Agreed with this, God of War is an example of how a series can stay fresh of it reinvents itself. GOW 4 is to God of War what Resident Evil 4 was to RE.

Theory and rumors. Sea of Thieves and Crackdown (which sadly may flop but will see) were supposedly in development since 2014 before Phil took over. March 25th 2014 is when Gregg Mayles tweeted "Group Shared Narrative" where Phil didn't take over until March 31st. Crackdown and Sea of Thieves were both rolling out development by the time Phil took over. Same thing with ReCore, Quantum Break etc, started in early 2014.

State of Decay 2 will no doubt be a hit as it's building off of a previous entry that had sold over 4 million copies and adding the co-op that people wanted, I have no doubt that'll be the big exclusive MP hit this gen. Crackdown is up in the air since it's supposedly in development hell. After this I get the feeling Microsoft is going to lay off these multiplayer focused games. There's no way they're ignoring how well Horizon Zero Dawn did critically and commercially which is probably why they're having Playground develop Fable and are probably going to double down on single player games while leaving multiplayer to Gears/Halo/Forza. 343 is probably going to stick with Halo for the forseeable future. There's no telling if Coalition is working on a new IP or not but there was the idea that they might be working on the new Perfect Dark, we'll definitely be getting a new Perfect Dark game though but no clue who's making it.

Microsoft had stated they were going to invest 1 billion dollars into Xbox but that was before Satya took over and, being an advocate for cloud and not fond of consumer devices, wasn't 100% behind Xbox. Supposedly before his promotion, since Xbox was under the Windows and Devices division, Phil had to answer to his boss, Terry Myerson who was adamant on cutting budgets unless it directly benefited Windows. That explains why the Xbox has had an abysmal 2017, why Scalebound got the axe, Phil wasn't allowed to invest in new games since Terry wouldn't approve the budgets. Now that Xbox is it's own division, now that Phil directly answers to Satya and now that Satya is behind him, I get the feeling that they're going to be announcing a shit ton of exclusive games at E3 and not canceling them. The only caveat is that it's probably in preparation for next gen.

Supposedly Microsoft has an entire division, not just a division of Xbox, dedicated solely to games, developing them, publishing them, acquiring them etc. They're hiring a shit ton of people and investing a ton of money into game development now. If Gamepass is the future of Xbox, the only way it's going to work is if they keep adding content that people want to play, adding new content on a regular basis. It's why Netflix is so successful. Hopefully now that they're not directly tied to the Windows division, they can get rid of the awful Windows 10 UI from Xbox and give it something original.

You know when you think about, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have all suffered a painful generation with the One, The PS3 and the Wii U. Of course the Wii U was a cluster of epic proportions, and Sony did finish strong with the PS3. Both of them learned and now they're both killing it with the Switch and PS4 sales and games wise. Hopefully it'll be Microsofts turn next gen.

Source: Rand_al_Thor_19 is a very well respected Xbox gamer, he' was invited to E3 in 2016 where he broke over a million Gamerscore. He' knows Phil and Mike Ybarra and supposedly has contacts inside MIcrosoft. I recommend checking out his Youtube channel.

All I know is, if Microsoft doesn't kill it at E3 this year, no more damage controlling, I'm done, PC and Switch for me.

Didn't the Never Ending Story aka Last Guardian get delayed a bunch of times and ended up in development hell for 8 years? At least Crackdown 3 has a viable excuse for being delayed and tbh I'd rather it get delayed for 10 more years and eventually become good rather than come out and flop into oblivion.

@quadknight: Days Gone doesn't look bad, it just looks generic as hell. Probably will be a good game but doesn't look like a GOTY contender and doesn't look anywhere near as other Sony games like HZD/BB/GOW

Nah, but Sony will close Mediocre Molecule and Bendover Studios after Dreams and Days Gone tank

@quadknight: If you don't mind me asking, what did you game on last gen? PS3?

And they technically haven't been wrong. Last year they showed over 40 games....

They're massively investing in exclusives right now, first party and 3rd party, the only issue is you won't see them until 2019-2020 when the next gen starts. They're going to keep investing in new games because new content is the only way the Gamepass will be a success.

You'll also most likely be able to play those games on your Switch and pretty much every platform except for anything from Sony since they don't want anything, not even EA access, potentially eating into their customer base.

Pretty much destroys Sony's lineup since we know Detroit is going to be awful, that just leaves SpiderQTE and Downgrade of War. Forza Horizon will obliterate both of them. Sony developers simply lack talent, outside of ND and Guerrilla none of the studios have produced a major hit this generation.

It never will be for consoles because too many people care about graphics over performance and to get the most out of a console you have to cap it at 30 fps. 60 will never be the standard unless it's a competitive multiplayer game like Halo. I got a prebuilt gaming rig with a 1060 3gb and after playing the Witcher 3 at 60fps there is no way I can play it at 30fps 4k on my X.