That Cross-Generation Games Thread [2020] *spawn*

[Jay]

Sounds like, the devs were allowed to do anything they want. But everyone chose to go cross gen for the next few years and that’s how they marketed it.
Interesting.

The question is more so, when was that decided and was it from the start.
That makes a big difference to what decisions a team makes during development.
For all we know that could be a change in the last month, and that statement is still true.
I wouldn't say this is simply a clarification, not sure I'd call it a 180 either as we don't know.

But it's definitely different to what he was saying before, maybe a public broadening of position?

I've always said that the new studios probably only had current/cross gen games in development due to business reasons when independent.
Although doesn't mean they couldn't say if we make it next gen exclusive we can broaden our vision or go back to what we wanted to do.

Anyway, it's almost like he read my last post on the topic and almost used it verbatim.

I did find it interesting Mr Beard Guy saying about games that aren't possible on current gen (listed a couple), when few days earlier Phil was all about games scaling and soap boxes.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

They are offering it to all game pass ultimate users. I expect that number to sky rocket during XSX launch. The XSX hardware is going to be able to run multiple instances of xbox one games. So i think even if some dies don't make the cut for the home console can they can used in xcloud. Instead of 4 streams they will run 2 streams or something.

As someone with a server background, you don't put substandard anything into a server farm. You need the absolutely highest quality and maximum efficiency from every single component because the costs of operating a farm are astronomical. Having a bunch of blades running at anything other than peak efficiency brings me out in a cold sweat.

About that Microsoft Games Studios cross-gen Statement from Phil Spencer. It is not a mandate. It's up to each respective developer to decide for themselves, even within Xbox Game Studios.

Sounds like, the devs were allowed to do anything they want. But everyone chose to go cross gen for the next few years and that’s how they marketed it. Interesting.

This is an interesting take. I got to BRiT's post and immediately thought that the statement contradicts the commitment Xbox have given existing Xbox One owners but upon hitting your post I think that's what happened. Xbox heads canvassed MGS (Microsoft Game Studio) teams who all confirmed their games were targeting Xbox One in the next two years and the commitment naturally followed.

The original commitment was made back in 2019 before Microsoft acquired a bunch of studios, but the new commitment post-dates that so I imagine there was second consultation with old and new MGS teams on the position and the recent statement confirms no change. Maybe they felt the need to make the second statement because of their recent acquisitions.

Now that the commitment has been re-made, it's surely has to be a mandate? That said, any MGS team would know if they planned to release a Series-X only title in the next two years so a mandate with zero consequences.

 

[Ronaldo8]

About that Microsoft Games Studios cross-gen Statement from Phil Spencer. It is not a mandate. It's up to each respective developer to decide for themselves, even within Xbox Game Studios.

The thing you'll see on the 23rd is we're giving our studios real creative freedom to build the games that they envision.

As you know we've added a lot of studios to the to the Xbox Game Studios organization over the last few years and providing them the financial stability, the creative freedom to go build the games that they want to go build, and our game creators want to build great games that can reach a large audience of players.

So I think what you hear Matt talking about and what our creators will say is we have a vision for every game that we're building and the vision starts with the player, not the device. If a creator comes to us and says 'No, I really want to focus on next generation' with their games, we're completely open to that and we're very supportive of that.

If a creator comes to us and says I have this vision for reaching these customers across different platforms and different generations we're completely supportive of that.

It is really about our creators having choice and allowing them to build the games that they want to build to reach the audience that they're looking for and not things that we're mandating to our creators in terms of what they have to go do.

It's not our rules for our platform it's more about creators creating the games that they want to go build looking ahead.
​

What BS from Xbox. You won't be left behind, except when you are going to be left behind. Very disingenuous when they have been hammering their competitor for doing the same.

 

[iroboto]

Now that the commitment has been re-made, it's surely has to be a mandate? That said, any MGS team would know if they planned to release a Series-X only title in the next two years so a mandate with zero consequences.

I think as you alluded to preciously, or someone did, it takes too long to make a game, and they know when all their games will be releasing approximately, so the time frame is a couple of years before the actual exclusives arrive.

I think this is where certain titles that will be presented Thursday may land outside that window, in my mind, HB2

 

[iroboto]

What BS from Xbox. You won't be left behind, except when you are going to be left behind. Very disingenuous when they have been hammering their competitor for doing the same.

They said that you wouldn’t be forced to upgrade immediately. That promise is kept As a majority of the titles will be compatible with this generation.

His statement however does read that there may be some titles that will target XSX specifically, in particular he is likely referring to some 3P or 2P exclusives during launch.

the entirety of Sony’s presentation was exclusive to PS5, at least how they marketed it as. This won’t be the case come Thursday. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be some titles here or there that may fall into exception territory.

They already know the line up, it’s not like it’s going to surprise them. Xbox players should expect a 1-2 years of mainly a cross gen experience.

 

[iroboto]

The question is more so, when was that decided and was it from the start.
That makes a big difference to what decisions a team makes during development.
For all we know that could be a change in the last month, and that statement is still true.
I wouldn't say this is simply a clarification, not sure I'd call it a 180 either as we don't know.

But it's definitely different to what he was saying before, maybe a public broadening of position?

I've always said that the new studios probably only had current/cross gen games in development due to business reasons when independent.
Although doesn't mean they couldn't say if we make it next gen exclusive we can broaden our vision or go back to what we wanted to do.

Anyway, it's almost like he read my last post on the topic and almost used it verbatim.

I did find it interesting Mr Beard Guy saying about games that aren't possible on current gen (listed a couple), when few days earlier Phil was all about games scaling and soap boxes.

Phil Spencer is playing both sides here and without a doubt the first thing with him that should spring to mind is how contradictory it is as per @DSoup and others have mentioned.

make no mistake, anyone who felt the statements to be contradictory is paying attention here. But As players we tend to forget that Xbox now also means PC as a platform. Not just consoles

so reading it, last year they already announced XGS would be cross gen 1-2 years and to not expect any exclusives for XSX. AND/BUT they didn’t purposely mandate their XGS, 2P/3P exclusives to be all cross gen which is what Phil wanted to correct with his whole creators can do whatever they want. Their console strategy is to carry like his statement in 2019. But that doesnt mean they aren’t allowed to target other platforms like PC.

But then he got caught into the cross gen talk about being held back. He’s pandering to both with his statements now
Which is why it does come across as contradictory.

But a lot of titles shown in the May showcase at least 3 of them are exclusive. But they are 3P ones.

tdlr; both can be true. And some games will target platforms that won’t work on current gen. IE: PC only or PC and XSX only. Flight Simulator etc. They may have a showcase of PC only games come Thursday or in the near future.

PC GamePass is also a product that needs attention. They will green light as required.

 

[Jay]

so reading it, last year they already announced XGS would be cross gen 1-2 years and to not expect any exclusives for XSX. AND/BUT they didn’t purposely mandate their XGS, 2P/3P exclusives to be all cross gen which is what Phil wanted to correct with his whole creators can do whatever they want. Their console strategy is to carry like his statement in 2019. But that doesnt mean they aren’t allowed to target other platforms like PC.

They have always(very early on) said that 3P can release exclusives and it was always about 1P.
As you said, in the May event they even had some xsx next gen exclisive 3P games.
So this broadening, change in presentation of the situation isn't based on the fact that xsx will have non cross gen games, that's been known and shown for months now at the minimum.

This is the basis of the messaging they should've lead with from the beginning.
As it is, it now it sounds disingenuous, especially after the side swipes at PS.
It's not that it's gamer friendly its because none of their studios wanted to or was ready to release xsx exclusives. That's now how it sounds.....

 

[iroboto]

They have always(very early on) said that 3P can release exclusives and it was always about 1P.
As you said, in the May event they even had some xsx next gen exclisive 3P games.
So this broadening, change in presentation of the situation isn't based on the fact that xsx will have non cross gen games, that's been known and shown for months now at the minimum.

This is the basis of the messaging they should've lead with from the beginning.
As it is, it now it sounds disingenuous, especially after the side swipes at PS.
It's not that it's gamer friendly its because none of their studios wanted to or was ready to release xsx exclusives. That's now how it sounds.....

Marketing...

lol

 

[scently]

I think the statement by Phil that XGS games will be cross gen for the next few years is a statement of opportunity. Ostensibly the majority of games coming out in the next year or two from XGS are simply games that started development on current-gen. They just bought a few new studios and several of them probably have games deep in development. With the injection of cash, some of these games will take a few more months/years to come out. While the scope and tech can and probably will be expanded because of the introduction of next-gen hardware, these games already started dev on current-gen philosophies so no need to artificially restrict who these games can reach given Xbox's current scope as a platform not restricted to particular hardware. If need be some games will have their current-gen version developed independently from the next-gen version. We already have examples of that from some games this gen and XGS certainly have the capacity to do this effectively.
I get the concern but I expect the games from The Initiative, Compulsion Games, Inxile, and Gears 6 from The Coalition, to be next-gen exclusives as these are still very early in development.

 

[Jay]

This is something I've been saying for a while.
But it's not what Phil had been saying.

It may all be marketing and presentation, the trouble is it just makes them look like they can't get their messages right.

At xbox we will support the investment people made by making sure that their library moves forward with them.
We will also be releasing the vast majority of our games on XBOX One for the next couple of years. But we maintain our commitment to allow our studios creative freedom to make the games they want, even if it means xsx exclusives.

Something like this from the start makes everyone happy and didn't box them into awkward corners.

 

[iroboto]

It may all be marketing and presentation, the trouble is it just makes them look like they can't get their messages right.

Certainly isn’t the first time. I think we can all agree their messaging can be really bad at times. A lot of take backs etc. VR Scorpio etc. There’s been a lot of stuff that is pulled out of oven too early and announced.

Sometimes they nail their messaging, but this isn’t it.

 

[orangpelupa]

Certainly isn’t the first time. I think we can all agree their messaging can be really bad at times. A lot of take backs etc. VR Scorpio etc. There’s been a lot of stuff that is pulled out of oven too early and announced.

Sometimes they nail their messaging, but this isn’t it.

I wonder, it means that they still doesn't have a clear vision for xsx, or they simply want to tease things and will do a full reveal later (this July), or something else.

Spoiler

It makes me remember ps3. It was touted as something really amazing, super powerful, can do anything.

It was touted as supercomputer linux, then Sony removed the feature. It's an awesome media device with a bunch of card readers, then Sony removed it. It got awesome ps2 compatibility, then Sony removed it.

Also makes me remember Xbox 1. Their messaging makes as if x1 was more of a media center device instead of a gaming console. But then they keeps chopping off the media center features.

Xsx are really unclear with vr support, media features ( their back compat feature was pretty clear tho), real next-gen games (that breeds new game design that was impossible on x1)

 

[function]

Regarding cross gen games, I think most of these studios will naturally want to sell a lot of units on console and also (often overlooked) on PC - Master Chief Collection and Sea of Thieves are doing great guns on PC. Studios will also be mindful of the need to draw in a lot of users on Gamepass.

I think it's quite reasonable for anyone starting production in 2017 or 2018, and who wants to demonstrate the value of their studio to MS, to target the widest range of systems and the greatest number of Gamepass users. And if you've got to support mechanical HDDs and GPUs with 2 or 3GB of VRAM anyway, it's sort of a no brainier to support the X1 and X1X.

The interesting thing, as others have said, is that what was implied to be policy by MS is now said to actually be a choice. But I can entirely believe developers making that choice - a quality title enhanced for next gen will not only sell more, but result in a better product than a rushed game trying to be "next gen" for the sake of it.

 

[eastmen]

I think the statement by Phil that XGS games will be cross gen for the next few years is a statement of opportunity. Ostensibly the majority of games coming out in the next year or two from XGS are simply games that started development on current-gen. They just bought a few new studios and several of them probably have games deep in development. With the injection of cash, some of these games will take a few more months/years to come out. While the scope and tech can and probably will be expanded because of the introduction of next-gen hardware, these games already started dev on current-gen philosophies so no need to artificially restrict who these games can reach given Xbox's current scope as a platform not restricted to particular hardware. If need be some games will have their current-gen version developed independently from the next-gen version. We already have examples of that from some games this gen and XGS certainly have the capacity to do this effectively.
I get the concern but I expect the games from The Initiative, Compulsion Games, Inxile, and Gears 6 from The Coalition, to be next-gen exclusives as these are still very early in development.

Let me ask a question of everyone here. What is the difference between a cross gen game and a next gen exclusive ?

MS not only has 50m or more xbox one generation of users who will still want to buy games but also xbox one xcloud servers. Why would they launch a new service and not have their largest games like halo infinite hit on it?

Also there is a next gen game coming to a platform which seems to just be DLC of a previous game with perhaps better load times or lack of load times and a higher resolution. It seems a lot of people are hyped up about that game. Since its artificially only being released on the new platform is that a next gen game or just a cross gen game ?

Also if your a person who bought an xbox one x or other system last year or this year would you be happy finding out all the new titles are no longer coming out ?


The vast majority of games from 3rd party devs will be cross gen. I think it make sense for the first year or two to support the previous console. It allows people time to upgrade to the new platform while still enjoying the game. If i bought an xbox one x in 2018 and I was excited for halo infinite to come out. I would be more inclined to buy it on my xbox one x and know if i get an xbox series x in 2021 that same game will not only work on the console but look better and play better.

I don't actually see a down side. The first year both consoles will sell out easily. The games MS has coming in the first year and the differences between the generations will naturally have a lot of people move to the newer system.

 

[PSman1700]

We will see if the graphics are bad.

 

[Nisaaru]

If an perfect xsx chip can run 4 instances of xbox one on xcloud then a defective one that can run 3 instances at once would still be a 3 times increase in the number of xcloud instances over the xbox one servers they are using. Also remember the xsx chip has the new encoder so they wouldn't need an external.

I get that they can scale the GPU but how would that work CPU wise? Memory(configuration with 2x more) and potentially SSD(here I could expect 2x bandwidth configs) might do the trick for 720p streams.

 

[eastmen]

We will see if the graphics are bad.

my point was more of this

You have a follow up of an extremely well received game in 2018. They are adding a dlc or expansion pack as a new game for a new platform in 2020. Is it really a next gen game. If you bought the previous platform in 2018 or 2019 to play the original how would you or the average customer feel about this new title not existing on the platform they bought.

I think that is why its a more nuanced question than many people here are thinking.

There are people who bought a console in 2013 and sure they want to buy a new console and have the prettiest graphics. There are people in 2016/17 that bought the refresh consoles. Then there are people in 2019 who bought a 2013 console. Inside those groups there are people who will go out and buy a new console in 2020 some might not and some might still want to buy the new games.

If you take a game and say no this is next gen only you cut off millions of possible sales.

When you talk about lock in if you can go out and buy a $200 console and buy new games that play great and look good but when your ready to buy a new console those same games go with you and look and play even better. That's lock in. When you can take games you purchased all the way back in the early 2000s and play them on 2020 and beyond hardware , that is lock in. When you can play on your pc or laptop or console or any streaming device that is lock in. Its also a better customer experience

 

[Deleted member 86764]

It makes financial sense to make more games crossgenerational, it'd just be a shame to see Series X get constrained by the capabilities of the OG Xbox One.

I'm not convinced that they'll downscale that far down without significant compromises.

 

[Jay]

Let me ask a question of everyone here. What is the difference between a cross gen game and a next gen exclusive ?

1:08:45 in you will get your answer from Jason Ronald aka MR Baird Guy, although i guess there's more than one single view out there.

Also let's not pretend that there is only one business case that makes sense,
If that was the case Sony would be following suit with twice the figures you give for users. Doesn't that make their case stronger going by your reasoning.

Therefore there are good and bad reasons for both approaches, and it's not as black and white as it may seem. We'll see in 2-3 years which was the best/successful way forward.

Let's just hope they do better than the x360 to xo where they was convinved people in their ecosystem would not jump ship, every year they kept talking about telemetry and the upgrade is about to happen.

 

[eastmen]

I get that they can scale the GPU but how would that work CPU wise? Memory(configuration with 2x more) and potentially SSD(here I could expect 2x bandwidth configs) might do the trick for 720p streams.

sadly i don't know the answers. We will have to see. But the 1.75ghz jaguar in the xbox one is really far behind performance wise compared to the 8 core hyper threaded zen cpu .