Xbox Game Studios Stupidity Hate Thread Game Pass Edition

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In an interview called "Story Time with Phil Spencer" at PAX West over the weekend, Spencer opened up about the games that mattered most to him over the years, including Bungie's 2014 sci-fi shooter, Destiny, in his list.

"There's so many mixed emotions and stories for me around Destiny," Spencer explained.

"Obviously, Bungie was part of Microsoft when I started at Xbox, and I shared a floor with Alex Seropian [and] Jason Jones in the building that we were in Redmond. I learned a ton from just being around Bungie."

Despite his natural closeness to Bungie, Spencer admitted that Destiny "didn't really click" when he first played it, and it took until the game's first expansion, House of Wolves, for it to "land" him.

Consequently, Destiny went on to be published by Activision, as too was Guitar Hero, another series Spencer "passed" on, thinking it wasn't "going to work".

"I've passed on some of the worst… like, made some of the worst game-choice decisions," he said.

"An interesting one is when this team came down to Redmond and Alex Rigopulos, he pitches a game where they're actually going to make plastic guitars, and they're going to plug into consoles, and then they're going to sell tracks where you're going to play Simon on this guitar and I'm like, really? Do we really think that's going to work?

"I hear that turned into a pretty good game..." he added, laughing.

"I'm not a regrets-type person," Spencer explained. "Maybe that's a fault of mine, but I passed on so many games. I could look back and say-," he clenches his fist, "-but no, I try to look forward and be positive about the things that we are doing.

"I just like to celebrate what the team [at Bungie] has done. I mean, it's incredible."

Spencer also recently addressed the surprise revelation that first-party exclusive Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will release on PS5 in spring/Q2 2025 just a few months after its Xbox debut, stating Xbox is "a business", and that "the bar is high in terms of the delivery we have to give back" to parent company Microsoft.
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The Doom Slayer said:
This dude is a retard, and basically a just grifter at this point. It'll never cease to amaze me how some people are still under his spell after a decade+ of torching the brand just because "he's a nice guy" and "he's a gamer".
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He might be a nice guy, he might be a gamer but that does not mean he is the right man for the job of running a game company. He is charismatic enough to distract people from his failings.
 
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Incecticyder said:
He might be a nice guy, he might be a gamer but that does not mean he is the right man for the job of running a game company. He is charismatic enough to distract people from his failings.
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I feel like he was probably picked because of how outraged people were at Don "buy a 360" Mattricks handling of the Xbox One launch.

"He's a nice guy gamer, they'll love him!"
 
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xXx: State of the Union said:
I feel like he was probably picked because of how outraged people were at Don "buy a 360" Mattricks handling of the Xbox One launch.

"He's a nice guy gamer, they'll love him!"
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I don't really know anything about the guy, but that sounds about right. I guess he's been in some kinda administrative position since at least '05, to pass up on Guitar Hero, of all things. I know rhythm games were niche at the time, but for him to not see the potential in Guitar Hero was downright retarded.
 
Pissmaster said:
I don't really know anything about the guy, but that sounds about right. I guess he's been in some kinda administrative position since at least '05, to pass up on Guitar Hero, of all things. I know rhythm games were niche at the time, but for him to not see the potential in Guitar Hero was downright retarded.
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What sense would it be to make Guitar Hero Xbox exclusive? I get Xbox Live would unlock its potential with DLC and expansions. Remember that it started on the PS2.
 
The Last Stand said:
What sense would it be to make Guitar Hero Xbox exclusive? I get Xbox Live would unlock its potential with DLC and expansions. Remember that it started on the PS2.
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IIRC an Xbox version of GH1 was considered, but canceled. Maybe it was offered to MS for publishing, but he was the one to shoot it down. GH1, 80s, and 2 were all published by RedOctane, a Californian store that sold crappy expensive dance pads with foam inserts for DDR. Xbox didn't have nearly the number of rhythm games PS2 had at the time, when rhythm games were right about to hit their peak, so that would have been a nice big leg up on the very dominant PlayStation brand at the time.

Come to think of it, Guitar Hero's developer and publisher were both indie until Activision bought the franchise and developed GH3. That's a surreal thought.
 
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Pissmaster said:
Come to think of it, Guitar Hero's developer and publisher were both indie until Activision bought the franchise and developed GH3. That's a surreal thought.
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When the first game came out it felt like a bizarre novelty PS2 game not unlike something like Donkey Konga; of very limited appeal. Add to that the cost to sell a game with a giant controller that only works with 1 game and I can see why they passed.

It just happened to be a right place / right time phenomenon
 
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Pissmaster said:
GH1, 80s, and 2 were all published by RedOctane, a Californian store that sold crappy expensive dance pads with foam inserts for DDR
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They were also the guys that published In The Groove for PS2.

Not sure why Roxor couldn't do it themselves since they had no problem handling the arcade machines by themselves, but whatever.

Incidentally, these guys have been around for only 11 years, and were the ones responsible for WebGameZone, a rental service for games

These are the two guys that ran it
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Personally i never heard of them till ITG1, so I guess the rental service didn't do too well.
 
xXx: State of the Union said:
I feel like he was probably picked because of how outraged people were at Don "buy a 360" Mattricks handling of the Xbox One launch.

"He's a nice guy gamer, they'll love him!"
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Exactly. Don Mattrick might have been a capable businessman but he should not be giving interview while smartass. Phil is charismatic at public speaking but he should not be making business decisions.
 
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‘Indiana Jones And The Great Circle’ Creative Director Says Game Makes Sure To “Not Encourage Gunplay” Because “It Wouldn’t Be True To The Character”

Since when is that true to the character?.. one of the best gags of the Raiders is precisely that, with a muscular guy with a sword making an entrance and doing all kinds of flashy movements to intimidate Indy. His immediate reaction was to shoot him without a second thought. This just looks like more woke shit for the "modern audiences".
 
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I'm disappointed Microsoft never made another MechAssault type game.
(idk why there's an autistic monkey girl running around during the G4 bumpers. Just ignore it.)
 
HermioneGranger said:
‘Indiana Jones And The Great Circle’ Creative Director Says Game Makes Sure To “Not Encourage Gunplay” Because “It Wouldn’t Be True To The Character”

Since when is that true to the character?.. one of the best gags of the Raiders is precisely that, with a muscular guy with a sword making an entrance and doing all kinds of flashy movements to intimidate Indy. His immediate reaction was to shoot him without a second thought. This just looks like more woke shit for the "modern audiences".
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most of his actiony scenes revolve around running away, punching the shit out of people, using a whip or other objects on people, using disguises and stealth for his environment, and guns are usually a last resort type thing, though he does use them. but this isn't uncharted, it's indiana jones. It's not a super gun heavy series unless youre the villains
 
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HermioneGranger said:
‘Indiana Jones And The Great Circle’ Creative Director Says Game Makes Sure To “Not Encourage Gunplay” Because “It Wouldn’t Be True To The Character”

Since when is that true to the character?.. one of the best gags of the Raiders is precisely that, with a muscular guy with a sword making an entrance and doing all kinds of flashy movements to intimidate Indy. His immediate reaction was to shoot him without a second thought. This just looks like more woke shit for the "modern audiences".
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That just reminds me of how Goldeneye 007, a game regarded as one of the best of all time, featured James Bond just mowing down guys with a huge arsenal of guns. You can not avoid going full Rambo. That's not true to James Bond at all, but it still sits as the best Bond game by a country mile, and even the 2022 Xbox rerelease that was just a lightly modified N64 rom, was widely celebrated.

It is okay to take liberties when designing games. All successful games based on movies do so. The mediums are significantly different, in that games need fun gameplay loops, while movies need to tell an engaging story. Holding something back in a game because of your ideology, and not because it wouldn't be as fun, practically ensures your game will be bad.

What a stupid stance to take. How many times have we seen this kinda shit? Another franchise that appeals to millenials and older, designed by performative blowhards, ensuring that we hear all about how they're removing core elements solely because they offend their cowardly sensibilities, with a condescending tone as though anyone who disagrees is a lesser person. And this tends to happen before we really know anything about the game.

Eventually, screenshots and videos come out, it looks bad, it gets released, it sells poorly, we laugh at its failure, and we spend the rest of our lives scrolling past it every time it goes on sale for 85% off. It just keeps happening over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
 
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It's just shit mandated by Disney.

The Star Wars game Ubislop released a few weeks ago doesn't have multiple guns. Your character can only carry the shit Han Solo blaster throughout the entire game. I have no doubt it's mandated by Disney.

Now we have the news you'll probably only be able to use the whip as Indy on this next slop and only momentarily use guns dropped by enemies like Mirror's Edge. It's just too much to be a coincidence. Disney is obviously meddling with these games.
 
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