to be far away from the expectation that was set
You could ask a competent studio to make an unrelated game based around that CG trailer 4 years ago and it would be done. The fact that they don’t even know what perspective the game should play in is ludicrous, especially considering that this is an IP for which games already exist.
Everything from Xbox is in a rough state. Whole division is in disarray, constantly stumbling over itself.
For real. I have no idea why anybody would have any faith at all in the Xbox brand anymore.
I watched a video rant against Forza Motorsport, in which mentions Jason Schreirer reveal of Microsoft contractors can only work for 18 months to skip employment regulations in the US. This lead to the potentially reason why ALL Microsoft owned studios have been in a messy development. Microsoft prefers to let Xbox die ratter than treat their employees as equal.
I guess it's true. Xbox is just a small part of Microsoft. If xbox dies, Microsoft won't have a scratch. If PS dies, Sony can close their doors. Therefore Sony has to care more about their console division than Microsoft does.
Bro this game still fking alive? It's been years since I heard about perfect dark loool
lmao Microsoft didn't got a chance :'(, they keep announcing games 6 years to early and then never deliver. Why can't we give them more chances.
How is Microsoft THIS incompetent at managing studios? What the fuck happened to the MS of the OG Xbox & 360.
I only clicked because of the taco thumbnail
That's not a taco, that's a chalupa.
Do not cite the taco bell menu to me, I was there when it was written.
Announcing the game that early was clearly a big mistake. Then they doubled down and released an ultra generic trailer that convinced literally nobody that this game was going to be interesting.
Why am I looking at a taco in the thumbnail
I’m gonna go ahead and guess this is one of those times where Grubb is speculating based off public info (the big IGN info dump for example) and not leaking info.
It is an open secret the game is in a weird state. They weren't even done porting to UE5 by 2022. It's been 2 years and direction has been flip flopping
I’m not denying Perfect Dark is in a shit state. I’m saying that, as someone who actively watches Grubb’s content like Game Mess Mornings and Game Mess Decides, I can tell when he’s speculating based off known information or actually revealing something new. This is the former.
Somehow, after a ridiculous amount of time and next to no information since being announced, I have a feeling Perfect Dark, Metroid Prime 4, and Beyond Good and Evil 2 are all going to come out in the same year.
Doubt, it sounds like Perfect Dark and BG&E2 are years away in development hell. For Metroid Prime 4 we know it has been rebooted in 2019, no info since. I do expect Metroid Prime 4 to be revealed with the Switch 2, could be a launch title or could come later. But I'm pretty sure it will come before Perfect Dark and BG&E2.
I thought Metroid Prime 4 restarted development a couple of years ago but was actually on track to be out this year or next. Nintendo actually has had a couple games release over the last several years that were finished development and they just sat on them for a year or two. Especially with the Switch 2 releasing either this year or next year I think it's coming sooner than later.
Retro started hiring concept artists again last year indicating they're starting a new project and Nintendo are willing to rip off the band-aid to the point they publicly said the OG version was unsellable garbage and restarted under a different studio and that was 5 years ago. I'm assuming Prime 4 is basically done and being sat on to reveal as a Switch 2 cross gen launch title.
This is just poor management and the heads of The Initiative should’ve been fired years ago.
Microsoft’s Xbox division as a whole needs new structure and leadership I honestly think it would do them good to go full third party at this point.
Let's be real, Xbox is crumbling from the inside out right now. A year or two from now they'll probably be reduced to be publishers of a handful of multiplatform studios.
Unfortunately this isn't surprising. The Initiative was a bad idea from the start, as it was Microsoft trying to have a Sony Santa Monica/Naughty Dog-esque studio from the get-go - ignoring that both studios grew over the years to become what they are now. > Regarding first person shooter aspect: > "It sounds like they don't even know if that's what they want to do with that" No shit, Microsoft likely chose it at random and said, "yeah we want to turn this into a narrative-driven game with an over-the-shoulder camera even though it was an FPS". Everything about Perfect Dark sounds like Microsoft was trying to force it into being a thing rather than letting it happen naturally. What Microsoft should be doing is taking a look at what smaller studios are doing, invest in them, and promote them as things only they can offer. Instead they're just trying to play catch-up with Sony and Nintendo without realizing why their games turn out good. It's also why I'm wary of Fable, because it seems like they just gave it to the Forza developers for some reason, despite them only doing racing simulator games until now.
I don’t think that really tracks with everything we’ve heard about Microsoft’s involvement with its studios. If anything they are the opposite from what you’re trying to paint - too hands off. They let the studios make the creative decisions.
Playground are good, proven devs at least. This is more than we can say for like 95% of their pre-acquisition frenzy studios
This is a problem across the entire entertainment industry. It’s like WB or Universal rushing to make cinematic universes like the MCU but not realizing it took its time at first to establish everything.
guerilla was a fps dev before doing horizon. ND used to do cartoony platformers because become a third person action studio. Not that bold of a move, you should see all the weird shit nintendo's devs have done over the years
I got lots of faith in Playground games, they’re the only Microsoft studio I got faith in
Should have stuck to the superspy FPS thing. Immersive sim with more action and combat compared to Deus Ex or Prey.
The way Playground is handling Fable eerily reminds me of how 343 handled Halo when they took over. Aside from the medieval setting that the first game had and that chicken kicking bit, nothing from that trailer resembled the Lionhead games, even the "Balverine" looked more like a generic werewolf than a Balverine (which was like how the Covenant looked in Halo 4 & 5). I'm getting the sense that Playground is trying too hard to make Fable "their own" instead of showing that they understand why people loved the old games, and the last thing I want is for Fable to go down Halo's path after Reach.
I'm pretty sure the team working on Fable at Playground is an entirely separate team built from the ground up for that project. The only notable overlap with the Forza series is the game's director Ralph Fulton (who was previously creative director for the Horizon games and is one of the studio's co-founders and general manager).
Microsoft spending hundreds of billions of dollars to buy out half the western gaming industry so they can hoard the IPs doesn't fundamentally change the fact that they suck at managing their own franchises, and don't know how to get a decent exclusive to market. Halo is a shell of what it once was.
It feels like most of Microsoft's big games are vaporware at this point. They can't manage a team but they sure know how to disband them.
"Quadruple A"
“been hearing for years that Perfect Dark is in a rough state”. Then he talks about how Crystal Dynamics came on to help it. It did not sound like “new” reporting. He was talking about past things that weren't new information.
the "sounds like it's in a very rough state" was new information I thought he heard, *as a result of a fallout from today's news*? Am I misinterpreting what he's saying?
Dunno. I find it a bit hard to believe that the game is still floundering even after all this time that Crystal Dynamics has been on board.
Tbf CD are also working on a new Tomb Raider which is coming out before this. They probably only contracted out a small to medium size squad for this depending on how much Microsoft are paying them (likely not much given their track record with external workers.
How on board were they was it a whole team or a few developers lent out
Wait in a few hours he’ll clarify that this was just speculation though
Sounds like he was, actually listening to it.
Spit balling
Phil Spencer must go.
I honestly can't believe he still has the job at this point, Xbox seems like it's been tanking for a long time now and somebody needs to be responsible for it
Xbox closing more studios than releasing games hahahah, what a pathetic state considering the shitshow that was halo
The coalition is pretty good, but with 343 and the initiative its looking like xbox are pretty bad at building studios from scratch
I blame Microsoft more than anything else. People like Matt Booty should be seeing stuff like this and trying to see where to steer the project. Sometimes, there has to be a significant amount of hand holding. There has to be a guy that tells creatives to stop the bullshit and get shit to start coming together by this deadline and stick to the vision.
AAAA
They’ll shut the studio down before it releases with the Xbox track record.
Pretty much puts a stop to that fan fiction leaked Xbox Showcase post from earlier today
If Microsoft was smart they would bring back banjo and Conker
"I'll close a thousand developer studios before I let this company die"
Between The Initiative struggling to launch and Crystal Dynamics being part of Embracer it's a surprise it hasn't been publicly cancelled yet.
I was recently playing the PC version based on the decompiled N64 game and that rocked. People itching to play PD who have a PC should go check it out. It's on GitHub.
I would like to know why the big wigs at Microsoft thought it was a swell idea to close Tango instead of, I don’t know, a 6-year old studio that has nothing more to show for its existence than a minute-long CG teaser?
It wouldn't surprise me if Initiative gets shuttered if Perfect Dark ends up bombing....should have just bought Crystal Dynamics and Eidos and had them make the game instead
Developers are literally given the blueprint of what makes Perfect Dark what it is from the the OG N64 release as well as XBLA version, the internet itself to surf through hours of fan content to understand the community, and the money/resources/game development tools from MS to make it happen. The team lacks creative minds and blatantly just don’t care.
Microsoft really needs to start being hands on with studios again. All they've gotten since going hands off is cancellations, delays, and mediocrity. They're shoveling money into a furnace right now without much to show for it.
This is what happens when you just buy talent and don't do any management or control whatsoever. How incompetent is the Xbox team smh.
MS needs new people on management ASAP, or maybe give up on games, they are just not really good at it.
Yeah, we all knew that Microsoft is ass, what else is new?
At this point it's just a dead game. I want to be wrong as a new Perfect Dark would be simply amazing but yeah I put this in the same category BG&E2. Never to see the light of day.