This generation the biggest difference between the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is the former had great exclusives each year, including a few generation defining titles, while the latter only had a few notable exclusives the entire generation, none of which are as critically-acclaimed as games like God of War or Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. That said, Xbox is aware that this is an issue, and it’s been working on fixing it, which is a big reason why it’s been acquiring studios right and left, with the latest being Double Fine Productions. Xbox doesn’t just want to fix this issue though, it wants to complete turn it around, and eventually be at a point where it’s releasing a new first-party game every three months. In other words, releasing four first-party games a year, which is about where Sony is currently at.
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“I think about like how long you spend with a game and just sort of the cadence of discovery there,” said Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, while speaking to IGN. “So if you can do a game every three months, and if a game takes somewhere between two years and four years, I mean, just think about things that have come out recently, you know, things like Red Dead and God of War need to be getting into five, six years. Right? But let’s just say for the sorts of studios, like a Ninja Theory or a Double Fine that two, three years starts to be the cadence, right?
Booty continued:
“So, then if you’ve got a game a quarter and you’re taking two to three years. You can kind of back into the math and say, well wow, you probably need somewhere between 10 and 12 studios. But… making games is not yet a perfect science, right? There’s no creative endeavor that is. So there’s going to be things that take longer. There’s going to be some things that we start and say, hey, great idea, but it just isn’t, you know, the Jello doesn’t want to set. Right. Um, and so I think we need some, some buffer in there, right? So the first, that’s kind of my basic answers. We’d love to be feeding a high quality game into game pass about every three months.”
Of course, while quantity is important, ultimately, quality is more important. Not only do Nintendo and Sony release many first-party games, but a decent chunk of them are award-winning, game-of-the-year level experiences. Padding out your line-up with good experiences is fine, but you’ll need some great games sprinkled in there as well.
Anyway, as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ to talk all things Xbox.
