What's going on at microsoft?

First Bungie left, now Peter Molyneux left, Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive. Is it just me or is something clearly wrong with there way of business if everyone is leaving.

Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive.

@AhmadMetallic: Too bad Microsoft makes nothing that runs on a PC.

@AhmadMetallic said:

@vidiots said:

Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive.

wut

I read about it over at blues news and PC gamer a few weeks back. No news of what it's going to be yet, just that they came out and said that they are making a game and that it's going to be PC exclusive. Probably going to be a facebook game or something. Won't allow myself to get too excited.

@Daveyo520 said:

@AhmadMetallic: Too bad Microsoft makes nothing that runs on a PC.

i know last thing they made for pc was windows 98.

They're too busy getting COD map packs and Skyrim DLC a month early to worry about...Pretty much anything else.

@AhmadMetallic said:

@vidiots said:

Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive.

wut

Yeah, this is what I'm most curious about. Epic clearly stated several times that Gears of War 2 and 3 weren't coming to the good ol' M+K because of piracy. I know that companies sometimes outright change their stance on these sorts of things, but this doesn't sound like something that companies just up and change.

Not a big deal. Exclusivity is dead and gone. As soon as a developer gets the chance to break free and sell their games on multiple platforms, they will. Just ask Sony, who will add ThatGameCompany to their list of defectors soon enough.

@AhmadMetallic said:

@vidiots said:

Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive.

wut

Correction, are making it.

@AhmadMetallic said:

@vidiots said:

Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive.

wut

I read about it over at blues news and PC gamer a few weeks back. No news of what it's going to be yet, just that they came out and said that they are making a game and that it's going to be PC exclusive. Probably going to be a facebook game or something. Won't allow myself to get too excited.

call me crazy but isint fortnight a PC only game

@Dad_Is_A_Zombie said:

Not a big deal. Exclusivity is dead and gone. As soon as a developer gets the chance to break free and sell their games on multiple platforms, they will. Just ask Sony, who will add ThatGameCompany to their list of defectors soon enough.

Who else is on that list though? I can only really think of Insomniac in terms of being a company that was a hardcore exclusive. I am sure there are others, but who?

They don't care about first part exclusive. They seem to be focused on getting DLC on the platform first and using xbox to be an entertainment hub.

@Dad_Is_A_Zombie said:

Not a big deal. Exclusivity is dead and gone. As soon as a developer gets the chance to break free and sell their games on multiple platforms, they will. Just ask Sony, who will add ThatGameCompany to their list of defectors soon enough.

I'm surprised that Sony still has many of the same exclusive devs that they used to. It seems unnatural in the present industry climate.

They're all ready to move onto new things. Bungie spent a decade on Halo alone, Peter Molyneux has been bullshitting Fable for quite sometime, and Epic recently released Gears 3, so there's no need to work exclusively with Microsoft for the time being.

This is a dumb thread and I regret clicking into it.

Unreal MMO?

Yeah, Cliff said he wanted to make games for PC again. 
Never said anything about it being exclusive though (at least not on twitter) 
 
@believer258 said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

@vidiots said:

Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive.

wut

Yeah, this is what I'm most curious about. Epic clearly stated several times that Gears of War 2 and 3 weren't coming to the good ol' M+K because of piracy. I know that companies sometimes outright change their stance on these sorts of things, but this doesn't sound like something that companies just up and change.

They have also started to open a few in house studios, one in Vancouver and one just across the way in Victoria.

@Dad_Is_A_Zombie said:

Not a big deal. Exclusivity is dead and gone. As soon as a developer gets the chance to break free and sell their games on multiple platforms, they will. Just ask Sony, who will add ThatGameCompany to their list of defectors soon enough.

What are you talking about? TGC was never ever owned by Sony. Jenova made a flash game called Flow that impressed Sony and they [Sony] contracted them to three games. They then gave them funding and offices to work in for those three games. If all Sony helped TGC become what it is today. Once the contract was competed with Journey they moved on to look for other opportunities. If you want to use a developer that "defected" then use Insomniac, even though they too were never owned by Sony.

@vidiots said:

First Bungie left, now Peter Molyneux left, Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive. Is it just me or is something clearly wrong with there way of business if everyone is leaving.

I'll give you Bungie and Molyneux, but Epic was never owned by MS. They were only contracted them for their Gears.

@Brendan said:

Im surprised that Sony still has many of the same exclusive devs that they used to. It seems unnatural in the present industry climate.

Jaffe has said in the past that Sony gives their developers a lot of freedom when it comes to making games. I think being a Japanese company their development philosophy is just different then MS's. Why then, as you said, so many developers are still with them. Just look at the list of games they green lighted in the past. take Heavy Rain for example, do you really see MS funding that game? David Cage would have been laughed out of MS's offices after making the pitch. Take Demon's Souls too, MS would have never ever invested in that kind of game. Only after it became the phenomenon it did Nemco scooped them up to make Dark Souls. IMHO, Sony's biggest mistake this generation was not signing FROM up after work was done on Demon's Souls to make a sequel, but who knew it would have become this big. Even Sony admitted to making the mistake in giving Atlus the NA publishing rights for that game.

I'm sure one of you will somehow blame Kinect.

I guess having first party studios just doesn't pay off anymore...However they should at least try to keep Halo Microsoft exclusive...everything else would be insane

Well, they sell them consoles like crazy and multiplatform games sales comparing to the PS3 are like 3-1 or 4-1. I think they're OK.

@rebgav said:

@believer258 said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

@vidiots said:

Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive.

wut

Yeah, this is what I'm most curious about. Epic clearly stated several times that Gears of War 2 and 3 weren't coming to the good ol' M+K because of piracy. I know that companies sometimes outright change their stance on these sorts of things, but this doesn't sound like something that companies just up and change.

New generation of consoles, new generation of Unreal Engine to sell. Would be great if they make a PC game to show off their new tech while waiting for the 360 and PS3 to DIE ALREADY.

I think waiting is the wrong word. I'd hope it'd be the Doom 3 of this generation, encouraging the next generation, spurring it on.

@SlightConfuse said:

call me crazy but isint fortnight a PC only game

I think it's ONLY been announced on consoles, actually, but I forget. It's been a whiiiiiile. I know it's at least coming to XBLA, maybe PSN?

Also, exclusives are what you use to get people to buy your console. After that, they don't care. Most people that will buy a 360 before the next generation brings them down to like $75 have already purchased theirs. So they can stop focusing on exclusive games and work on keeping the existing customers buying games for the 360. They are likely saving their big exclusive plans for the next generation launch.

But guys, everyones leaving!

In the last five years the three big ones ( Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo) all have made gigantic mistakes. Microsoft trying to rebuild steam with less functions ( soon followed with EA doing the same with Origin.) , Sony loosing its focus ( and security of the customers btw ), and the PS3 is what kind of machine now ? who knows ( dont get me started on the handhelds ), and finally Nintendo going from some great games on Wii with some gimmicks, to only gimmicks and attachments today.

This would actually be the ideal time to launch a 4th console if you had enormous financial coffins. But as the economy is , that is not going to happen. ( This would be ideal time for the "Viking" or whatever it was called, to bad it was all a scam.)

It IS apossibility that they all are thinking about the next generation of consoles right now, but i am not that hopeful. Do any big game company actually have a gamer in a lead position anymore ?

@brighteye: All three are 100% definitely working on new systems, that's why things are getting somewhat dry. Nintendo's is out this year, and Sony and MS won't be far behind.

I fully expect them both to be more focused on being "media hubs" rather than gaming machines though. I'm pretty sure I'll be going PC all the way with this new gen, except for the Wii U, which should at least have some original games you won't get anywhere else.

@chan05 said:

I guess having first party studios just doesn't pay off anymore...However they should at least try to keep Halo Microsoft exclusive...everything else would be insane

Halo is a Microsoft property. It won't show up on anything else while they still make console games, and even then they'd probably just get a PC developer to continue it than give it to Sony or Nintendo.

MS has been lead console for 13 months and they pretty much have the market locked up (Wii has sold more units, but the attach rate is abysmal, most people only bought it as a Wii Sports machine). More than likely they've put all first and second party devs onto developing next gen content, which makes sense since most games take about 1-2 years to make these days and there's new hardware to contend with, and many analysts pointing at a late 2013-2014 launch for the new Xbox.

Still, I miss the Ed Fries era of Microsoft publishing. Not everything (or much) of what they made was good, but dammit, they took a chance on stuff. I'd love to see another Crimson Skies game made, or another crazy title like Psychonauts greenlit. (Let's just pretend Azurik and Nightcaster never happened.)

I believe Peter left because he felt to "safe" and wanted to do something different. He said something about a nice lady and his work chair... I don't know.

@Willin said:

I'm sure one of you will somehow blame Kinect.

Well, it does seem as if Microsoft has been focusing its development resources on getting a lot of Kinect games out there, and those could potentially have been going towards AAA exclusives instead.

I thought that it was all down to the lumps of money Microsoft threw around last console cycle for exclusive content, and now the exclusives have run their cycles and they either want to branch out for the most money possible, or get Microsoft to re-up a lump of cash their way.

They also shut down Ensemble. Ensemble! Any one of you who doesn't remember and adore the original Age of Empires and Age of Kings is no friend of mine.

@vidiots said:

First Bungie left, now Peter Molyneux left, Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive. Is it just me or is something clearly wrong with there way of business if everyone is leaving.

I was under the impression a chunk of Bungie stayed at 343.

Also, Epic's going to make a game for Windows? That really sucks for Microsoft doesn't it.

@JasonR86 said:

This is a dumb thread and I regret clicking into it.

@Daveyo520 said:

@AhmadMetallic: Too bad Microsoft makes nothing that runs on a PC.

Age of Empires Online

@chan05 said:

I guess having first party studios just doesn't pay off anymore...However they should at least try to keep Halo Microsoft exclusive...everything else would be insane

They own Halo.

I'm more curious about whats going on over at Valve. Apple was spotted entering their compound.

@FritzDude: I'm pretty sure Peter was in a rut, hitting that age in his life where he's like 'look at these kids now making games just for the download, I want to be an indie again'.

Microsoft doesn´t have a clue most of the time. Just look at what they did to Rare.. It´s really frightening to see a once great studio go from AAA titles to designing minigame collections and avatars.

Yeah, you could argue that Rare did it to itself or whatever, but a lot of the decisionmaking that lead to Rare´s downfall came from Microsoft itself. They had no clue what they wanted from Rare as a Studio. They should have set a direction for them and not just let them fuck around for years on end. Just look at how many iterations games like Kameo and PDZ went trough and how relatively underwhelming the results were. Microsoft should have sent people over to Rare to clean their mess up. Instead they just spread the mess with leafblowers.

I think Peter was afraid a similar thing might happen to Lionhead and when I look at what Lionhead are working on.. well, he did the right thing. The sad part is: Microsoft is now the casual leader with a technology that doesn´t even work most of the time. They rely on a FAD and are making almost the exact same mistakes Nintendo made in 2007/2008. They let the dashboard go to shit, they let arcade mostly go to shit, they established a digital download platform that is absolutely laughable and yet they boast about their numbers by coming out and telling the world that people use their xboxes more for steaming video than for games. Good job selling failure as a huge success.

As for Epic games: Don´t listen to what they say. Epic is a company that will gladly wave the flag of whatever platform/publisher they are working with at the moment.

@ZeForgotten said:

Yeah, Cliff said he wanted to make games for PC again.
Never said anything about it being exclusive though (at least not on twitter)

@believer258 said:

@AhmadMetallic said:

@vidiots said:

Epic is thinking of making a PC exclusive.

wut

Yeah, this is what I'm most curious about. Epic clearly stated several times that Gears of War 2 and 3 weren't coming to the good ol' M+K because of piracy. I know that companies sometimes outright change their stance on these sorts of things, but this doesn't sound like something that companies just up and change.

Who said anything, at all, about Gears of War 2 or 3? where the hell did you read this? o.O

I remember originally reading about it at the Escapist but I can't seem to find that article after a quick Google search. However, I did find someother sources for it. Doesn't really matter now, he seems to have changed his mind.

@FritzDude said:

I believe Peter left because he felt to "safe" and wanted to do something different. He said something about a nice lady and his work chair... I don't know.

Yeah. http://www.develop-online.net/features/1617/Molyneux-This-is-my-last-chance Good read!

Happening at Microsoft right now? Interns are racing the office chairs down the third floor hallway. It's Squeaky Wheel against Coffee Stain for the championship.

@Barrock said:

I'm more curious about whats going on over at Valve. Apple was spotted entering their compound.

what?

@Artigkar said:

@Barrock said:

I'm more curious about whats going on over at Valve. Apple was spotted entering their compound.

what?

Apple CEO Tim Cook was seen entering their offices.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/apple-ceo-visits-valve-hq-report-6371701

@Willin said:

I'm sure one of you will somehow blame Kinect.

now why would I do that? I love yelling XBOX NEXT EPSIODE, and XBOX NEXT SONG loud enough so my neighbors can hear