Wasn’t The Initiative the studio that was meant to be producing the world’s first AAAA game? Were they the ones poaching Naughty Dog staff during crunch-gate?
Journalist goes on record - The Initiative in trouble, Xbox leadership blamed
- Thread starter Bryank75
- Start date
I still question whether Xbox has management issues. If they do, they have a much bigger problem than trying to catch up to Sony and Nintendo
I feel like all I know about the initiative is the narrative shift from it being MS's ND type studio to answer AAA blockbuster, to saying it was an incubation hub for experimental smaller scale games amongst people leaving, and later having to draft in CD to help on Perfect Dark. To the point where everyone thought CD was a lock for MS to buy.
Should just shut down Xbox complexly. Everything they do is a failure.
Initiative - A + Crystal Dynamics AAA = AAAA“world’s first aaaa game studio”
Agreed. I'm not a scientist, but I'd say atmospheric pressure is the issue. Or perhaps UV rays.
P
peter42O
Guest
Personally, I believe that there were issues in 2021 which led to half the studio departing but in my mind, that's a positive because if those people thought that they could implement their ideas while Gallagher is telling them no repeatedly, then better off with them leaving and bringing in Crystal Dynamics who I have way more confidence in than the original people there. Simply too much top tier talent in the studio which was creating a too many chefs in the kitchen situation and in this scenario, there's only one chef and it's Gallagher.
My only concern is what happens after Perfect Dark is completed. I was really hoping for Microsoft to acquire Crystal Dynamics, merge them with The Initiative and then drop The Initiative name as having only around 40 or so people isn't going to cut it and since 2020, hiring across the industry has been a pain in the ass so in my mind, I would have liked to see my scenario actually happen. Now, since Embracer Group owns Crystal Dynamics, who knows what happens.
I'm looking forward to Perfect Dark and while it will most likely be a first person stealth based game, Gallagher should make it a third person stealth based game because Splinter Cell is years away, Metal Gear Solid is dead and Hitman will be finished once IO Interactive wraps up their post launch content for Hitman 3. Would be such a huge opportunity for them since Perfect Dark would basically be the only major AAA stealth based game out there by the time it releases.
My only concern is what happens after Perfect Dark is completed. I was really hoping for Microsoft to acquire Crystal Dynamics, merge them with The Initiative and then drop The Initiative name as having only around 40 or so people isn't going to cut it and since 2020, hiring across the industry has been a pain in the ass so in my mind, I would have liked to see my scenario actually happen. Now, since Embracer Group owns Crystal Dynamics, who knows what happens.
I'm looking forward to Perfect Dark and while it will most likely be a first person stealth based game, Gallagher should make it a third person stealth based game because Splinter Cell is years away, Metal Gear Solid is dead and Hitman will be finished once IO Interactive wraps up their post launch content for Hitman 3. Would be such a huge opportunity for them since Perfect Dark would basically be the only major AAA stealth based game out there by the time it releases.
“As much as half of the core development team known to be working on the upcoming Perfect Dark reboot quit the company during the last year.”
Time for an angry David Jaffe video. Is he on here?
Time for an angry David Jaffe video. Is he on here?
When we can point back to Nintendo, Sony, or Sega's legacy in the gaming industry we can point to a good number of games from all three of them that were leaders in the industry in one way or another. Super Mario Bros., Super Metroid, Mario 64, Gran Turismo, Outrun, Virtua Fighter 1 - 3, TLOU, Smash Bros, Daytona, Ico etc.
All of these were games that either helped outright define gaming convention standards for generations to come, or were best-of-class in some aspect of their production, presentation, genre or gameplay for a period of time, being the games to beat and inspiring tons of 3P games that came after them. Microsoft has very few such games.
In fact, the only ones that come to my mind, from actual 1P studios at the time, are Halo, Forza Horizon and Flight Simulator. Obviously those aren't the only good games they've made, but they're the only ones that IMO were really either top-class leaders in their genre or helped establish conventions that inspired tons of games by 3P devs and competitors for years afterwards.
Just one thing to correct here: Matt Booty (thankfully) won't be managing the Zenimax or ABK studios. Pete Hines will be managing the Zenimax studios, and someone else the ABK ones. All three will report under Phil Spencer, who will head Microsoft Gaming.
Though the points still more or less hold true. Now instead of just the five pre-2018, he's got Compulsion, Ninja Theory, Double Fine, inXile, Playground Games, Obsidian and I think one more in addition to them, so that's at least 11 studios now directly under Matt Booty (I think he manages Mojang as well).
Him coming out talking about these games now is a good thing, but the time to just talk about them has passed. It's time to start showing the results. MS aren't ready to do that yet, and they won't say the real reasons why. But that's okay: we have the information ourselves.
I was just thinking about Microsoft's studio management last generation and almost all of my favorite Xbox One games came from 3rd party studios
Ryse
Quantum Break
Dead Rising 3
Sunset Overdrive
Ori and The Blind Forest
The only exceptions were Forza Horizon 3, Gears 5 and Rare Replay Lol
Ryse
Quantum Break
Dead Rising 3
Sunset Overdrive
Ori and The Blind Forest
The only exceptions were Forza Horizon 3, Gears 5 and Rare Replay Lol
And now, almost two freakin' years after the console launch that launched with 0 XGS games, Matt is coming with excuses.
https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/...cing-arent-helping-with-delays-says-xbox-exec
Ray-tracing and next-gen features are causing XGS games to delay? This is such bullshit. After Xbox's showcase, Insomniac has already announced and released two games with ray-tracing that run at more than 60 FPS (up to 100 FPS) on PS5.
Other than ray-tracing, Boot is talking about how it's been difficult to shift to next-gen development. Wasn't the new GDK supposed to resolve that? If not, what was its purpose?
He is now also talking about the shift from GPU-heavy development to CPU-heavy development. At this point, all should apologize to Cerny for thinking ahead and adopting the SmartShift tech for PS5.
But these problems will never solve for MS because the execs are not really serious about it. They'd rather keep people they like (Bonnie Ross, Matt Booty, and Aaron Greenberg) rather than people who can do a good job.
Aaron was terrible with Xbox marketing. They even had to change the "most powerful console" to "most powerful Xbox" months after the console launched. And now he has been promoted to VP of Marketing. No wonder they continue to fail. PlayStation would never tolerate such bullshit in their camps and that's why the have been trouncing Xbox for over 20 consecutive years.
Xbox is a serious disaster-in-making. They’re a black hole, sucking in and absorbing everything and anything and obliterating it to smithereens.
Xbox game pass is an ok service but XGS management is a shambles and they cannot get games out fast enough, in an acceptable-enough quality, or at a steady enough cadence for it to be worthwhile. What have we gotten in 2022? Practically nothing. With more nothing in sight.
How has their “no generations” strategy done thus far? Pretty damn poorly if you ask me. Xbone is simply too weak to support basic game function today such as Co-op in Halo Infinite. The console should have been dropped or at least only heavily neutered versions of games should have been produced for it or dropped altogether.
The XSS is a travesty of a console. While not “holding back the progress of next-gen game development” like how I initially imagined, it most certainly is affecting third-party multi-platform game development at a time when AAA game development in getting radically more complex and time consuming already.
Their “gaming on any device” strategy is a dead duck because they are trying to produce a single game that works across every device, which is what MS tried to do with Windows 8 - a single OS for every device, from mobile/tablet, to high-end workstation - it didn’t work and was a spectacular failure.
Why doesn’t Xbox support gyro controls? The only platform holder that doesn’t. It’s likely because of Xbox Cloud Streaming. Again, it’s cos they want their games to be playable on the absolute lowest common denominator control schemes.
No HD rumble/haptics? Ditto.
No VR? Same damn thing. I just can’t see VR ever being workable at all through cloud streaming with VR’s demand of ultra low-latency and the high resolution of modern headsets. Sure, VR is still very niche, but that’s not the point. The point is that with Xbox, you’re likely never going to get it, even if you wanted it because it doesn’t fit their “Game Pass, cloud streaming” strategy.
Sure. It’s all fine what Xbox is doing. They have a right to pursue any strategy they want. It’s competition after all. I don’t personally agree with it, but they are free to do it. I want superior controls like gyro controls or adaptive triggers? I can go to another platform. I want VR? There are other platforms for that. I want a game sub? Sure, there are options for that too now that Sony have entered the space.
But… now that they’ve set their sights on shit I care about, like Diablo, MF Warcraft, CoD, Tony hawk, overwatch, crash & spyro. I’m feeling seriously worried.
It’s not about exclusives, or keeping their games multi platform. I don’t care. In the end, what difference does it make if those franchises will still be available on my platform of choice in the future when the soul has already been ripped out of them, and all that remains are these empty husks of games I once loved?
Halo is the ultimate example here and I have absolutely no doubt the same will happen with all of AB’s games when the devs move on one by one. It’s very very sad what is happening to this industry. It almost feels like it’s a victim of it’s own success. The vultures constantly circling for the prime properties and gutting them of all their worth. It seems inevitable at this point. I hope I am wrong about how the AB acquisition is going to go… but considering everything I have seen of how Xbox/MS does business since the 90s, I’m not holding my breath.
I’ll be pressing F to pay respects to many once-great franchises once this acquisition goes through and it’s gonna be one hell of a sad sad day for gamers across the whole world.
Xbox game pass is an ok service but XGS management is a shambles and they cannot get games out fast enough, in an acceptable-enough quality, or at a steady enough cadence for it to be worthwhile. What have we gotten in 2022? Practically nothing. With more nothing in sight.
How has their “no generations” strategy done thus far? Pretty damn poorly if you ask me. Xbone is simply too weak to support basic game function today such as Co-op in Halo Infinite. The console should have been dropped or at least only heavily neutered versions of games should have been produced for it or dropped altogether.
The XSS is a travesty of a console. While not “holding back the progress of next-gen game development” like how I initially imagined, it most certainly is affecting third-party multi-platform game development at a time when AAA game development in getting radically more complex and time consuming already.
Their “gaming on any device” strategy is a dead duck because they are trying to produce a single game that works across every device, which is what MS tried to do with Windows 8 - a single OS for every device, from mobile/tablet, to high-end workstation - it didn’t work and was a spectacular failure.
Why doesn’t Xbox support gyro controls? The only platform holder that doesn’t. It’s likely because of Xbox Cloud Streaming. Again, it’s cos they want their games to be playable on the absolute lowest common denominator control schemes.
No HD rumble/haptics? Ditto.
No VR? Same damn thing. I just can’t see VR ever being workable at all through cloud streaming with VR’s demand of ultra low-latency and the high resolution of modern headsets. Sure, VR is still very niche, but that’s not the point. The point is that with Xbox, you’re likely never going to get it, even if you wanted it because it doesn’t fit their “Game Pass, cloud streaming” strategy.
Sure. It’s all fine what Xbox is doing. They have a right to pursue any strategy they want. It’s competition after all. I don’t personally agree with it, but they are free to do it. I want superior controls like gyro controls or adaptive triggers? I can go to another platform. I want VR? There are other platforms for that. I want a game sub? Sure, there are options for that too now that Sony have entered the space.
But… now that they’ve set their sights on shit I care about, like Diablo, MF Warcraft, CoD, Tony hawk, overwatch, crash & spyro. I’m feeling seriously worried.
It’s not about exclusives, or keeping their games multi platform. I don’t care. In the end, what difference does it make if those franchises will still be available on my platform of choice in the future when the soul has already been ripped out of them, and all that remains are these empty husks of games I once loved?
Halo is the ultimate example here and I have absolutely no doubt the same will happen with all of AB’s games when the devs move on one by one. It’s very very sad what is happening to this industry. It almost feels like it’s a victim of it’s own success. The vultures constantly circling for the prime properties and gutting them of all their worth. It seems inevitable at this point. I hope I am wrong about how the AB acquisition is going to go… but considering everything I have seen of how Xbox/MS does business since the 90s, I’m not holding my breath.
I’ll be pressing F to pay respects to many once-great franchises once this acquisition goes through and it’s gonna be one hell of a sad sad day for gamers across the whole world.
Seems xb just dont have the management talent that ninty and PS does. No Shu, no Herman, no Jimbo type leadership.
All they seem to have is just over educated folks with fancy degrees that aint worth a damn.
My advice to them is to just keep throwing billions at it phil, yall will figure it out eventually.
All they seem to have is just over educated folks with fancy degrees that aint worth a damn.
My advice to them is to just keep throwing billions at it phil, yall will figure it out eventually.
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I suspect getting those next gen games to run "good enough" on the Xbox Series S is maybe causing bigger problems than they led on
Having posted my comment earlier, I suddenly remembered Steve Jobs and this particular statement on Microsoft in 1995. Replace "Microsoft" with Xbox and boy, is the statement as relevant as ever, even today... about Xbox.
Say what you will about today's Apple, I personally believe Steve Job to be one of the greatest visionaries of our time.
I would've been shocked if they made a good singleplayer, story-driven game. A meteorite blasting Earth is more likely to happen. Xbox continues to be the laughing stock of the industry.