Rumor: MS and Bungie splitting
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Johnny Awesome
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Try those lists for MS and Nintendo
Going by your arguement, since many 1st party titles don't crack the top 20, Sony should let Polyphony Digital walk?
The above list is an emphatic arguement why Sony would want to keep PD -- and why MS should keep Bungie.
Also, 1st party titles are very important a) at launch and b) to "preach and execute" your gameplan. Imagine how the Wii would be without 1st parties... or how MS would be without games like Halo 2 and PGR2 to establish Live.
Further, 1st party titles are essential when times get tough. 1st party has carried Nintendo; 1st parties are what is making the PS3 compelling and relevant. Imagine a PS4 launch that is day and date -- or a year earlier -- than the Xbox 3. If I am Bioware, Epic, RTS, Capcom, etc why do I pen exclusives on the Xbox 3 when the PS4 will be out and I can make more by being multiplatform. The current 360 strategy works because of market conditions and timing, not because it is a universal win.
A final note: Those lists contain many casual games. Many of those are defacto titles that don't drive initial console sales. Not all 1st party titles are aimed to drive pure sales, but instead to either generate early sales by capturing core audiance "movers" or to broaded the platform. e.g. Kameo was an important 360 launch title because it gave the impression of diversity and appealed to a wider demographic than launching with another shooter.
Nintendo is an exception I will admit. MS is not. Only two of their titles really made an impact: Halo and Fable. I think you can make an argument that MS should keep Forza 2, but there's no reason why 2nd party titles can't fill the same launch void you're talking about. MS and Sony didn't really have anything special at launch for X360 or PS3 that blew gamers away. It's probably cheaper for MS to pay for exclusives overall from second party devs than it is to have a lot of inhouse development. The odd time time you get a big hit like Halo is probably more than offset by all the money you sink into games like MechAssault, Crimson Skies, Top Spin, etc.. that never earn anything.
I also think there is a cultural phenomenon at work as well. Sony can force PD to make GT forever. That works in Japan. It doesn't really work over here. There's more labor mobility. People will quit. They want to do other projects. There's less reason for 1st party devs in the West in particular IMO.
Not doing Halo again was cited as one of the desires (or perhaps a leverage) for the new Bungie.
But of course, it depends how much money MS put on the table... and in what capacity they want Bungie to be involved.
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Johnny Awesome
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Sony didn't need R&C to be 1st party. I'm not saying not to fund development of 2nd party titles, just that you don't have to own the devs to do it.
Under the general assumption that any non Halo IP Bungie came up with prior to leaving MS is technically owned by MS.
However, Bungie may have been secretly developing IPs once they knew a seperation was likely. But they simply can't come back tomorrow to MS and say "look at this new project we have".
Putting aside the rumor, are you suggesting it is best for MS is disband all 1st party studios and go exclusively piecemeal? Specifically, if this is all an unsubstantiated rumor, are you suggesting in the process of dismantling their 1st parties they should also spin-off Bungie, regardless of the profits and significance the studio has had for their Xbox brand?
Do these conclusions equally apply to Sony?
No, I'm not suggesting that. In fact, I'm not suggesting anything. All I'm saying is, that there's no "right" or "wrong" strategy for MS here in terms of how they pursue their exclusive content. Hindsight is 20/20; until then, all we can do is make educated guesses.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Actually Bioware only made KOTOR1 and it was the 8th best selling Xbox1 game at around 2million copies. For context the 3rd best selling title, Splinter Cell 3 sold just under 3million, so it was right up there with the best.
Mass Effect has tremendous hype, and if you look back at ANY highly hyped 360 game so far the have all sold well, so I don't think it's a stretch at all to assume ME will be a smash hit. This game is similar to Bioshock, in that it's had so many previews and walkthroughs and 'game of show' that by now you just know it's gonna be a AAA title, and the only question is whether it gets 9's or 10's.
But I think all 3 of those titles have the potential to be system sellers, the only one I'm not too sure about is R&C.
scooby_dooby
Legend
I think you're reading a little too much into these recent moves.
Bizarre was simply under contract for the PGR series, MS already has PGR3 and PGR4 on the system, and I can see why logically they didn't feel like they needed another sequal any time soon. So the option was to either let Bizarre go multiplatform, or have them develop in a genre where they're completerly unproven. We know BC can make a great racing game, but who knows if they can do anything else.
And with Halo, this is not some sort of grand strategy, it's simply MS getting greedy and Bungie putting their foot down and threatening to leave. I'm sure MS didn't want this to happen, but here we are.
I really think it's too premature to think MS is scaling back significantly on their 1st party titles due to these two moves, I guess you could include FASA in the list as well, but we all know that they were essentially a bust.
It remains to be seen if MS is getting out of the 1st party game, or whether they are simply refocusing. Currently they are indeed very short on internal studios, so we'll have to see what sort of moves they make over the next yera or so.
And just for shits and giggles - Wouldn't it be awesome to see what Infinity Ward could do with the Halo franchise???
Pipo - post #69. 
With regard to Bizarre, people treat it as if they were an MS owned or exclusive studio prior to their acquisition; they weren't. MS' interest in the studio extended to Project Gotham, and they published those titles. When the time to make a bid came, it's just probably the case that MS didn't see the value of purchasing locked exclusivity vs allocating those funds elsewhere. Afterall it's not like they can't expect BC's games to keep coming to their system, right?
With regard to Bizarre, people treat it as if they were an MS owned or exclusive studio prior to their acquisition; they weren't. MS' interest in the studio extended to Project Gotham, and they published those titles. When the time to make a bid came, it's just probably the case that MS didn't see the value of purchasing locked exclusivity vs allocating those funds elsewhere. Afterall it's not like they can't expect BC's games to keep coming to their system, right?
No, they may not. Absolutely not. Not going to have happened. Impossible.
Please, people: Keep the speculation at least within the realms of the real world, not some dreamland where development studios dictate terms to their corporate overlords or secretly stow away work for the day they will finally break free from the creative shackles they've been bound to...
We're talking about a valuable business asset here, not a fantasy novel.
Long story short, MS needs to really work on their 2nd/3rd party dev relationships.
Having an easy to dev for kit and HW are about the only nice things I hear from devs regarding MS and these two latest (very) big departures clearly tell a tale that isn't complementary.
Someone should be fired over this.
As has been said earlier in this thread, if Bungie wanted more freedom to dev other games and this was the reason behind the departure, why not let them have this freedom as an internal studio? That is how great games like GoW(ps2) are made.
This is of course assuming MS intends to continue with the same business model in the console realm.
Having an easy to dev for kit and HW are about the only nice things I hear from devs regarding MS and these two latest (very) big departures clearly tell a tale that isn't complementary.
Someone should be fired over this.
As has been said earlier in this thread, if Bungie wanted more freedom to dev other games and this was the reason behind the departure, why not let them have this freedom as an internal studio? That is how great games like GoW(ps2) are made.
This is of course assuming MS intends to continue with the same business model in the console realm.
scooby_dooby
Legend
So the big question to me is....how much did they have to pay MS to buy out the company??
Any guesses?? Without any IP's it may not be as much as we think, I'm gonna guess ~300million...
Any guesses?? Without any IP's it may not be as much as we think, I'm gonna guess ~300million...
You must be in dreamland if you don't think this doesn't occur. Im not talking about some secret dark room where a IP is being churn out unbeknowst to MS, but at the very least its a given that concepts on napkins exist within Bungie.
Shh.....I worked for a company that was spun out from a larger company. A former shareholder of our company before we merged with the larger company paid to have us spun out. I personally work on a 3 person secret R&D project that the higher ups knew nothing about but was done to make us more attractive for a buyout to a way larger company (top 3 in my field). We were spun out and within a year we were bought by that top 3 company.
Assuming a private deal structuring that sees the Bungie name trade hands, I would think a fair bit less than $300 million myself.
Without the Halo IP which MS is retaining, Bungie is essentially a large pool of talented devs, some of which were probably set to leave anyway. So to MS, beyond the sale of a studio stripped of its most valuable IP, they also take away a lot of their own fixed labor costs; remember that Bungie went on a hiring spree associated with the Halo 3 development, and I doubt MS would consider carrying those costs acceptable for a non-surefire hit.
Anyway, we'll see if they were actually bought out or not in the near future (hopefully). Still a number of ways the situation might be structured beyond an actual sale transaction.
Gradthrawn
Veteran
Conversely, they do have some of best games locked down as exclusives and other great games as multi-platform releases, instead of Playstation only. Admittedly, much of those arrangements were made some time ago, and relationships could have been strained since then. However, it still seems that they're doing a darn good job of funding high quality projects exclusively for the 360 (in the console space that is), which says quite a bit about their 2nd/3rd party relationships.
I'm not sure its relevant where those projects come from in the grand scheme of things (in regards to the impact of their internal talent). Whether 1st, 2nd, or 3rd party, they (strong titles) are 360 only and of a high quality.
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I don't think your view is wrong. But there are other interesting aspects to this whole set of arguments.
* Bungie is making a boat load of money for Microsoft. So there is little/no reason why MS doesn't want to keep it EVEN IF the strategy does not make sense to them anymore.
* Having your own minion to forge your vision can be convenient/critical, especially when it's a high risk move. It's like Nintendo doing Wii Sports for Wii when everyone else are still scratching their heads. Or Sony doing SingStar (That's first party right ?), Playstation Home and Game 3.0 stuff.
What bothers me more is why in the world did MS not jump with joy when Bungie wanted to do something more/different. I mean I understand the Halo franchise is waiting to be milked but this sort of things can be worked out and through (i.e., not a showstopper).
Are the MS execs trying to prove a point ? (like establishing a regime/culture amonst all its first parties). Did they announce Halo War without full support from Bungie ?
scooby_dooby said:
Hmm... that's too much, me think.
Sure. MS can't be thought police, but anything they actually *worked* on would belong to MS.
If it was secret, how could it make you more attractive as a buyout prospect?
For your anecdote to be relevant it would require both Bungie personnel to engage in disloyal and illegal activities and for MS oversight to be grossly incompetent.Of course there's corporate jockeying and of course people talk, but to think an entity like Bungie could keep anything 'secret' from MS to they point where they'd use it as 'leverage' is ludicrous. Any confrontational stance would only hurt themselves. MS could never allow it as the ramifications of such a thing would reach far beyond Bungie themselves.
Pipo - post #69.
Damn I'm late...
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