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

Cost vs. Methods

[October]

Personally I think it's a little worrying that budgets for games have spiralled up so quickly to approach the level of hollywood blockbusters, while the process of making games is still somewhere in the early 1900s, by hollywood standards. I'm glad to see studios favoring quality over quantity, but I'll be happier when the processes mature to similarly modern levels. Once we cut out the majority of wasted work, schedule overruns, and plain old bad planning I think we'll start seeing what games can really do.

Re:Fewer first-party titles? Higher quality games?

[nifboy]

I was wondering how they could actually have *fewer* games, myself.