Phil Spencer: Our Goal is to Release 4 or 5 AAA Games Every Year on Xbox - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2020 / 10,292 Views
Microsoft in the last few years has increased its number of first-party video game studios.
At E3 2018 the company announced the of Ninja Theory, Playground Games, Undead Labs and Compulsion Games, and the formation of developer The Initiative. In November of the same year Microsoft announced the acquisitions with Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment.
With Xbox Game Studios now having 15 studios Phil Spencer in an interview with jeuxvideo revealed the goal is to release four or five AAA games on the Xbox and Game Pass every year.
He is giving their studios creative freedom on what they want to develop. An example of this is Obsidian Entertainment that recently released the AAA RPG, The Outer Worlds, and at X019 announced survival game Grounded. The latter is being developed by a small team.
"Having a steady stream of great outgoing games on our Xbox platform as well as on the Game Pass is essential for us," said Spencer.
"Our goal is to be able to bring four or five new big games to the platform every year. (...) We do not have an imposed formula in terms of team size, style of play, ranking or genre. We give our teams a lot of creative freedom on what they want to create."
"We let our studios decide which franchises they want to work on," he added. "More and more, the leaders of our teams meet and discuss opportunities between studios, so that, perhaps, a certain franchise belonging to one studio is taken and assumed by another. These are opportunities we want to seize without feeling forced."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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It's so sad that I feel like everything Phil says I have to make the same comment over and over again: "Talk is cheap"
Was buying studios just talk? I'm not arguing they will achieve the goal by the way.
@Mr Puggsly They might achieve that goal but at what cost? If they're having that quick of a turn around what is at stake quality-wise? Crackdown 3 was in development how long? How did that game turn out? I'd hate to see if that game was only in development then pushed out within 2 years. It is plausible of some quality AAA titles but I'm still going with SONY next gen seeing that we will get 2 more Spider-man games, Horizon Zero Dawn sequel/prequel, next Uncharted, MLB The Show, Bloodborne 2 among many other entertaining titles and I'll just play any XBOX exclusives on my gaming rig.
@MIXSTER37 - I actually feel the campaign aspect of Crackdown 3 was fine, I think if you enjoyed the original Crackdown than you have fun with 3. I suspect a lot of resources and time was really wasted with the MP. Either way, much of that was 3rd party and not reflective of all their projects.
If MS wanted to do 4 AAA games a year, then they need 12 studios developing games. Assuming you want every game to have at least 3 years development, some games may require less like Forza. MS could also have 3rd party studios developing projects as well.
If you have a gaming PC, then it makes sense to just play your games there.
Doesn't say AAA anywhere in his quote.
If you asked Papa Phil, he'd classify games like State of Decay and Bleeding Edge as "big games". But they're both $30 AA type games.
would be nice to see this happen with new titles
Good luck bringing 5 AAA per year by internal studios. Sony and Nintendo don't do that yet, and MS loudly saying they will have it by currently having a hard time putting 1 AAA a year...
With 15 studios with 2 teams each, thats 30 games every couple years if they take 2 years to develop. Very possible.
However only 4 out of those 15 are capble of makeing AAA games right?
With the amount of studios they have at the moment I dont think it´s possible. I mean, isn´t that almost the same amount the Sony and Nintendo have had for years? BUT I can totally see them putting out 2 AAAs and 3 AAs per year. Besides, they already said that they are not done adquiring studios so..
@JRPGfan
What says they cannot dish out AAA games? Ori started as a AA game and its sequel now fits in the AAA range.
Rare, Obsidian, Playground Games, 343i, Turn 10, The Coalition, The Initiative, Ninja Theory and Worlds Edge is 9 Studios i can count off the top of my head that are more than capable of making AAA games.
So id expect a ratio of 1 to 2 AAA games a year with 3 to 4 AA games that same year. Thats still impressive and alot of games to play in 1 year.
No matter whether your Sony MS or Nintendo, Games with AAA budgets doesn't always mean success and if you take the first two uncharted games they were done on modest budgets around 20 million the success especially UC2's allowed for not only UC3 to have a large budget but ND to expand enough to do The last of Us, my concern is it comes across as a worthy aspiration for the expanded xbox division, but with the program not yet completed Phil would have been better served keeping it that way, and just say we have the teams now in place to bring out a steady stream of games, all this comes from the new world where subscribed content trumps everything and games are no longer a single bespoke product but something that needs to be mass produced.
The reason he is saying this is due to the nay sayers and fanboys claiming MS are no longer making AAA type games anymore and focus solely on GamePass styled games.
I am glad his clearly that rumour up. But actions speak louder than words so lets judge when the balls rollings.
@chakkra
" Like, why the heck would people KEEP paying a monthly subscription if they are not happy with the product they are getting?"
Because its cheap? And gamers like cheap. Thats how they justify low quality. With quantity. You see steam n xbox apologists do this all the time. Also on this board.
@Zoo some of the most popular games are cheap. Tetris, Minecraft, Fortnite and gamers love those games. I dont see MS going that route when playing games like Gears 5 and Horizon 4 etc. Halo Infinite definitly does not look like a cheap GamePass title. But i am happy to wait and see the results first before assuming.
If these "AAA" games turn out like Crackdown 3 or the other plethora of XBOX exclusives that were in development for years were to come out that soon count me out for any of those games. It takes time to develop great games and that's why the PS4 has hit it's stride the last few years because they make sure the games are polished at launch instead of just rushing it out to appease the fans. Albeit that Crackdown 3 was in development and MICROSOFT tried to get it working perfect but keep in mind that they didn't want more of the same backlash that the cancellation of Scalebound received.
There's always a lot of paperwork on Microsoft xD Fact is: In the last 7 years, there was no quality like Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Spiderman, Death Stranding, Persona 5 or The Last of Us 2 / Ghost of Tsushima on Xbox. The players want quality and not mass, so many AAA games in one year are not possible. My interest for xbox is gone.
Undead Labs have doubled their size since the acquisition also and will likely be hitting the AAA space by the time they release SoD3, Rare have at least 1 AAA team for with the SoT been AAA for sure and probably Everwild will be when or if not somehwere in the void between AA/AAA.
We have only listed internal teams so far but there will also be XGP to step in and provide one of those game per year such as we got Titanfall, Ryse, Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break, Killer Instinct etc this gen.
One more? More like double. Sony has 7-8 AAA studios and they release 2 AAA a year on average. To produce twice as many and more, no games canceled, no studios closed, at high quality, trve tripple AAA they'd have to ramp it up big time. Buy a couple more, like R* and CDPR, open up and expand. I doubt they'll even get close.
...
They have outright said recently that they're open to buying more studios. That jibes with this statement from Phil. The math done in this comment section shows us that they're probably a little short on AAA studios if they want 4+ games per year. If they buy a couple more, they'll be on track.
"Buy CDPR or R*."
That’s a dumb yet funny one. xD
They just bought a bunch of studios recently, several of which capable of making AAA games.
For 2020, Halo Infinite, Forza 9 probably, Flight Simulator, Age of Empires IV is likely coming to Xbox and other game were announced that might be AAA. So they could achieve that goal next year while other studios are working on projects for 2021.
Errr... you know that they just have basically doubled up the amount of people working for them, right? What exactly do you think they're gonna do with that extra manpower?
MS have more studios than Nintendo and Sony so if my maths is right, more studios is more games. AAA is how much money gets invested in the project so if MS invest AAA budgets into those studios than there is your anwser.
I would would assume he doesn't mean 4-5 games generation defining games a year. Either way, a constant stream of notable content will help push Gamepass.
@Radek You aren't thinking outside the square. MS also hires from outside there own Studio. Games like Killer Instinct, Ori, Recore, Crackdown, Halo Wars and more are not made internally so not only do they have more studios but they also hire which will obviously push for more games output.
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