Not sure I agree. The story was botched and it was important but xbox live needed to explode. MS needed to take put a fire under everyone's asses and Halo 2 was that fire. It absolutely changed the industry and provided the very foundation of online play today. Who knows what would have happened in a year. A year later? Less of an install base that carried into 360, less popularity, less online presence.
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Xbox Co-Creator Ed Fries (IGN Unfiltered Interview)
- Thread starter SOR5
- Start date
Not sure I agree. The story was botched and it was important but xbox live needed to explode. MS needed to take put a fire under everyone's asses and Halo 2 was that fire. It absolutely changed the industry and provided the very foundation of online play today. Who knows what would have happened in a year. A year later? Less of an install base that carried into 360, less popularity, less online presence.
Galactic Barret
Member
Fries' integrity has me a bit teary-eyed. Willing to put your job on the line for a development team? That is class, and MGS is lesser after him leaving.
I'm not enamored with PS like some of you guys but he does seems like a chosen one type, based on this interview. Imagine if he had quit? Crazy.
I'm not enamored with PS like some of you guys but he does seems like a chosen one type, based on this interview. Imagine if he had quit? Crazy.
Peter Moore literally saying cometh the hour cometh the man lol
Also agree, you had a crap cliffhanger but overall a game that set online console gaming on fire, but I respect Ed for wanting the game to cook for longer
FATstronaut
Member
inpHilltr8r
Member
There's certain posts a profile pic is built for
digoutyoursoul
Member
I think his comments regarding Halo not being milked and wanting to create other "killer" franchises are very telling. When I look at the studios they do own, the majority of the AAA games are of the same IP. It's my one big complaint of MS and the Xbox strategy over the years, it's grown tedious but that is just down to my personal taste I suppose, I would like them to back a new, fresh IP with the kind of funding the give the Halo's or Gears, at least think about it.
SlickShoesRUCrazy
Member
It's their biggest weakness right now IMO.
They have 5 game studios and 4 of them are tied to a single franchise.
LukasTaves
Member
They were definitely misguided on how they presented the console (and the proof you need is the perception that they revealed the console with no games). But I think having a gaming/media/app/tv box powered by kinect, non controller motion controls and non headset voice commands wasn't a bad thing per se, and eventually when they are able to reorganize that under win10 I can see it being a big success for them.
Even for gamers, those features would be an huge plus if they were not responsible for them making a weak box, and a more expensive one at that. Their error was not eating that cost up and delivering a just as strong if not stronger box than ps4 with all that.
But other than the design of the box, and the atrocious reveal, they had from the beginning a great focus on gaming. They practically announced the console with DR3, Killer Instinct, a new game from Remedy, new games from legends from Japan. I don't know how anyone that got excited by 360's early lineup could look in disdain for what they showed on E3 2013, it was practically 360 2.0
I bought one at launch (How could I not, it had DR3, The new Remedy game, and a Panzer Dragoon spiritual sucessor by the same creator!), but I think he quickly turned the xbone into a desirable console for the gamers. The only thing left is literally the only thing he can't change that is the box itself, but even that they will retract from with Scorpio (and to a lesser degree the S)
That1BlackGuy
Member
I appreciate the kind words, folks! I'm having a lot of fun doing these, and I've been fortunate to have had great guests so far.
Phenomenal interview Ryan, I really enjoyed it.
Primethius
Banned
Pretty great interview. The tidbits in the OP alone were a fantastic read.
Some of it is very paraphrased so I'm going over to make it more accurate, but it is representative of what's being said
its weird though, because Xbox only exists because it originally had a windows focus, and then dropped it. If the focus was 'sony is a threat in the living room' from the off, then we might have had a Dreamcast 2 instead.
I would argue Bill was angry but definitely knew how to get shit done and was ahead of his time in alot of ways but Ballmer was a bit everywhere, especially when he was chasing after Apple, he was at the helm of too many bad decisions, but also quite a few good ones
Salty Hippo
Member
Damn right. Ed was very portfolio driven, he understood that quality and diversity were key. He wanted to cover as many genres and styles as possible. You can see that he just gets it, in a way that Microsoft still doesn't to this very day.
I already knew all that from other interviews, but I didn't know the circumstances of his departure. Just goes to show what a fucking terrible environment Microsoft had from a creativity point of view, and probably still has. They are so incredibly short-sighted about their gaming division and Phil Spencer is either 1. just as blind or 2. completely powerless to do anything about the bleak state of their first-party games.
j0hnny_385
Member
Ed is an amazing guy! Such a good interview. Really interesting topics.
edit: I would really like to see him getting back to the industry full time (he's mostly a consultant/board member now) on...something. VR or something cutting edge.
edit: I would really like to see him getting back to the industry full time (he's mostly a consultant/board member now) on...something. VR or something cutting edge.
Wasn't he tied in some way to OUYA?Ed is an amazing guy! Such a good interview. Really interesting topics.
edit: I would really like to see him getting back to the industry full time (he's mostly a consultant/board member now) on...something. VR or something cutting edge.
Younger Bill Gates was crazy. He would walk into meetings with printed out code of a program some jr had written. It would be full of remarks and underlines and he would grill the programmer. He was CEO, debugging code.
j0hnny_385
Member
AFAIK, yes.
LordRaptor
Member
What Bill Gates wanted as a strategy is what they're currently sorta-kinda-but-not-really pursuing.
Steve Ballmer is an idiot and a bully though, and under him so was Ms corporate strategy for a decade.
LukasTaves
Member
I dunno, Bill pretty much wanted Xbox to be exactly what Xbox is turning to be now.
Granted, back then Ms had no way to deliver on that, but it's pretty amazing that 17 years ago Bill knew exactly how Xbox should be used to expand windows and not compete with it.
Obscuritas
Member
I love all these background stories, this interview is pure gold.
Alx
Member
By the way you have the final confirmation that Microsoft wanted Xbox to be the Dreamcast 2
Yeah, as a DC-orphan at the time, Xbox really felt the closest to what the Dreamcast was. New IPs, a push for online gaming... Sega was split between the three remaining platforms, but Xbox got some real creative stuff.
BeforeU
Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.
I hate these one sided arguments. Its true that because of Bungie, Xbox is what it is today. But it is also true that without MS and Xbox community Bungie wouldnt have been as big as it is today.
j0hnny_385
Member
Why?
I don't. Not in the slightest.
Bungie was saved by MS, got the opportunity to develop Halo which became the killer app on the brand new MS hardware.
Even though Halo 2 had horrible dev cycle and crunch, in the end, everything paid off extremely well for both sides.
Bungie and MS parted ways on good terms and Bungie signed one of the biggest (biggest?) independent deals with Activision to develop Destiny (which itself is a massive commercial success).
Bungie deserved that success fair and square. And none of that would happen if the company had collapsed.
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
Tidbits are cool but I recommend to actually watch the whole thing, super interesting and Fries is very charming; Ryan does a good job in not getting in the way, letting Ed do his thing while still keeping him on track.
justsomeguy
Member
Holy cow no, Bill is a genius. He is renowned for ripping apart any idea which isn't 100% solid and seeing flaws nobody else sees.
I heard amazing stuff about a speech to the Vista team
ProfessorMoran
Member
Gates had built an empire on the windows monopoly which was to be pervasive in everything, that's his vision.
I'm not surprised the broken corporate structure drove Fries to leave but I didn't realize it was that bad, as much as people like to think Spencer is some sort of great saviour, the culture hasn't changed. People with vision will eventually be driven out, they'll be out of MS but they'll do great things.
Ricky Ricardo
Member
This interview is a treasure trove of information. It proves what I've been thinking for a long time, Microsoft is not monolith of single-minded intent. There are people inside the company who love games and gaming, and there are suits who are only concerned about profit and sales and don't "get" gaming. That divide is what is responsible the the Master Chief Collection starting out as "a love letter to Halo fans" and ending up as one of the greatest disasters in gaming history.
Also, that quote about Phil Spencer is amazing. I have argued with posters on this forums that they did not truly understand the realities of middle management. "He was on-stage and on-message for the Xbox One 2013 campaign! He's still slimy!" Doesn't take much experience to see what was going on. There were folks who had good ideas trapped in headwinds.
Anyways, wish some of those posters would show up now so we could actually have a meaningful discussion about the realities of leadship vs management.
The culture has changed, if you look at the Xbox division today compared to the Xbox division between 2010-2014, you can clearly see there been sweeping changes. There's still a lot of work to do honestly, but to deny there's been progress made is sadly misinformed.
Also, that quote about Phil Spencer is amazing. I have argued with posters on this forums that they did not truly understand the realities of middle management. "He was on-stage and on-message for the Xbox One 2013 campaign! He's still slimy!" Doesn't take much experience to see what was going on. There were folks who had good ideas trapped in headwinds.
Anyways, wish some of those posters would show up now so we could actually have a meaningful discussion about the realities of leadship vs management.
The culture has changed, if you look at the Xbox division today compared to the Xbox division between 2010-2014, you can clearly see there been sweeping changes. There's still a lot of work to do honestly, but to deny there's been progress made is sadly misinformed.
LordRaptor
Member
If you want to absolve Phil Spencer of personal responsibility over shitty decisions that were made on his watch, you have to also absolve Don Mattrick of shitty decisions made on his watch.
Sorry, that's how it works.
Boils my blood just hearing his fucking name.
If Mattrick is pushing something then Phil had to back it. This is how companies tend to work.
Simply Sami
Member
Phil was in charge of first party studios. Since he replaced Shane Kim for that job we been getting is Halo/Gears/Forza.
I like Spencer. But he was at fault for the piss poor first party support towards the last 3 years of 360.
LukasTaves
Member
I dunno, it could go both ways. Ms recent push towards gaming on windows and windows everywhere could be both a corporate suit trying to focus on windows and phones, but it could be that Ms understands that gaming is a driving force they have, and by giving a platform agnostic of a single device they can let the gamers on Ms put as many awesome games as they like, but without trying to push a single box or OS.
In that scenario for instance, we wouldn't see they ceasing Pc game development, nor forcing a game to be ready to a hardware launch, both suits decisions that hurt their passionate teams on both platforms.
From what Nadella usually says it seems like it's the best scenario: He knows gaming is huge, and want them to be their own thing, but are repurposing the platform in a way all the company's platforms benefits.
Ricky Ricardo
Member
If you can point out where I absolved him of personal responsibility, then that'd be great.
LukasTaves
Member
But that was directly responsible for the great 1st party support xbone had since the beginning.
They literally moved projects towards xbone, which is why on 360 they had a weaker output compared to Sony, but on Xbone they had a bigger one compared to Ps4.
One of the great things now is that with they way they are chaging this kinda of decision no longer needs to happen. It could also be the opposite, instead of forcing the software to be ready when the hardware hits, they can launch the hardware when there's software ready to go with it. They are even kinda doing it now with their win10 devices that will wait for the Redstone 2 update.
LordRaptor
Member
I don't know if you did or not, but the ongoing narrative of Phil Spencer: AaaaAAAAaaaaa saviour of the universe and Don Mattrick: Ruiner of worlds is beyond stupid.
Ricky Ricardo
Member
Again, what are you actually arguing here? I didn't say anything about Mattrick. Nor did I say Spencer was a savior. I said his job was/is more complicated and nuanced than "He OK'ed Kinect in every box."
That's not a complex concept.
Yamauchi wasn't doing a lot of interviews back then, or before then, and he's doing significantly fewer now...
When he was alive, he tended to do quite clinical, abrupt financial press interviews and not that much else.
LordRaptor
Member
I'm saying that if you accept that Spencer is a suit at a multinational with varied and vested interests, and has some successes, some failures, and some compromises, that that is also true of Don Mattrick.
There are a bunch of people - in this very topic even! - pushing this idea that Mattrick was cancer and Spencer is a saviour. It's classic confirmation bias.