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“You’ve got to be able to listen to your studios when they need time.”
Xbox head Phil Spencer has commented on giving developers within Xbox Game Studios more development time to ensure games are made at a high quality.
In an interview with Kotaku, Spencer was asked why 2019 will be the first year in nearly a decade that Microsoft won’t release a Forza game, to which he responded “One of the nice things I loved about [the E3 2019 Xbox briefing]… was the things that we didn’t show.
“I think about of the 14 first-party games, 12 are shipping in the next year. We were really able to focus on what’s coming now, which I think is awesome. And then I think about the studios: where was Initiative? Where was Turn 10? Where was Playground’s second team [long-rumored to be working on a new Fable game]? It was nice, and this hasn’t always been the case with our first-party line-up, where we’ve had the ability to not show everything all the time.
“In the case of Forza, I want the team, just like we did 343 [Industries]: We gave them time—we did, what, four Halos in four years?—giving them an opportunity to really think and have a creative impact when they launch. Turn 10 is similar. I want to give them time to think through their plans. You’ve got to be able to listen to your studios when they need time and they want to focus on more things. And as you have more content, you’re able to do that.”
The Quality of Microsoft First-Party Games
When asked why Microsoft’s first-party games have seemingly diminished in quality over the last few years, Spencer responded “I think quality of first party is very important… We did reach a time in our first party where the number of games and studios that we actually had and were investing in put a lot of pressure on everything that we were doing. And it became more difficult to manage a portfolio when you kind of needed everything at any point to hit the date that it had picked three years ahead of time at the very high level of quality. The support that we’re getting now and we’ve had over the last couple of years has allowed us to invest in our first party, adding eight new studios and really create room for us to focus on quality.”
In regards to games Microsoft has in development but has not officially announced, Spencer said “I think what I see now with Matt Booty running first party and the number of studios that we have and the number of games in development is: I don’t feel that I need to announce things at a wrong time in order to win some rating system somewhere. I feel like I can give teams the time they need in order to get the right creative positions in place so they’re building the game that they want to build. And when things require more time, we can afford to make sure that we’re giving things the right amount of time.”
Microsoft on Crunch and Working Conditions
In response to a question about development crunch, Spencer said “We want to create an environment where people can have careers, which means they feel fulfilled and rewarded with the work that they do, that there’s career progression. But the sustainability of the work-life balance is critical, and I would use that word, because I don’t know if there’s one equation: OK, you clock in at this time and you clock out at that time?
“But when you think about the number of hours that people work, when you think about a sustainable career where I say, ‘I can see myself doing this for 20 years,’ we spend a lot of time polling the culture we have inside of the organisation. Because it’s not just how many hours do I work. It’s, ‘Do I feel like I work in an environment where I can show up as my true self? Where I can do my best work?’ All of those things are critical.”
The State of Microsoft’s First-Party Studios
While Microsoft’s first-party output has slowed over the last generation, its studio-buying spree indicates that trend will reverse in the coming console generation. During E3 2018, Microsoft announced it had acquired four new studios and was creating one from the ground up. Then, during X018, Microsoft revealed it had acquired inXile Entertainment and Obsidian Entertainment. Most recently, during E3 2019, Microsoft announced that indie studio Double Fine Productions had joined Xbox Game Studios.
Other Xbox Game Studios developers include Halo’s 343 Industries, Gears’ The Coalition, Forza Motorsport’s Turn 10, Forza Horizon’s Playground Games, Minecraft’s Mojang and more which have previously worked on Xbox One games and PC games. During Microsoft’s E3 2019 press conference, the company announced the next-generation Xbox Project Scarlett and revealed Halo Infinite will be a launch title.
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Colin Stevens is a news writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.