We are less than a week from the arrival of E3, and in the week that follows there will be major gaming announcements from virtually all walks of video game life. But everyone will be looking to Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo to drop the biggest bombshells. Though each has pressure on them, Microsoft honestly has the most, as they’re really not doing well sales wise, and their 1st party lineup hasn’t been very impressive. And though rumors of Halo 6 being at E3 are prevalent, it’s not known whether it’s true, or whether it’ll help.
Microsoft is well aware of its situation, and the new head of 1st party development for the Xbox, Matt Booty, knows that if they’re to survive, some of their big franchises have to take risks:
“We’re very lucky to have a number of established franchises,” Booty explained. “When you think about Minecraft, Halo and Forza, each has over a decade or almost a decade of foundation underneath them. We need to use those franchises as a home base from which we can expand. That strength lets us branch out and take risks with them.”
He went into more detail about what Xbox has to do to survive:
“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.”
We’ll have to see how things go as E3 comes around. Microsoft will be the first up to bat.
