Sony on viime aikoina niittänyt mainetta yksinpeliin painottuvilla yksinoikeuspeleillään, kun taas Microsoft on keskittynyt enemmän moninpeleihin. Tämä painotus näyttää jatkuvan myös lähitulevaisuudessa.
Microsoft Studiosin pamppu Matt Booty paljasti MCV:lle, että 20-30 tunnin yksinpelejä on oleva aina, mutta pelin pitkäikäisyyteen vaikuttaa myös sen katseleminen, suoratoistaminen ja e-urheilu. Nykyään on miltei mahdotonta tehdä AAA-luokan yksinpeliä ilman useamman vuoden lisäsisältösuunnitelmaa. "Games as a service" on tulevaisuuden linja.
Ovatko palvelupainotteisuus, moninpelit ja sosiaalinen puoli ne tekijät, joilla Microsoft hoitaa homman kotiin? Kommentoi alla.
"There will always be single-player games with maybe 20 to 30 hours of gameplay, we love those kinds of games and there's a place for those, but it's also certainly the case with the focus on watching, streaming, broadcast and esports that it's really important to think about the longevity of a game."
"It's really difficult for anybody to think about making a large scale triple-A game these days without having in mind a content and service plan that goes one to two years into the future out of the gate."
"Games really have become much more social, much more mainstream, much more widespread. We know that the games industry is growing, and that's taking nothing away from what you call the 'single-player, narrative, cinematic game' but we see a lot of interest from our players in more community-driven ongoing franchises. I think that is in alignment with a lot of the trends we see in gaming overall."
"With games being as large as they are, with the move to games as an ongoing service...It is difficult to pivot quickly and try to chase after trends that might happen even on the scale of a year. In business terms a year can be a long time, but development time being three to four years these days, that's the span we need to think about."
"We've got to get our strategic long-term bets, our game development cycles and the things our players like to do in sync. And that will set us up for success."