More excuses for Redfall. Matt Booty from MS is on damage control duty :(

Xbox has had a challenging couple of years, to say the least.

Redfall recently launched to middling reviews and criticism of the game's bugs, co-op issues, and performance, at a time when Xbox was already suffering from concerns and criticisms regarding a multi-year silence from many of its 23 internal studios. Up until yesterday's showcase at least, the narrative has been that Xbox's AAA efforts have been floundering. But it all begs the question: what could Xbox reasonably have done differently?

Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty, like his fellow executives, recognizes that Xbox has a lot to prove to those who have been watching it closely since its late 2010s acquisition spree. So following the Xbox Game Showcase, I ask him if there's anything he'd do differently if he could go back to 2017 and play it all out again. Booty responds by telling me he'd change how he sets expectations: not with the Xbox audience, but with they developers Xbox acquired.

"When a studio becomes part of Xbox, like it or not, they become part of first-party," Booty responds. "And as part of first-party, they exist in a different spotlight; people look at them through a different lens. And it is my responsibility, our responsibility as the wider Xbox org, to make sure they understand that, and then to make sure that they’re set up and that we set expectations appropriately. If you’re a small studio that’s independent, you might ship a game, you might be working on something and say hey, this isn’t really working on, let’s just ship this thing, get it out of the way and move onto our next game. We don’t have that luxury as part of first-party.

"If I were to look back, where I feel a little remiss on the Redfall thing, that project was started before we acquired Zenimax, and I think we could have done a better job of onboarding them...If I were to take a post-it note back in time in my little time machine to 2017, it’d be, make sure that everybody understands that they don’t get to just ship a game as Double Fine or as inXile anymore. They’re going to be looked at as part of first-party."

Since Redfall launched to middling reviews and criticism of the game's bugs, co-op issues, and performance, Xbox leadership has taken responsibility for the disappointment, as well as indicated they thought it was going to perform better due to stronger mock reviews. On reflection, though, head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty adds that part of the reason the team didn't recognize the issues was due to what claims is "tunnel vision" and missing the bigger picture.

“Sometimes, a team can just get a little bit of tunnel vision around their game, and sometimes management can have the opposite problem where maybe they’re zoomed a little too far out," Booty says. "And it was a case of us having indicators that the game was going to perform a certain way...we had people play the game, we had reviews, we do mock reviews, we just had indicators that it was going to perform better than it did. And I think the team was so committed to what they were building that they just had a little bit of tunnel vision

Booty goes on to say that accountability for Redfall ultimately falls on himself and ZeniMax head James Leder, and urges players not to blame the individual developers.

"If you’re working for Arkane, you’ve spent years working on Redfall," he says. "To me, I just feel for the people that spent all their time working on that, and are coming under all this fire for their game. I just immediately go to, how do we support the team? How do we support them to get the game in good shape, and what can we learn from this?"

We also spoke to Booty about why games are taking so much longer to make nowadays. Booty also appeared on a panel with other Xbox heads to talk about Xbox's first-party strategy, alongside Xbox head Phil Spencer speaking on the importance of console. And you can catch up on everything from the Xbox Showcase and IGN's Summer of Gaming right here.

https://www.ign.com/articles/xbox-game-studios-head-matt-booty-redfall

Times are rough at Xbox HQ, especially when MS first party games gets a 4/10. I hope Arkane is able to recover from MS mishandled management.

ROFLOLOLOLOL

That reads like he’s taking responsibility and being accountable for the launch… Another good look from Xbox brass. Not sure how you spin that as a negative

He does, but he also saying or hinting at the negative reaction is because it's attached to a larger company, not that the game is just crap.

Well said Microsoft. Now y’all should be more hands on with your studios.

Forspoken says hi

Its coming to your box very soon. Remember to buy it day one, it'll look great near the 4/10 Redfall.

Ok? Sounds fine to me. I just hope that lessons were learned and appropriate actions are taken in the future. 🤷‍♂️

I absolutely hate that this game was awful. Arkane is possibly my favorite studio outside of Naughty Dog. I hope that with their next game they get back to their roots. Chasing multiplayer and live service has ruined studios before. I hope it doesn't this time.

I'm pretty sure Square Enix has forgotten about Forspoken, just like the rest of us.

So you are saying they mistitled the game and it should have been called Forgotten?😂

We EA'd them.

Lems didn't, tho. Its literally the only negative they have about Sony, so they stick to it. One thing they choose to ignore is that its not a Sony exclusive, and its coming to their system as well🤭

@daredevils2k: the copium continues!

Bro, wtf would make you happy here? Leadership at XBox is admitting they messed up, and are evaluating what they are doing and what they will be doing in the future. That's not "making excuses", that's "owning your mistakes".

@hardwenzen: sonyspot is bias towards Xbox, Red Fall should have gotten a 5 like Forspoken. 😆

I could have said it better myself.

The state of the Xbox is so poor that you're paranoid with your bias talk. You wanted GS to shill trash from Microsft or something? For them to praise your system, they first need to release something else than the pathetic Infinite and the 4/10 Redfall in almost 3 years time.🤷‍♂️

Lems pretend like Forspoken is shit, and is a Sony exclusive, but we all know they'll get the game first week, and spend hours customizing her nails😂😂😂😂😂😂

Didn't read, but chasing fads for greed is usually not better than creating something you're good at creating. Would be awesome if MS and other big publishers understood that.

That doesn't read like an excuse, that reads like an admission of fault, they didn't manage expectations, they didn't take a grip of the Arkane team and they didn't accurately assess the game. He knows the game is trash, Arkane knows the game is trash, we all know the game is trash, his good take away is okay that ones a dud lets move on and support those devs so this doesn't happen again.

20 posts in and a quarter of the posts are from wenzen already, he should buy a PS5 and play some games.

What's worse is over half the studio employees quit because of that game. Going forward, how do Arkane recover from that?

They are doomed and they are closing tomorrow. 😎

Lmao, TC is really struggling.

MS should have done a real apology for Redfall instead of going on a YouTube channel to ask for sympathy. “Oh, we’ll never be #1, waaaaaa”

@SolidGame_basic: You should try that again, this time like an adult.

@hardwenzen: hmm... higher player count than returnal...

How old is returnal? And is Returnal a game created to be just like a gaas title? Look at Destiny 2 numbers and compare them to 4/10 Redfall, its pathetic.

Destiny is a live service game. You might as well compare Redfall to WoW or ESO.

Exactly, same as Redfall, but they cut mtx from it, so its more of a positive than a negative. Still, tho, nobody is playing it because its garbage.

I'm not saying Redfall is a good game. But, you are using Steam player counts as the measure of a game. Returnal's numbers are abysmal, so are The Last Of Us, God Of War, and Horizon Zero Dawn.

So, by your logic, all PS games suck.

Nuff said. lol :P

Steam is not needed. What's the player count on the Xbox?🤣

Your previous comment: "I use Steam because it produces actual player counts. Xbox doesn't do that."

News flash - neither does Sony.

Sony games are one and done.

Literally every game released on the Xbox has been a one n done, and you're talking about one and dones?

What an unmitigated disaster.

I know we tend to loathe heavy oversight from new ownership, and MS tends to try to be somewhat hands-off with developer studios...but sometimes projects need heavy oversight and changes demanded. For their own good.

Clearly MS' leadership needed to have closer eyes on this project. They can't afford black eyes on their new IPs. They don't have a big enough stable of new IPs to afford this kind of PR. I know Xbox appeals to the audience that never tires of Gears/Halo/Forza but the brand has to find a way to more reliably build trust in their ability to release new IPs from scratch. It feels like their golden age was the OG Xbox (because everything had to be a new IP) and the 360. Not sure what happened, but I'm not sure they've had new IPs that really hit it out of the park outside of Killer Instinct on the XOne, Ori, and Sea of Thieves. None of which are system-seller level releases despite all being excellent.

They still don't have their own Final Fantasy (could have been Mistwalker games had they kept them around). They still don't have their own Zelda (could have been Kameo if they had kept growing and iterating on that franchise). They still don't have their own Mario/Ratchet & Clank.

For the sake of their brand, I hope they figure it out a bit better.