@Pedro said:
@osan0 said:
On a game not needing to be exclusive to be successful: Yes that's true of course. From our point of view, exclusive games are not inherently superior to multiplats. It makes no difference. There are many cases where current exclusives would be better if they were multiplat (looking at you Nintendo!). From our point of view it's better to keep everything multiplat. All the current consoles are functionally basically the same and the PC can also do a dam fine impression of a console when needed.
But you are not looking at this from corporate enough. This is SW Gods dammit!! :P
Historically the only successful way to build a platform has been exclusive content. Having the right content exclusive to your platform. Halo 2 showed MS that Xbox Live was onto something back in the day. Nintendo...all of it. Steam was just a patching service for counter strike before HL2 was released (which needed Steam to run, thus compelling loads of people to sign up). PS lived on it's exclusives and got battered during the PS3 era because 3rd parties went multiplat and Sony were not making many of their own games (a mistake they spent the gen setting right).
The thing is there is not a single example of a gaming platform I can think of that is successful simply because it exists. Anyone that tried that went bust.
200 million paying 15 quid a month (subject to change) year in year out. Circa 30 Billion a year in revenue at least. Lots of mindshare too. Lots of user data to sell. Lots of opportunities to upsell other services. That's what MSs top brass are looking at.
Yes: there is currently a cost of production problem for exclusives and, at the moment, MS and Sony are cracking under the pressure. Currently consoles can't support their own production costs. You have a service bringing in at least 30 billion+ a year: all of a sudden billion dollar productions don't look so scary.
But the only way Gamepass will see any rapid growth is if MS make better games and put them behind the paywall. By all means bring gamepass to every platform possible....but people need to subscribe to access them. That's how to grow the service.
The big difficulty, of course, is define "Make better games". As you say: it's subjective. That's the challenge for MS. The general consensus around MSs releases generally seems to be "meh" though. Sometimes they score well or make a good first impression....then the reaction changes to "oh....that's it". They are not landing hits at the moment. I hope that changes but, so far this gen, not a lot of positivity around MSs output. Making well loved, highly successful, mega selling hits is not an exact science (that's probably a good thing mind :P). But it's something MS needs to get better at.
What you are proposing will fail. Gamers are not going to greenlit games being locked to GamePass. It just would not fly especially for Xbox. If you want Xbox to die overnight, make games exclusive to GamePass. Also locking your game to subscription also prevents gamers who want to pay more for a single game from paying for that single game. That is lost of revenue just cause. Exclusivity can exist outside of hardware and that is still a viable option while being consumer friendly. You don't need to buy Netflix, Hulu, Spotify specific hardware to gain access to the content but the content is still exclusive to the service.
In order for subscription to be scalable, the process for game development has to be optimized. Let's take a look at Xbox for example. They are using Unreal, Unity, Slipspace, ID, Creative Engine etc for development of games across multiple studios. They need to consolidate that shit. That means, cutting down to bone. Purge everything that is unnecessary and standardize the development across all of your studios. Keynote is standardizing the development process not standardize the type of game. Next, focus on smaller experiences that are easier to make but delivers on expectations regardless of the genre. These big ass cinematic games should be irregular and not the norm.
From the news, it seems like step one is in progress.🙃
Who said anything about hardware exclusive? MS should continue to get gamepass everywhere it possibly can. That's part of the trick to getting netflix numbers. Get it on switch, PS, phones, TV OS, toasters, fridges, frickin vending machines.
There would be short term pain, as i say, but if the gamble pays off and you have rapid growth in subscribers and little in the way of unsubs.....worth it (from corporate shill point of view :P)
But why would it fail? Look at the industry. Look at what's selling. Look at history. People are spending 350 bucks on a decrepid 8 year old console that only plays games. It's still selling well which is bonkers. It ain't selling just because it's a portable PS3. PC gamers run after hardware upgrades when something like a Crysis type game (haven't had one in a while) arrives. Software sells hardware. Every successful platform is there because of it's games. Having the right games. Even MS were at their strongest when they were delivering the content. Making the right deals. Gears, Halo, Forza, Mass effect....big hits. I think it was braid that really put xbox live arcade on the map back in the day too.
"But look what happened with Helldivers 2" i hear someone say. The only reason Sony had to back peddle there was because they sold the game in a bunch of countries where PSN is not actually available. That was the screw up. If PSN was available in every country then they would have gone ahead with it. Gamers would moan and pout and stomp and shout.....and in the end they would have signed up to PSN to continue to play. Valve did the same thing with HL2 for Steam and look at it now.
You have the right content (and, on paper at least, MS have a crap load of the right content) and, in the end, gamers will subscribe/buy what they need to to get access to that content. Arguably a gamepass sub is a much lower barrier to entry than needing to buy a console or even pay the 70 quid for a game. If it's everywhere....who knows?
As for your second paragraph......streamlining tools and processes is certainly a good idea in theory. But I think EA tried that last gen by trying to get everyone to move to frostbyte. It caused a lot of issues and they needed to backtrack in the end.
That's not to say MS shouldn't do anything: but it's a massive challenge. On paper you basically have ID make the MS engine (based on ID tech) and have all internal studios move to It and other developers have mini engine teams that take a build of IdTech and customise it to their own requirements. Then it's the same tools for 3D modelling, texturing, animating, sound production etc. across the board. But it's far more difficult to make work in practice. People get used to their tools and their workflows and yanking that out from under them can cause....er....fussin.
On your last point: i mostly agree. MS (and sony for that matter) could definitely do with more variety. More AA experiential and indie type games too. Not every game needs to be a AAA blockbuster. It does get tiresome. But AAAs definitely do have their place. They are headline grabbers and head turners. As platform holders though (and MS have been very poor at this aspect in recent years) their AAA games should be setting the state of the art in tech and production values. When they come along they should be a big deal.
However when i say state of the art i don't just mean graphics. Everything should be pushed. E.g. the next elder scrolls should not only set a new bar visually for open world games, but also the underlying simulation should be making people jaws drop in awe. E.g. take that Skyrim NPC mod and run with it with big MS FU money so that NPCs not only look fantastic, but also do a far far better job of feigning intelligence (Of the big 3, MS are uniquely positioned to pursue such an endeavour. Sony and Nintendo are not chasing the AI crowd overall as businesses). If it needs an NPU in your PC or a new Xbox then so be it....get it done.
Quite frankly if ES 6 plays like ES5 and NPCs basically have the same behaviour and it's just pretty-ish then it's going to be another swing and a miss from Bethesda. Don't even bother....just re-release ES5 again :P.
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