We're arguing semantics at this point. I've never understood AAA to mean "great", just big budget, big studio games. There are tons of AAA games that I think are total garbage.
Also, Gears Tactics is not in my list because I have no idea what it is.
Where Microsofts Game Studios stand and what do they need to do next?
We're arguing semantics at this point. I've never understood AAA to mean "great", just big budget, big studio games. There are tons of AAA games that I think are total garbage.
Also, Gears Tactics is not in my list because I have no idea what it is.
X-Com Gears of war basically.
What are AAA games ? I thought they were extremely well reviewed games
it's ridunkulous to argue what AAA means because it has no official definition; it was just a marketing term. Anyone using the term in a debate shouldn't, and should instead qualify which titles they mean explicitly, such as "titles in the top 5% of cost to make" or "titles scoring 85% or more on Metacritic" or "games selling 5 million or more" or whatever their criteria is. Quite possibly the games one thinks of wouldn't be classified as 'AAA' but some in the industry.
Maybe B3D should develop a bunch of defined game bands to facilitate this, instead of the same old arguments what counts as a AAA game every time we try to talk about libraries?
Maybe B3D should develop a bunch of defined game bands to facilitate this, instead of the same old arguments what counts as a AAA game every time we try to talk about libraries?
At this point MS needs to go hell and back to create some God tier titles that would make people remember the Xbox brand. Halo, Gears and Forza just don't cut it at this point, while they're good game in their own right but far from the legendary status of God of War, Spiderman, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Bloodborne and even Horizon Zero Dawn. They did try new things this gen such as Ryse, Quantum Break, Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon but most of them all flopped hard bar FH. So far evidence suggests MS excels at racing games but even those games aren't game of the year or game of the gen worthy. They also got a ton of lower tier fodders like State of Decay, Crack Down, Bleeding Edge etc that proved nothing but waste of time and money. Ironically their indie game Ori seems to be the real star as of late.
As for their upcoming next gen titles HellBlade 2 does sound interesting if the 1st is anything to go by, hope that's a mega budget AAA title unlike the first one tho. Halo Infinite doesn't look too special currently, it's mostly upgraded graphics and perhaps open world this time? Even the graphics look crossgen. I don't know what they can do specifically but I need their equivalent of God of War, TLOU, Horizon Zero Dawn, Detroit, Spiderman, Bloodborne, even if just one would be great. But enough with junks like State of Decay, Sea of Thieves, Crackdown, Bleeding Edge and the likes.
As for their upcoming next gen titles HellBlade 2 does sound interesting if the 1st is anything to go by, hope that's a mega budget AAA title unlike the first one tho. Halo Infinite doesn't look too special currently, it's mostly upgraded graphics and perhaps open world this time? Even the graphics look crossgen. I don't know what they can do specifically but I need their equivalent of God of War, TLOU, Horizon Zero Dawn, Detroit, Spiderman, Bloodborne, even if just one would be great. But enough with junks like State of Decay, Sea of Thieves, Crackdown, Bleeding Edge and the likes.
you really need to revise your post to be concise.
Halo and Gears don't have legendary status?
what? I'm smh. You mean the most iconic super solider to exist in gaming aside from Doom Marine is not legendary? You might as well say, because they had 2 bad Marios, Mario does not have legendary status.
It has one of the most iconic silent protagonists, with his helper Cortana, with one of the most iconic music you can find in gaming.
There's a lot of ways to say that Halo and Gears didn't set the world of fire. Saying they don't have legendary status over.. Bloodborne? what? Can you even find Bloodborne in Ready Player One?
I believe microsoft is suffering same thing as any other publisher. After grinding a sequel after sequel after sequel and then remastering those the newest iteration isn't as big as the old ones used to be. It's just yet another halo, yet another gears,... Of course there is always some amount of new(ish) gamers who are not yet burnt out by playing same stuff again and again but there also are many people who then start to skip some iterations of games.
Next gen iteration of old game is instantly big news imho. It gives even those who are burnt out by playing same stuff a chance to play that same stuff in higher fidelity and possibly with some new game mechanics allowed by better hw.
I know I'm picky player nowdays. So very many games, but still I play only handful games a year. Games I pick have to be very compelling or completely new kind of experience. I just couldn't be bothered by another fifa, halo, doom,... Seen that, done that, no more of that for me, thank you.
Next gen iteration of old game is instantly big news imho. It gives even those who are burnt out by playing same stuff a chance to play that same stuff in higher fidelity and possibly with some new game mechanics allowed by better hw.
I know I'm picky player nowdays. So very many games, but still I play only handful games a year. Games I pick have to be very compelling or completely new kind of experience. I just couldn't be bothered by another fifa, halo, doom,... Seen that, done that, no more of that for me, thank you.
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Once upon a time sure they both did but that was ages ago and we're only talking about present day. Because their current status is mediocre to good at most and I sure wouldn't use Ready Player One to correlate their quality in Meta scores lol.
sure, meta scores has nothing to do with legendary status though.
you're confusing 2 completely different things here.
you should look up the definition of the word legendary.
remarkable enough to be famous; very well known.
"her wisdom in matters of childbirth was legendary"
legendary doesn't have anything to do with scores. Prince of Persia is legendary. Karateka is legendary, Mario is legendary. Tomb Raider is Legendary, so is Streetfighter. They have movies and anime and comics about them. As does Halo.
The reason they don't let go of Halo is because it's legendary.
All they need to do is build a game that is genre defining in a really competitive market. (very hard to do)
This is mostly indicative of a game with a massive budget.
I'll summarize my basic point as follows. Microsoft needs big-budget showpiece games to wow the average gamer, and they can't just be variations on the same franchises they've been dragging on for years. Playstation consistently offers those kinds of titles in new franchises.
@ultragpu Sea of Thieves has actually been incredibly successful. Cuphead, Ori and Sea of Thieves are the only new franchises that launched this gen that have had huge success. Sea of Thieves started very slowly, but it's up over 10 million players. I'm not sure how much of that was full retail price, vs price drop vs gamepass.
@ultragpu Sea of Thieves has actually been incredibly successful. Cuphead, Ori and Sea of Thieves are the only new franchises that launched this gen that have had huge success. Sea of Thieves started very slowly, but it's up over 10 million players. I'm not sure how much of that was full retail price, vs price drop vs gamepass.
Just to be clear, how are people counting 'huge success'? In the case of brand identity, I'd argue neither sales nor metascore matters, but does Joe Public know about the title and associate it with a platform offering 'good games'. I'm not even sure anyone measures such data, relying on sales to be indicative, but I'm sure there are games that perhaps aren't eh best selling but do get a lot of media coverage. Dunno. I guess as I think about the most popular games, they also are the best selling, so maybe I haven't got a point there. 
@Shifty Geezer I honestly think the conversation about what Microsoft needs to do is being dragged into the weeds by weird semantic discussion about "what's AAA?" and "what's success?"
We all at least intuitively know what these things mean. The general perception is that PS4 has more games, and better games. The console is outselling Xbox 2:1 if not more at this point. What are the games that get talked about? God of War, The Last of Us 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Spiderman, Ghosts of Tsushima, Walking Simulator etc. Microsoft really has nothing to go up against those titles outside of Halo and Gears. Unless you're a die hard racing fan, Xbox stopped putting out these kinds of exclusives years ago. Multi-platform games are most of the top sellers: FIFA, COD etc. One platform has FIFA and COD plus a constantly growing library of big budget titles in new franchises and the other has FIFA and COD plus a lot of Halo and a lot of Gears. Both consoles have a wide variety of indie games and small publisher exclusives. Microsoft is just way behind on the big budget stuff.
Edit: I'm surprised anyone is even questioning this, or confused by it. A large majority of console gamers own a playstation and if you ask them why they'd probably list some or all of those games.
We all at least intuitively know what these things mean. The general perception is that PS4 has more games, and better games. The console is outselling Xbox 2:1 if not more at this point. What are the games that get talked about? God of War, The Last of Us 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Spiderman, Ghosts of Tsushima, Walking Simulator etc. Microsoft really has nothing to go up against those titles outside of Halo and Gears. Unless you're a die hard racing fan, Xbox stopped putting out these kinds of exclusives years ago. Multi-platform games are most of the top sellers: FIFA, COD etc. One platform has FIFA and COD plus a constantly growing library of big budget titles in new franchises and the other has FIFA and COD plus a lot of Halo and a lot of Gears. Both consoles have a wide variety of indie games and small publisher exclusives. Microsoft is just way behind on the big budget stuff.
Edit: I'm surprised anyone is even questioning this, or confused by it. A large majority of console gamers own a playstation and if you ask them why they'd probably list some or all of those games.
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I'm not sure, and I get Scott's point on we all know what he means. Yes, I know exactly what UltraGPU is referring to. Halo 5 sold over 5+ million units (https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Halo) though relatively to other Halo's yes it is less much less. But 5 million unit sales is certainly more than BloodBorne. Though it pales in comparison to unit sales against other Sony exclusives.Just to be clear, how are people counting 'huge success'? In the case of brand identity, I'd argue neither sales nor metascore matters, but does Joe Public know about the title and associate it with a platform offering 'good games'. I'm not even sure anyone measures such data, relying on sales to be indicative, but I'm sure there are games that perhaps aren't eh best selling but do get a lot of media coverage. Dunno. I guess as I think about the most popular games, they also are the best selling, so maybe I haven't got a point there.
I think every publisher should understand they are risking gamer fatigue when just reiterating same old game. Push boundaries within some reasonable limits to provide and explore new experiences. I believe in early times microsoft did really well with indie titles and online features. Maybe one massive bet could could be something like combining next gen kinect with vr a and provide same hw for both consoles and pc to go real wide. Of course expensive addons only do so well, but perhaps adding pc compatibility would be a way to beat the initial friction.
Another one I think ms did really well in past was forza. But there is only so much one can do with car games before it becomes niche or another arcade racer.
I would say microsoft has history of being innovative but current gen maybe was the tvtvtv moment for microsoft that they never recovered from. Perhaps next gen microsoft returns to their roots and we will see some really nice new things and their internal studios have surprises in store for all of us.
Another one I think ms did really well in past was forza. But there is only so much one can do with car games before it becomes niche or another arcade racer.
I would say microsoft has history of being innovative but current gen maybe was the tvtvtv moment for microsoft that they never recovered from. Perhaps next gen microsoft returns to their roots and we will see some really nice new things and their internal studios have surprises in store for all of us.
I think MS can afford 1 mainline Halo and 1 mainline Gears per generation; considering it's 6-7 years per generation.
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But does Bloodborne command more kudos than Halo? I don't know, but I can see a scenario of BB fans rave about it very vocally and gamers are given this impression of it being a super-duper title even if not their cup of tea. the same with ICO - it's iconic but didn't sell that well (certainly not on the first outing) but gamers knew it was there and knew Sony was providing these titles on their platform.
I guess if people could qualify what they meant, we could then quantify it, with a proper list-wars of the usual personal opinion lists. Sometimes a reputation is deserved, and sometimes it isn't but the messaging isn't particularly accurate. I'm suddenly thinking of PSNow and how it's remarkably misunderstood what it offers. I don't know what XB's library is or how you'd compare them such that you can list Quantum Break as a counterpart to some PS4 exclusive. Is it a Days Gone or a GOW or a Bloodborne? At the moment, same as every library discussion for the past three generations, ever since "Xbox is only good for shooters and racers," people are talking their perception in ways that can't be fairly compared, and these arguments always just collapse into arguments over what titles count and what don't. If people want to compare libraries, a better way needs to be found to do that.
no chance in hell it does and I don't even like Halo all that much. But anyone who is objective would know this answer.
I don't have a problem with Gears and Halo continuing as long as it's not at the expense of getting new game series. If my choice is get another Gears and another Halo, or get two new franchises, I'm going to pick the new franchises.
If you look at their studios, you have Ninja Theory, Playground, Rare, The Coalition, The Initiative and maybe Turn10 that are equipped to start producing new big-budget franchises. I might include Obsidian in there. I know there have been rumours of Playground making a new Fable. They should have the capacity to release new franchises, unless they just tie them up with continuing the series they've been committed to for years.
343 - Halo
Compulsion Games - small studio
Double Fine - small studio
inXile - Wasteland, small studio
Mojang - Minecraft
Ninja Theory - Hellblade 2, bleeding edge
Obsidian - The Outer Worlds, Grounded
Playground Games - Forza Horizon
Rare - Sea of Thieves, Everwild
The Coalition - Gears
The Initiative - something big budget
Turn 10 - Forza
Undead Labs - State of Decay, small studio
World's Edge - Age of Empires
Edit: Added Everwild for Rare.
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