Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Cancels 2004 Xbox Sports Lineup
madopal writes "Well, it's no secret that Microsoft has been slashing internal development (Mythica, anyone?). Now, they've announced that they're cancelling their entire 2004 line-up of XSN Sports games for Xbox. Wow, with Ed Fries gone, it sure is a different place over there." The article quotes Kevin Browne of Microsoft as saying: "We need to be making great games, and the marketplace told us that we're just not at that level."
Let's get back to our core business, making great operating systems!
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
For all they are slagged off, EA still do produce the goods year in year out.
And then there's Pro Evo Soccer... simply the best of the lot.
Why bother pumping resources into places that other people consistently out-perform you. Just get them to build their game for your platform instead...
We know better than to believe most PR. Perhaps much of MS's energy is being redirected towards Xbox 2?
Besides, as was pointed out earlier, Xbox sales are being driven by sports games, but largely not the ones made by MS: think EA, Sega, etc. Considering that Xbox hardware sales are not exactly a cash cow, Xbox 2 seems to be of superb strategical importance for market domination, especially compared to the idea of doing Xbox 1 sports games.
Hmmm... XBox sports games sold pretty decent. Not great, but better than many of their other first party titles (better than Grabbed by the Ghoulies, certainly!). The only legitimate reason I could see for them doing this is if they came to an agreement with EA to add Live support to their next season of sports titles. OR, this could be an April Fools joke, two days early...has anyone else reported this as well? Without just stealing the story from IGN, that is?
Creator of the popular web game Proximity
Age of Empires
Asheron's Call
Flight Simulator
Halo
MechAssault
Crimson Skies
Project Gotham Racing
Counter-strike
Shenmue
Maybe they're not your cup of tea, but for millions of other gamers, they are great games. That Microsoft published them demonstrates an ability to identify quality games, and bring them to their gamers -- the only attribute worth having in a publisher.
In my opinion, this move only demonstrates further that Microsoft does 'get' gaming. Their sports games were also-rans, and completely unnecessary given the great lineup of third-party sports titles for their system. Cutting them was a smart move.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Shenmue is a Sega title, Counter-Strike is a Valve title. As far as I know, the rest of those are in-house or 2nd party titles, so I have no issues there.
What most people really seem to be missing here is that Microsoft cut the titles to work on the next year's titles, rather than cutting their sports line completely. They also make it fairly clear in the interview that the most well-received titles (Top Spin and Amped) were never considered yearly titles, and were therefore not part of the cut (though sequels may not have been in the works yet).
Microsoft has a lot of solid code in their sports titles, especially with the number of code bases they have to derive from in some areas (like baseball titles). All they are doing now is giving their developers more time to make their titles competetive with EA and Sega titles. They seemed to be close their first year out, but their latest run definitely fell flat. This was probably the only way to save these titles, even if it means they won't have a new series on the shelves for a year (and isn't one of the biggest complaints about these types of games the fact that they don't improve much in a year anyway?).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Let's start a petition for Microsoft to release the source code to these games now that they've abandoned them!
What with this a nd the recent price drop, it's clear the Xbox as a platform is reaching the end of its life. M$ seems poised to release the Xbox 2 any day now. Or week, or month, or year. Whatever.
Take a look at the market for football titles. It's absolutely flooded with drek. NFL Blitz, NFL Gameday, NFL Fever, NFL 2k4, and the only two good games: ESPN NFL Football and the Madden series. But even Madden seems to be heading away from being a football game and more towards a coaching or ownership sim.
It's sad that Microsoft's cutting out the XSN games because they had a great idea combining sports titles with Xbox Live (which would seem to indicate many more possibilities than simply playing online), and the console could always use some strong sports titles on Xbox Live, but as sports games go, the XSN titles just weren't good enough to compete with other companies' offerings, online or not.
Still I've gotta admit, I always got excited at the notion of what would be possible with Xbox Live sports games. Custom leagues, custom teams, drafts within the leagues... it could really break some new ground for the incredibly tired sports genre. Seems that won't be happeneing any time soon.
...with the exception of Top Spin, they were really not that great anyway, and I doubt we would have seen a Top Spin 2004 anyway. So it's just kinda...meh.
I was addressing the fairly frequent accusation that Microsoft doesn't know games. If it didn't, it wouldn't have pursued Valve and Sega. Who did the developing doesn't really matter, imo. What matters is that Microsoft was sitting at the top of the decision making process, and thus their ability to identify value was tested.
As for the yearly updates - Microsoft could easily carve a niche for themselves by simply issuing roster updates and gameplay patches over XBL several times each season, and only selling updated sports games based on actual improvements. EA and madden have been getting fat off essentially selling expansion packs each year, for full price. There is quite a bit of gamer animosity against them for it.
But my point was simply that: Microsoft can and does identify quality titles and deliver them to their customers. They know good games, and they (demonstratively) have the balls to hold back games that aren't going to be top-of-the-line.
(E.g. the well-documented delay of Crimson Skies until it was great, the delay of this sports lineup, and one is left to assume: the delay of halo2.)
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I think that this is representative of a couple of things.
First, it shows how much more like Nintendo Microsoft is moving for game development. Quality over quantity. I think initially, Microsoft was emulating Sony with its mere quantity, as if it were Microsoft's job to fill in the gaps in the lineup. Maybe it's because they finally have the third party support to start focusing on quality first party (and when I say first party I am also referring to second party) titles. For the first year or two after the launch, Microsoft seemed to releasing everything they possibly could. Over the past year they became much more focused, told the in house dev studios to get it done but take their time (Crimson Skies, for example) and canned other titles that weren't up to par.
Now, it seems they're getting even leaner.
Which brings me to my second point.
And this is the one that will draw the atypical slashdot trolls like flies to a honey factory. Say what you will about monopolistic practices or Microsoft always borrowing from other companies. It's true. But one of the things Microsoft excels at is adapting their products until they work. With regards to the Xbox, they've displayed much more willingless to change the xbox based on market movements than Sony, and especially Nintendo. Canning and revamping the sports lineup is just one of these macro-adaptations that will make them that much more formidable in Xbox2. Someone posted that the canning was because of Xbox2. I think that's true, but only indirectly. They're not going to be Azurik 2, Bloodwake 2, and Fusion Frenzy 2 with the Xbox2 just because they can. My guess is that it will 2-5 extremely strong titles.
I know I'm sounding like a fanboy here, but it might take an Xbox 3.11 to start to dominate the market, but they're moving towards that, and this is demonstrative of that movement.
But one of the things Microsoft excels at is adapting their products until they work.
That is because they have the cash to enter a market and do very poorly but still survive. Any other company (pretty much) would not have time to adapt their product while losing money.
The quality/crap ratio for the Xbox may be higher than the PS2 but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of crap titles. Also, aside from Halo and KOTOR there have been no really must-have titles for the Xbox and both of those games have now been released on the PC. MS really needs a few exceptionally strong exclusives (NOT released for the PC) to make owning an Xbox worthwhile.
That is because they have the cash to enter a market and do very poorly but still survive. Any other company (pretty much) would not have time to adapt their product while losing money.
Well, to some degree yes. That is certainly true now. However, while I might be off on my MS history, I'm not so sure it was true back in the DOS/early windows era. I think you're defintely right, but I also think that it's as much a characteristic of Microsoft's corporate identity as much as it is money.
There won't be as many shitty sports games flooding the market this year.
Don't worry folks, there are still enough XBox sports titles to fill up those bins of unsellable used games for the next 300 years.
This is the first step in microsoft realizing that it has no place in the gaming industry...go ahead I know there's people bitching at me right now, but plain and simple...sony is outselling them. Xbox has no hope unless they make it backwards compatible, until they realize this, I will continue to talk about how stupid the development decisions are for Xbox.
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
Sounds like someone over there might have finally caught a clue. In the game business people won't put up with a crappy 1.0 and a mediocre 2.0 while waiting for the finally good 3.0.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
"Programming is like sex - one mistake and you'll have to support it for the rest of your life."
Are you purposely misunderstanding what I am saying? Let's try to put the fanboyism aside for a moment. The two "exclusive" titles that I mentioned for the Xbox are not really exclusives. I play both of them on my PC. That is why I do not own an Xbox right now. I also really like Gran Turismo 3. I bought a PS2 to play it. I do not have the option of playing that game on anything other than a PS2. Also, I'm not talking about the Xbox having many "really great" games. That may or may not be true. My comment was specifically about the very high profile games that lead people to purchase a specific console. The Xbox does not really have any right now. Ninja Gaiden is getting a lot of press but it is nowhere near the level of a GTA3 or Metroid Prime.
Also, that long list of games you just mentioned are not all must-haves at all. They are just run of the mill games. As a non Xbox owner, I have heard nothing about those games. I am not going to buy an Xbox for the chance to play them.