So what's new in the world of Xbox today?? Hmm, let's see here..

[Remij 4,666]

They're still looking for concept artists and character artists.. after how many years now? 2-3?

 

 

Oh and let's see...

 

 

Quote

It's hard to know for sure where the difficulty lies for Microsoft and its first-party games output. Some have blamed Microsoft's internal rules around contract work as causing unnecessary churn that sees projects lose key staff on a higher-than-usual basis. I've been told internal politics over engine use has also led to developmental problems in games like Fable and Halo Infinite, as Microsoft sought to use its own tools rather than fully-featured industry standards like Unreal Engine, which further exacerbates problems around training contractors, only to lose them mid-project. The pandemic was harsh on all sides of game development, but that doesn't seem to have stopped Sony from releasing Horizon Forbidden West or God of War Ragnarok this year, nor has it stopped Nintendo from launching Splatoon 3 or Pokemon Scarlet / Violet. 

 

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/xboxs-no-show-at-the-game-awards-caps-off-a-disappointing-2022

 

 

So basically... they want developers to use the proprietary engines... bring people in... train them to use it... and then they end up losing them and basically no work gets done..  

 

The management of these studios is just incredible stupid.. smh

[kaz 2,439]

I ask spicoli all the time, he's on the "just wait for it"-stick- still  @Spicalicious

 

We apparently don't understand the master plan behind MS procrastination tactics  

 

[Spicalicious 128]

bonjour

[kaz 2,439]

that's xbox for y'all folks; NOTHING. they are just with us.  

[kaz 2,439]

I hate this guy, I tell him right now but he doesn't have anything better to do to avoid this. No explanation or anything.  

[Remij 4,666]

15 minutes ago, kaz said:

I ask spicoli all the time, he's on the "just wait for it"-stick- still  @Spicalicious

 

We apparently don't understand the master plan behind MS procrastination tactics  

 

I'm getting tired of waiting for Xbox..   

 

It's hilarious, even a lot of the very hardcore lemmings on Twitter are starting to call MS out pretty hard now.. that shows you how bad its getting.

[Tears of the Cows 1,204]

Microsoft is one of the richest companies in the world. Why are they hiring contractors?

[Twinblade★ 3,889]

I was hoping this thread would be about Perfect Dark or Hellblade 2. Hearing once again that Fable is essentially in development hell really sucks 

[Twinblade★ 3,889]

MS should really put together a tech team focused entirely on building and maintaining a single engine that they'll then use for most if not all of their first party games. It really should be a no brainer for a company with boatloads of money to invest and also a huge workforce made up of many experienced and talented programmers.

[Remij 4,666]

3 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

I was hoping this thread would be about Perfect Dark or Hellblade 2. Hearing once again that Fable is essentially in development hell really sucks 

Yea, it does.  When you think about it, the Playground Games crew using the engine makes a lot of sense.. but if the new team is mostly contractors who have never used the engine before, that takes a ton of time to train people and get all the workflows in place... and during that time you're undoubtedly going to have turnover... so you're essentially wasting time training people for an engine that they'll never use anywhere else... and as already stated, they're contractors.. so they know they're not staying long... which means you have even less output from people.

 

It's just terrible management.  Microsoft really needs to change their practices when it comes to that shit.

[Remij 4,666]

Just now, Twinblade said:

MS should really put together a tech team focused entirely on building and maintaining a single engine that they'll then use for most if not all of their first party games. It really should be a no brainer for a company with boatloads of money to invest and also a huge workforce made up of many experienced and talented programmers.

While that might sound like a good idea, you have to remember that it takes TONS of upkeep and maintenance to keep up an engine like that.  Like CDPR having to tailor their RED engine to CP2077 after The Witcher.  It takes almost a massive rewrite of things, and then you begin to develop tech debt.. which can completely stifle engine development if they commit to one thing over the other..

 

They should have the Forza Engine.. which is an awesome engine.  Halo's engine is what should have been a lot better than it was..  They made it sound like they had developed a mostly brand new engine, and that it was going to be capable of all this awesome shit... and then we find out it's just a bit updated from the old engine, and has tons of tech issues.

 

I say put a team and create a high quality AAA engine for open world action games... and then leave everything else to Unreal Engine.  Fuck it..  With the way they hire contractors.. that's the only engine any of them would have experience with.. so that would be the best way to get consistent output from all these developers they run through.

 

Have Halo and Forza be their proprietary engines.. and use Unreal for everything else.

[Ike★ 2,906]

Perfect Dark is literally the only title I give a shit about and they’ve shown Jack. The fact they destroyed Rare and sit on all the iconic IP is such shit. Fuck MS.

[kaz 2,439]

28 minutes ago, Remij said:

While that might sound like a good idea, you have to remember that it takes TONS of upkeep and maintenance to keep up an engine like that.  Like CDPR having to tailor their RED engine to CP2077 after The Witcher.  It takes almost a massive rewrite of things, and then you begin to develop tech debt.. which can completely stifle engine development if they commit to one thing over the other..

 

They should have the Forza Engine.. which is an awesome engine.  Halo's engine is what should have been a lot better than it was..  They made it sound like they had developed a mostly brand new engine, and that it was going to be capable of all this awesome shit... and then we find out it's just a bit updated from the old engine, and has tons of tech issues.

 

I say put a team and create a high quality AAA engine for open world action games... and then leave everything else to Unreal Engine.  Fuck it..  With the way they hire contractors.. that's the only engine any of them would have experience with.. so that would be the best way to get consistent output from all these developers they run through.

 

Have Halo and Forza be their proprietary engines.. and use Unreal for everything else.

 

I honestly don't understand why they (MS) can't make their own engine just like sony does? Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought uncharted/last of us is naughty dogs' based engine, just like ratchet and clank is insominiacs 

 

etc etc I understand that halo infinite flopped but what is the real problem? Why can sony do this and MS fucks up so bad. I mean one reason I understand is Phil"lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll wasted potentional. This guy keeps his dick tucked away since he realized he will never be able to compete with sony. lmfao. I wish XBOX would just man up and be serious with their gaming IPs.

[jehurey 3,222]

2 hours ago, kaz said:

 

I honestly don't understand why they (MS) can't make their own engine just like sony does?

But some fucking moron at the Xbox division has had them release one hardware spec in 2016, a second hardware spec in 2017.

 

And then a third and fourth hardware spec in 2020.

 

And then run cloud servers featuring one hardware spec up until 2021 in which they began to transition to the newer hardware spec.

 

While trying to make PC ports of those games, that have to be configurable to multiple hardware specs.

 

Oh.......and the same guy is now talking about maybe  starting to design their games to run natively on mobile phone hardware specs.

 

Gee, I wonder why shit never gets finished.

[Mr. House 3,371]

They're trying to imitate what other companies does but have no ideas how. This is amazing.

 

Who knew making priority engines in 2022 is hard?  Stick to UE. Lmao.

 

And keep announcing vaporware with CGI trailers before any real work has even begun on the game. The fans LOVES it.