Not every Xbox game comes as an ever-evolving service, as Xbox Games Studio head Matt Booty emphasizes the need for standalone narratives.
According to Xbox Studios head Matt Booty, not everyone of their games will have live services. He notes how they still value experiences and won’t push devs to make “a game that has seasons and goes on for five years” if they don’t want to.
Xbox will publish narrative titles
In an interview with The Guardian, Matt Booty talked about their relative success as a cross-platform brand. He talks about their cross-platform titles that connect not only via Xbox and PC but also the Playstation.
Booty notes that he doesn’t expect every title to be a Minecraft or Sea of Thieves. Not every title should have multiple seasons or should have years of support.
“We don’t have any direction or mandate that says every game has to be an ongoing, sustained game,” said Booty.
“Take Psychonauts: there might be a Psychonauts 3, but I’m not going to tell [designer] Tim Schafer to go make it. Knowing the history of games that he makes, I don’t think he’s going to be making a game that has seasons and goes on for five years.”
“Sea of Thieves has longevity and we’re going to have Halo multiplayer start to be based around seasons, but Compulsion Games, our studio in Montreal, weren’t told to go build something that’s going to have seasons or six pieces of DLC or something.
“Tell Me Why was an important story for us to get out there, but there is no mandate that they’ve got to go figure out how to do seasons for that game.”
Xbox looking to build their portfolio
Last month, Matt Booty talked up about wanting to release a first-party title per quarter. To do something this lofty, he noted that they’re always looking for a studio to add into their umbrella. They are looking for devs that will work for them.
“Games take up to four or five years to make, and the reality is that not every project we start will make it to launch,” said Matt during the media scrum.
“But if you add all that up, that’s how we’ve gotten to our state today, with two dozen studios making games across a variety of genres. And we know a thriving entertainment service needs a consistent and exciting flow of new content. So our portfolio will continue to grow as our service grows.”
Xbox continues to be a solid competitor against the Playstation. While they lost a potential early lead for this generation, they are closing faster due to their many services. These include the Xbox Game Pass and Cloud Gaming.
Featured image courtesy of Xbox/Youtube Screenshot