Microsoft Games Boss Promises Higher Quality, Fewer Games

Thanks to the San Jose Mercury News for its article discussing Microsoft Game Studios' new general manager Shane Kim's attitude to development, as the piece notes: "Some of Kim's first acts have been to ax or delay several projects. Since the fall, Microsoft has scaled back its staff of internal game developers from 1,200 employees to about 1,000." But it's argued: "Because there are now so many others making games for the Xbox, Microsoft needs to make fewer titles, Kim said... This shift toward a conservative investing style mirrors the larger shift within the video game industry, where development budgets and marketing costs are reaching Hollywood proportions."

Comments

Microsoft makes some pretty decent games

[linzeal]

They may merely assimilate a good code shop here and there, but they have good taste. Oh if I could only have the hours back wasted on the "Age of" series, sigh. Maybe than I would have a girl, oh well back to my game of star wars galaxies.

Re:Microsoft makes some pretty decent games

[LeoDV]

Microsoft make some awesome products until they are in a monopoly position. DOS was a fine OS, and so was Windows 3.*, same with Word up to 6.0, IE up to 5... They have lots of $$$ and they know how to use it. When they go after a market they make the best products, that is until they've got it locked, at which point it doesn't matter and they slack off : just look at how they stopped development on the bug-ridden, outdated (popup blocking, tabbed browsing anyone?) IE. But on the other hand, since QuickTime and Winamp have the media market, WMP 9 is a really cool piece of software.

It's the same with games (and the console, by the way). Since it's a highly competitive market, they'll know to get the skilled people to work for them, make some really good titles. AoE was pretty cool for a while, there were the Mechwarrior series and the Close Combats... Microsoft are great when it comes to games.

Re:Microsoft makes some pretty decent games

[TechniMyoko]

Where'd you get your information? They aren't having trouble with the XBOX considering its outselling GameCube. There are tons of XBOX games that I like, moreso than GameCube has (People are complaining about the lack of Cube games) Their games are excellent. But every game (Except Zelda 3) can be better. As for slacking off, look towards the purple cube of non-onlinishness you troll

Re:Microsoft makes some pretty decent games

[TechniMyoko]

Cube is ONLY outselling in japan, and last time I checked, the majority of /.ers are not in japan. In the US it is slightly ahead (as you admittided), which therefor it outsold Cube. Japan isnt an accurate representation considering most japanese have admitted they dont buy xbox just cause its american and big.

Fewer first-party titles? Higher quality games?

[wheresdrew]

Taking a page from Nintendo's book?

Re:Microsoft makes some pretty decent stuff

[MachDelta]

And its not even only their software. Just look at the perhiphrials market (keyboards, joysticks, wheels, etc), where Microsoft actually makes some competetive products. I'm primarilly a Logitech man myself, but my Microsoft sidewinder wheel is actually a pretty good piece of hardware (even if the software bundled with it sucks :P)

High Quality != High Budget

[codexus]

Sure they are going to invest more money in the games and with the new capabilities of the graphics cards we are going to see some amazing graphics.

But they are going to be even less willing to take the risk to innovate than before. A high-quality game isn't just last year's game with prettier graphics.