Xbox Releases Statement On COVID-19's Impact On Exclusive Game Development

Xbox boss Matt Booty says each studio is facing "unique challenges and restraints."

[Spurg]

Hopefully working at home gives the developers at XGS the mental stability they need when working at home. We know that the end period of development comes with some crunch that is inevitable.
Im pre

[Sophisticated_Chap]

Yeah, god forbid they have to work in a fast paced office like many of us regular folk.

[Games1st]

Yeah, god forbid they work 12 to 15 hours like many of us regular folk.

[fr0sty]

So they already weren't going to release anything for 2 years after series X launches, and now they're talking about further delays?

[Prem8tuaProcrastin8a]

@fr0sty are you for real? You know well that they are gonna be releasing exclusive Xbox games on the xsx in the first 2 years, it's just that they are going to release them on x1 too. You know this, yet you are spreading misinformation.

[rainslacker]

Working at home to develop games isn't as fluid as it is within a studio environment. More distractions, and people work at their own pace more than being driven by the peer group. Testing also becomes more problematic, as you can't realistically send out a dev kit with every tester, nor would you want to just allow that data to be sent to testers homes. It's a highly risky proposition. Turn around on simple changes is raised exponentially.

It can indeed be done, and meetings can still happen. It just becomes a lot harder to manage the whole project, and the risk of leaks is astronomical.

It's what a lot of studios are doing now though, and its the right thing to do, because the alternative leads to a potentially disastrous result. I'm doing it now, and it's inconvenient, but no job is worth risking one's health. More so, the customer can wait another month or two to play the game, and I won't criticize any dev that has to develop a game to keep themselves healthy.

[kayoss]

how does covid-19 have impact on exclusives on xbox when there is no exclusives to impact?
Yes, shots fired. Fight me.

[battletrax]

They are talking about the exclusives that the 13 Xbox game studios are working on. Yes there are little exclusives out now. But they aquired a bunch of studios. It has an impact on the development of games.

That said, I am no Xbox fan. I don't own one. I prefer the games that PlayStation and Nintendo has. Xbox sucked this gen in terms of exclusives.

[Blu3_Berry]

No reason to be toxic.

[KyRo]

The word toxic is thrown around so much these days. Stop being a fairy. The fact he said shit fired, fight me implies he's having fun with it. Lighten up.

[Loktai]

No reason to use stupid buzzwords. Hes just kidding around.

tox·ic
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adjective
1.
poisonous.
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poisonous substances.

Im just joking around too but just saying why go around kicking up this toxic label, its the internet, people joke, people fight, its not toxic its human.

[i3eyond the Circle]

About as much impact that an SSD can make for resolutions and frame rate on N4G.

[Ricegum]

You guys are so triggered about PS5's fantastic SSD. Just stick to them Teraflops bud.

[i3eyond the Circle]

Sure. Whatever you say Rice Crispy.

[King_Noctis]

I’m sorry, but what a stupid, stupid comment.

[Kabaneri]

If anybody made that comment about Nintendo or Sony it would get marked inappropriate.
Welcome to N4G where trolling is allowed as long as its anti-Xbox.

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

Well certain mods in here are nothing more than Sony fanboys so what do you expect from a Pro Sony site like N4G.

[S2Killinit]

You clearly havent spent time with xbox trolls. They are the most pervasive. Relentless. I think usually the losing side is the one with the worst trolls.

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

Instead of bad mouthing MS maybe you should be bad mouthing those 49er’s for choking in the Super Bowl when they had the lead. Yes shots fired fight me..

[kayoss]

MS is like the Browns of football, as hard as they try to make a good exclusive (in the browns case, the wild cards), they fail miserably. Your turn.

[Noskypeno]

They were doomed to lose,even if they stuck to the winning formula. The refs blew major no calls that would have guaranteed a victory for the 9ers. The obvious hold for 2 seconds that would have moved the chains late in the game that would have made it easier to run down the clock, the helmet hit, the two touchdowns that shouldn't have been. As much as I enjoy watching, it might as well be the new WWE.

[King_Noctis]

“ MS is like the Browns of football, as hard as they try to make a good exclusive (in the browns case, the wild cards), they fail miserably. Your turn.”

You have selective memory don’t you? Where were you when games like Gears 5 and Ori Will of The Wisp were released to resounding success, both commercially and critically? Where were you when upcoming MS games like MS Flight Simulator and Gear Tactics get good previews?

I’m done replying you. You are just a troll anyway.

[S2Killinit]

Selective memory is what you seem to suffer from. Those games do not justify a whole generation of empty promises and waiting. This gen would have been a major flop if the other two had performed as MS did.

[kayoss]

8 years and all you can do is list 2 games??

[King_Noctis]

“ 8 years and all you can do is list 2 games??”

Sunset Overdrive
Cuphead
Ori 1&2
Gears 5
Forza Horizon 3&4
Killer Instinct
Halo 5 Guardian
Quantum Break
Rare Replay
Halo Wars 2

Upcoming:
Gears Tactics
Hellblade 2
Halo Infinite
MS Flight Simulator
Age of Empire IV
Project Mara
Grounded
Everwild
Tell Me Why
Battletoad

Some other games developing by their devs: Wasteland 3, Psychonauts 2, and Minecraft Dungeoun.

You want more? Do some research before commenting.

“ Selective memory is what you seem to suffer from. Those games do not justify a whole generation of empty promises and waiting.”

And are you saying those games that I listed are not good? Sure, Sony had a better gen, but MS is turning the ship around with all the devs the have acquired and all the new games that they are developing. You should at least give them some credit for that, its not like they are continuing to be sh*tty or something.

[Muzikguy]

Well, the impact is that now they have an excuse as to why they don't have them of course

lol, I kid.....

[RedDevils]

A delay within a delay lol

[milliniumstylz]

still angry about the Super Bowl?

[kayoss]

Not as angry as Xbox One owners.

[timotim]

I hope for the best.

[Ricegum]

You wouldn't if it were Sony though right?

[timotim]

Considering I don't own a PS of any kind...I simply would have avoided the article all together and just not clicked on it. I also wouldn't have felt any type of way knowing there were gamers that did click on the article to wish Sony the best. I suggest you be more like me and use that same logic. Stop turning every positive thing said about Xbox as some kind of knock against Sony. This article isn't about Sony. I can wish Xbox the best without wishing the worse for others...

[Kiwi66]

Why do you have to turn a comment that isn't about Sony/PS into some fanboy thing ?

[RazzerRedux]

@Ricegum

Seriously man? Geez....why are you stalking timotim?

[sampsonon]

Work from home. It's all pc work anyway right? As long as the motion capture aspect it complete, a game should be good to go.
But always safety first.

[ElementX]

While work is done on PC, there are logistics to figure out. Devs can't walk across the floor to another desk to see what coworkers are doing. Sure work can be streamed, but there could be compression and bandwidth issues. Implementing little changes that affect systems might cause issues that would take longer to spot. Working from home isn't as simple as it sounds in every situation.

[sampsonon]

they all do it now anyways when they go home and work into the night.
they also do this for major movies.
I'm surprised anyone wouldn't know that.
When a game or movie is being made you have many companies that are in different locations around the world. They communicate online.
example: https://youtu.be/da8s9m4zEp...

by the way they don't need to stream the content, just the communication.

[isarai]

Yeah it may sound simple but what would be directly accessed over a loval server now has to be transferred over residential networks (im sure some of their employees have higher grade networks at home, but not all) then you can run into a myriad of Compatibility issues from both hardware and software version differences accross their staffs home PCs/Workstations. I'm sure there are guidelines to which versions if what software to use but it still happens when working remotely. There's just so many variables introduced when everyone is working from home that can add up to a clusterf#@k of a work experience. Thats not even considering just communication.

Not saying it for sure is way worse, but it certainly comes with a new set of complications.

[ElementX]

Games have tons of art from models to animations and set pieces/maps. Then there's sound design such as background noises and environmental effects, sounds produced by world interactions, music, voice overs. Then you have programming, AI, physics, etc. All of these things have to come together, it's not like movie editing.

Discussions between departments is difficult online. You'd have 20 people trying to explain what they're doing or what they need done, everybody wanting to stream their work to show where they might be having problems, etc. Just joining an online AA meeting with 20 people in Zoom is kind of a hassle and we're not trying to stream game development.

*EDIT* You DO have to stream content. If you have clipping issues or some graphical/sound glitch, you can't just explain that, you have to show where the problems are occuring. If the character is falling through the map how do you explain the exact location? If you're looking through 50,000 lines of code, do you just tell people there's an issue in line 34,537? Wouldn't be easier to show people what is happening? You can't just say "Hey Bob, look at this issue..." online without streaming what you're doing.

[sampsonon]

.

[sampsonon]

@isarai:

A simple question for you and everyone else. How do you think they are working on it right now? Do you think they are at the studio? Or do you think they are working from home?

RIGHT!

[Fishy Fingers]

You ever tried working from home?

I'm doing it now and yeah while its all PC work its definitely not as efficient or ideal.

[rainslacker]

Testing is the biggest issue nowadays. It's not really good practice to do off site testing, and giving temp employees(which most testers are) access to the data outside a controlled environment is just asking for trouble.

Development does slow down due to more lag in communications, but most communications can be done internet meeting things, or private chat room things, and even desktop sharing so multiple people can collaborate on stuff.

It is disruptive though, and people generally aren't used to it. There is also a good amount of peer community in a studio, and some of that is lost when people work remotely. Basically what is more often referred to the morale of the company, as everyone tends to get on the same page and share goals much more when they are together in one place.

Even if things like motion capture were delayed, it's not going to be the biggest thing that delays a game. Schedules in development have to be fluid, as so many things can quickly change in development of any game.

As far as the outsourcing you're talking about. Generally those outsourced things are specific in nature. They also often work together in their own group.

[DreadGara]

There will be no Xbox exclusive games in the first 2 year's when Series X released.

It doesn't feel like this news adding anything new to the table...

[King_Noctis]

They said the games they are developing might face issue. So, exclusive or not, why do you think this isn’t news? Or it can only be news if those games they make are only exclusive to Xbox SX?

Some of you people make absolutely no god damn sense.

[rainslacker]

This is going to be true across most of the industry. Most devs are limiting in studio work right now, and while the work can get done, there are so many things that get disrupted by having everyone working at home. Even if people are on board, and can get the work done, people generally aren't used to such paradigms, and the logistics take time to work out on how communication is going to happen.

We've been doing this with my company, and it was optional last week, and next week it's mandatory. It took some time to get all the kinks worked out, and we are not that large of a development house, and we aren't making games in the same way these studios are.

[timotim]

Soooo...if all there games got delayed because of the virus and there teams not being able to fully utilize there full resources...and they came out and announced that, would it be news worthy then???

[jairusmonillas]

Just another lame excuse by team xbox for not having any great exclusive games unlike team playstation, bleeding edge never had covid19 impact but it was still below mediocre trash.

This what happens when you put everything on gamepass. Every exclusive xbox game is like a free 2 play quality with very low content.

[Welshy]

"It had no impact whatsoever as we have no exclusives lol".

Joking aside, I hope devs from all publishers are keeping safe. We can wait for games, it's not essential.

[Knushwood Butt]

'Bethesda delayed the much-anticipated Wastelanders update for Fallout 76 due to the coronavirus.'.

This is much-anticipated?

[MidnightMay0r]

Oh so now we gotta wait 3 years for exclusive games on the series X instead of 2 lol come on now.

[MidnightMay0r]

Are you implying the PS5 won’t have exclusive games at launch and soon after? I didn’t see them make a whole big deal about not having exclusive games for two years.

[MADGameR]

What exclusives? Because as far as we ALL know, all of their games are heading to PC. But you can keep being delusional in believing there will be ''exclusives'' for XSX.

[bahabeast]

They are already finding excuses.

[Cmoney007]

Is it possible that MS is famous for the wait and see approach? I hope MS is finally going to wow us with amazing games in the future.

[Artemidorus]

What games? You didn't have any and won't for YEARS.

[Elda]

LOL!

[Fraggle1987]

What exclusives?

[PyroMessiah86]

Fanboys kindly f off. Most annoying thing about gaming. People need to grow up a little. Anyone that can't see the lengths MS/Xbox have gone to redeem themselves after 'that' Xbox One reveal is blind.