Matt Booty, who was announced as the Microsoft Studios boss by the company back in January recently had an interview about the company. Matt Booty did not hold back discussing his and company’s vision for the future as we get closer to the biggest E3 conference ever by Mircosoft.
One of the biggest complaints about Microsoft is lack of exclusives and story-driven games. According to Matt, The company is finding ways to branch out in new directions.
We’re very lucky to have a number of established franchises. 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.
This seems good to hear but that doesn’t mean Microsoft will try new genres like Battle Royale with all their games and in fact, Booty said that they will not change their strategy to follow new trends.
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.
In the end, Matt Booty talked about his new role at Microsoft where he intends to provide value, coordination, and integration across the studios.
I look at my role as providing some overarching direction, making sure the studios get clear direction about where we’re going. I have the opportunity to provide value, coordination and integration across our studios. We’ve got great studio leaders, but when you’re head down working on your own game, it’s not that easy to pop up and see what your peers are doing. So hopefully we can add some more formal connections across the studios. I think it’s a big opportunity to have the studios work together and share some of the things that they’ve learned.
E3 is around the corner and we are expecting some new titles as Phil Spencer has also reached out to gamers to have faith in Xbox One exclusives.
Source: MCVUK’s latest magazine issue
