Does MS need to support more new IPs this gen? *spawn

[Brad Grenz]

Of the games Microsoft showed at their conference (not counting the 3 XBLA trailers which showed basically nothing), they didn't feature a single game that was on fewer than 3 iterations on the 360 alone. Halo and Splinter Cell are both at their 6th game overall, Call of Duty is on its 9th, Tomb Raider is at 10, and don't even ask about Madden!

The closest they had to a spring chicken was the South Park game which could be given a pass for being the first in a new genre for the license, but they didn't show gameplay and mostly seemed interested in getting some celebrities on stage with that selection. And while the game is actually looking very promising, the show itself is well over the hill and hardly an example of MS trying to provide anything resembling fresh experiences for their customers.

MS is either completely checked out on this gen, or completely checked out on core gaming itself. They got blown away by those crazy French bastards at Ubisoft, not to mention Sony and Nintendo. Not that Nintendo isn't guilty of leaning to heavily on entrenched properties. I haven't done the math but I'd bet over half the Nintendo published games they talked about today were literally Mario titles. But at least they demonstrated a few things I haven't already played 2 or 3 times.

 

[Brad Grenz]

I'm the core. I'm not satisfied. I wanted to play every single game Sony showed, I wanted to play every game Ubisoft showed, save Just Dance. I have no interest in playing anything MS showed, save South Park, and if it's Microsoft's attitude that I'm someone else's problem then I'll buy that on PS3 or PC.

 

[Acert93]

MS is either completely checked out on this gen, or completely checked out on core gaming itself. ... I'm the core. I'm not satisfied. I wanted to play every single game Sony showed, I wanted to play every game Ubisoft showed, save Just Dance. I have no interest in playing anything MS showed, save South Park, and if it's Microsoft's attitude that I'm someone else's problem then I'll buy that on PS3 or PC.

You not being interested isn't the same thing as no core games. I can think of 3 core exclusives MS announced or showed (Halo, Gears, Forza). Not MS's fault you don't like 3 of the better selling games this gen

 

[joker454]

I'm the core. I'm not satisfied. I wanted to play every single game Sony showed, I wanted to play every game Ubisoft showed, save Just Dance. I have no interest in playing anything MS showed, save South Park, and if it's Microsoft's attitude that I'm someone else's problem then I'll buy that on PS3 or PC.

It's just a numbers game. 9 of the top 10 selling games of 2011 were multiplatform (Gears 3 being the exception), and there are far more core games put out yearly than the typical core user ever buys. There's just no need for Microsoft to go nuts spending on exclusives on this gen, it doesn't make business sense as 3rd parties have it handled. Losing you as a customer isn't a big deal in this case because you may just play on pc which puts you back in Microsofts hands anyways, or for the one of you they lose they may get back others in new markets like kinect, other services, etc, by spending resources to target them. Plus as Acer mentions, they already have some of the best selling exclusives already anyways.

 

[Brad Grenz]

You not being interested isn't the same thing as no core games. I can think of 3 core exclusives MS announced or showed (Halo, Gears, Forza). Not MS's fault you don't like 3 of the better selling games this gen

Yeah, the 6th, 4th and 5th of those games. Why do I need to play any of those that many times? That's my point. MS is so disinterested they'll just keep turning over the same dirt and hoping people will mindlessly buy the same thing again and again. If I'm gonna give my business to a company, it's gonna be someone who doesn't treat me like a faucet of cash they can turn on every two years.

People have been dismissive of the negativity towards Microsoft's conference with the same line Joker454 uses: war's over, MS can sit on their laurels and let third parties do the heavy lifting. But that's a shitty excuse. All that tells me is MS doesn't give a flying fuck about the medium. Sony is breaking ground and investing heavily in risky products to advance video games as a medium. MS is saving their pennies because they don't care what anyone buys as long as the Xbox Live fees keep rolling in. I have no interest in doing business with a company like that.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Yeah, the 6th, 4th and 5th of those games. Why do I need to play any of those that many times? That's my point. MS is so disinterested they'll just keep turning over the same dirt and hoping people will mindlessly buy the same thing again and again. If I'm gonna give my business to a company, it's gonna be someone who doesn't treat me like a faucet of cash they can turn on every two years.

Forza definitely isn't the same game. It's an open road driving game and Halo 4 certainly is somewhat of a reboot for the series also. I haven't looked at Gears yet, but I'll take any Gears I can get

 

[bkilian]

I'm the core. I'm not satisfied. I wanted to play every single game Sony showed, I wanted to play every game Ubisoft showed, save Just Dance. I have no interest in playing anything MS showed, save South Park, and if it's Microsoft's attitude that I'm someone else's problem then I'll buy that on PS3 or PC.

So... uh... as far as I can tell, pretty much all the games shown by Ubi, EA, Sony and Nintendo were all sequels or more. So why are they so much better than the Microsoft ones?

 

[joker454]

Yeah, the 6th, 4th and 5th of those games. Why do I need to play any of those that many times? That's my point. MS is so disinterested they'll just keep turning over the same dirt and hoping people will mindlessly buy the same thing again and again. If I'm gonna give my business to a company, it's gonna be someone who doesn't treat me like a faucet of cash they can turn on every two years.

People have been dismissive of the negativity towards Microsoft's conference with the same line Joker454 uses: war's over, MS can sit on their laurels and let third parties do the heavy lifting. But that's a shitty excuse. All that tells me is MS doesn't give a flying fuck about the medium. Sony is breaking ground and investing heavily in risky products to advance video games as a medium. MS is saving their pennies because they don't care what anyone buys as long as the Xbox Live fees keep rolling in. I have no interest in doing business with a company like that.

Well they aren't exactly saving their pennies, they are pouring them into content rights (music, movies, etc), motion control r&d, voice control, ui design, platform unification, etc. One could argue voice recognition and/or motion controls are helping advance the medium but I digress. In any case there wasn't much "new" core stuff shown this show even by Sony, their booth was filled with 4th, 5th and 6's as well.

 

[Proelite]

Yeah, the 6th, 4th and 5th of those games. Why do I need to play any of those that many times? That's my point. MS is so disinterested they'll just keep turning over the same dirt and hoping people will mindlessly buy the same thing again and again. If I'm gonna give my business to a company, it's gonna be someone who doesn't treat me like a faucet of cash they can turn on every two years.

People have been dismissive of the negativity towards Microsoft's conference with the same line Joker454 uses: war's over, MS can sit on their laurels and let third parties do the heavy lifting. But that's a shitty excuse. All that tells me is MS doesn't give a flying fuck about the medium. Sony is breaking ground and investing heavily in risky products to advance video games as a medium. MS is saving their pennies because they don't care what anyone buys as long as the Xbox Live fees keep rolling in. I have no interest in doing business with a company like that.

So what happens if Durango is amazing and they show off 5 or more amazing looking new ips next generation? Or do you think that's not going to happen.

In terms of content for 2012, both companies are pretty barren. It's pretty clear that the houses are gearing up towards next generation.

MS: Halo 4, Forza Horizon
Sony: Battle Royale, Last of Us?

At this point both my 360 and PS3 are collecting dust, and I would be glad to have any game, regardless of whether of not it's a new IP. I honestly don't care.

On the Xbla/Kinect side, there is Crimson Dragon that I am looking forward too, but we all know those don't count as games.

 

[Brad Grenz]

So... uh... as far as I can tell, pretty much all the games shown by Ubi, EA, Sony and Nintendo were all sequels or more. So why are they so much better than the Microsoft ones?

Should we break it down?

Sony demonstrated 2 brand new, triple A IPs, a game in a style they have never produced before, A new application of their industry leading AR tech and two sequels.

Ubisoft demonstrated 2 brand new IPs, one on brand new hardware, one possibly for future hardware and some sequels.

Nintendo showed off multiple new game types on new hardware, that new Ubisoft IP, a sequel from a series that has lain fallow for a whole generation, and admittedly like 5 Mario games.

Microsoft showed nothing that hadn't been released on 360 at least twice before, most many more times than that.

 

[Proelite]

Should we break it down?

Sony demonstrated 2 brand new, triple A IPs, a game in a style they have never produced before, A new application of their industry leading AR tech and two sequels.

What was this.

Btw, you're way too easy on Sony. I expected more for the Vita. Devoting all that resources towards the PS3 this late in the generation is admirable but sort of misguided in my opinion.

 

[Brad Grenz]

The Wonderbooks.

I expected more for Vita, too. I was hoping they'd announce Diablo 3 for the system. But I can't blame them for focusing on the platform and the games that are actually going to make them money this year. If they had gone Vita heavy people would probably just be giving them shit for focusing on a platform no one cares about and not giving us the PS3 games we actually want.

 

[Arwin]

The Wonderbooks.

I expected more for Vita, too. I was hoping they'd announce Diablo 3 for the system. But I can't blame them for focusing on the platform and the games that are actually going to make them money this year. If they had gone Vita heavy people would probably just be giving them shit for focusing on a platform no one cares about and not giving us the PS3 games we actually want.

Their primary focus this year also seemed to be to stay within an hour (they've had a lot of complaints). That involves choices. Because if you make a list of Vita announcements of the last few weeks, that's a big list. I agree that you'd have expected to see more, but it is also easy to 'lose' against Microsoft for an audience that isn't interested in portables. They made a similar choice to Nintendo in that regard, but Nintendo was wise enough to stress they'd have a separate session on 3DS games. They did a good job there in marketing their own marketing . Will be interesting to see what Vita will actually have on the show floor, because the list of things I've seen compiled on Neogaf is a pretty decent list. It was a shame they couldn't at least show something like CoD on Vita, that would have made a difference to the overall impression.

 

[Proelite]

Sequels or not 360 actually has somewhat of a lineup this holiday.

 

[dobwal]

Should we break it down?

Sony demonstrated 2 brand new, triple A IPs, a game in a style they have never produced before, A new application of their industry leading AR tech and two sequels.

Ubisoft demonstrated 2 brand new IPs, one on brand new hardware, one possibly for future hardware and some sequels.

Nintendo showed off multiple new game types on new hardware, that new Ubisoft IP, a sequel from a series that has lain fallow for a whole generation, and admittedly like 5 Mario games.

Microsoft showed nothing that hadn't been released on 360 at least twice before, most many more times than that.

Exactly what has Sony's 1st party titles done for the Sony? As highly regarded as those titles are, they haven't outsold the MS first party offerings nor have they enabled Sony to outsell MS. One may opine that Sony would be worse off without those 1st party titles. It doesn't change the fact that the PS3 has not been profitable at the retail price levels Sony were forced to offer the PS3 to be competitive unit sales wise. Those titles have provided wonderful experiences but have done little to make the PS3 a profitable product for Sony.

The reality is that we as core gamers can't properly support consoles with the level of tech and profits we and the manufacturers would like to see. We have no problem buying consoles at $400-$500 a pop with 30-50 game library but we alone aren't 50-100 million strong. The more MS can convince mainstream consumers to buy and support its console gaming products at higher price levels the better it is for core gamers. If triple A high end graphics gaming alone was enough then Sony and MS would own the market and Nintendo Wii would be this gen's version of the GC in terms of console sales.

Not many here wants MS or Sony to follow Nintendo's model to success. Its my opinion that MS knows all they have to do is give devs good tech, good tools and large userbase and those high end triple A titles will come. But getting the mainstream on board requires concentrating on features that lay outside core gaming. Casual gaming and media functionality/connectivity seems to be the features that MS wants to expound upon to make its console more attractive to mainstream consumers.

While I see some here and other places look at current gaming as casual versus core gamers. I see more of a symbiotic relationship where the more mainstream gamers support a console the greater level of investment manufacturers can incur that directly benefits core gamers. Furthermore, today's mainstream or casual gamers can be tomorrow core gamers which can lead to healthy growth to the overall base of core gamers.

I get off "oohing and awing" from the a bunch of "never seen before" titles as much as the next hardcore gamer but we don't need E3 to get our information of up coming titles. There are tons of avenues to inundates us with "up to date" info and whats on the horizon while servicing us in a way not possible with E3. But E3 is becoming more and more important as a vehicle to disseminate information to the mainstream media which in turns allows more information to filter to mainstream consumers. I think we are better served when MS and Sony concentrate on and cater to more mainstream console and software features during E3. The better MS and Sony becomes at attracting mainstream and casual gamers the better off we will be as long as MS and Sony remains dedicated to providing consoles with tech that visually performs as well as feasibly possible.

 

[kagemaru]

Exactly what has Sony's 1st party titles done for the Sony? As highly regarded as those titles are, they haven't outsold the MS first party offerings nor have they enabled Sony to outsell MS. One may opine that Sony would be worse off without those 1st party titles. It doesn't change the fact that the PS3 has not been profitable at the retail price levels Sony were forced to offer the PS3 to be competitive unit sales wise. Those titles have provided wonderful experiences but have done little to make the PS3 a profitable product for Sony.

Honestly his posts belong on GameFaqs or GAF instead of B3D, so I wouldn't even entertain him by replying to his posts.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, the 6th, 4th and 5th of those games. Why do I need to play any of those that many times? That's my point. MS is so disinterested they'll just keep turning over the same dirt and hoping people will mindlessly buy the same thing again and again. If I'm gonna give my business to a company, it's gonna be someone who doesn't treat me like a faucet of cash they can turn on every two years.

Interesting.

You see it as blaming the customers for following like sheep and mindlessly buying things they presumably wouldn't play otherwise. At least that's what the dismissive tone of your post suggests.

While I see it as MS giving customers exactly what they are demanding. While you may not like the Halo franchise (or Gears or Forza or whatever), whether it be because of gameplay or graphics or storyline or whatever. It's quite evident that there are multiple millions of people that do.

For MS not to create a game for those consumers would be an incredible tragedy (for all those multiple millions who are dying to play another game that they love) and a business tragedy of the highest order (deliberately choosing not to create a title that is likely to bring in well over 100 million USD in revenue).

Strange, how MS is demonized for giving consumers exactly what they want...

There's nothing wrong with creating new IP just as there is nothing wrong with giving consumers more of what they want and more importantly what they demand. The first is an obvious risk. The second is much less of a risk as long as you don't deviate too much from what makes people like the franchise in the first place. Franchises usually fail if they either deviate too far from what made the franchise great or they introduce absolutely nothing new.

Regards,
SB

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I don't know about sales numbers, but my favorite new IPs of this generation weren't first party. They were all third party. Bioshock, Borderlands, Mass Effect, Lost Planet, RDR (technically not a new IP but I'd say it was anyway), Gears, and I'm sure there were many more.

Now, MS might have paid for some of them to be exclusive or timed exclusive or they just were by nature of there being no PS3 during the game launch/development. But I don't see the need for MS to have new 1st party IP.

Did they have any at all this generation? Fable wasn't new, Halo wasn't new, Kameo from Rare? Is that it?

What were we discussing again?

 

[Billy Idol]

Err, what's up with all this hate towards Brad Grenz?

He just wants more games on Xbox...me too! Bring it on, the more games the better...are you guys seriously arguing against that? It's not about Sony this and Sony that...it's simple about more games, more gaming fun...that's it guys.

If you seriously cannot understand this...

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Err, what's up with all this hate towards Brad Grenz?

He just wants more games on Xbox...me too! Bring it on, the more games the better...are you guys seriously arguing against that?

He doesn't just want more games on the Xbox. He wants more first party new IPs on the Xbox. To be announced at an E3 three thousand years into the life cycle of a console with a new console arriving out the door any minute.

It's not about Sony this and Sony that...it's simple about more games, more gaming fun...that's it guys.

I think you should re-read his messages.