Inside Dev Reveals 'Crazy' Discussion With Phil Spencer Over Xbox Deal

They spend money like drunken sailors. What a waste. Inside was fine. I wouldn't have paid them a cent for something like that. Just let it come out naturally. Or not.

Money that could have been spent paying people to develop some IP or another you had sitting in the vault. Like Mechwarrior for the love of Christ.

@Cashews great analogy! When you have that much money you feel you got to use it… plus Phil will get the next phone call…

@Kaloudz i think you guys call them tracksuit bottoms or something.

@Kaloudz joggers mate

Getting a call from mr moneybags himself must be pretty neat. But stil kinda weird for these deals to happen like this, I'm sure the fine print is all done in handwriting after but how do you know it's not just an impersonator on the other end to begin with lol?

@Kaloudz You need to work on your American, it’s the international language, it’s important.

Inside as a massively overrated game

Inside is awesome. Limbo was awesome. Great job, Phil.

@Nalverus here in the states tracksuits are usually different than sweats. Sweats are the thick, frumpy pants that match hoodies. Which old/correct people still call sweatshirts. If they cost more than $50 they are "yoga pants". That term was invented by ladies so they didn't have to tell their friends their new clothes were sweatpants. But they are certainly sweatpants.

@Kaloudz if pants means underwear what do you you call dress pants? slacks?

Cashews: building a cultural bridge over the Atlantic.

@Cashews And yet the practice of buying exclusivity has worked wonders for Sony.

@Kaloudz If pants means underwear, why isn't it called underwear? ;P

@GhanaViking I'm with you on that matter. Limbo and Inside are fantastic games and I'm happy Phil Spencer thinks so as well.

Planet of Lana, albeit from different developers, is another awesome gem that plays a lot like those Playdead classics, and it's one of the highlights of Xbox Game Pass this year.

@Cashews if pants means underwear what do you you call dress pants? slacks?
Trousers mate. I'm from the UK originally, but I've always called them pants as well, underwear was always just undies.
Maybe it's a northern thing.

Maybe it’s me, but this story doesn’t paint Phil Spencer/Xbox in the best light.

Ah, American/British language confusion. Fun subject.

One of the funniest experiences to be had as an American is the first time you mention "biscuits and gravy" to a limey new to the American experience and watch them internally try to figure out what the hell that could possibly mean.

On that note, as someone living in the American South, you're probably better off not calling people "yanks," since it means something different here.

And if people mention "football," we're watching stocky dudes in armor charge into each-other, not soccer.

@Kaloudz I'm from Manchester, so I'm afraid we can't officially get along😉.
For the last 18 years I've had to learn a completely new language here in Australia.
Now back on topic. I loved inside and still think about the weird ending.

@Ralizah when i was in America i was trying to ask in a shop if they sold sellotape. Took about 5 minutes to make him understand wat i was after!!

@Cashews Mate, they have cack-loads of cash, so why cant they spend it like "drunk sailors"

I'd wager the cash they paid for it wasnt to the detriment of any IP they have / had on their roadmap at the time!

I forgot about trousers!!! I haven't heard that term since I was a boy. Old ladies who used to pinch our cheeks too hard used to give us "trousers" for christmas instead of proper toys. Yeeeectchhh!

@Backagen That's basically Scotch Tape, right? Yeah, I imagine that would net you a lot of blank stares!

@Ralizah I had to google it.

@Ralizah haha, yeah. That’s wat he said in the end! I was like yeah, yeah!!! Scotch tape!!!

@Cashews "They spend money like drunken sailors." Again how much did Sony PAID square enix for exclusion deals?

@Cashews in fairness I am an old git

Haha. I love Phil.

@Kaloudz jogging bottoms mate.

Phil staying competitive through pure creativity in money offers he can make..
Seriously, Inside is a good game, but nothing to "make anything happen" for. Also, that sort of offer should never be on the table in game development. Teams will just exploit it and produce rubbish..

@Belkan I'm not talking about Sony here. But FF is one thing. This is Inside. It wasn't worth paying extra money for. shrug

@EvenStephen7 I can confirm, it's just you.

@Jenkinss Must be. I thought timed exclusives was a bad thing around here

@Kaloudz Always remember, English - it's our language, they're just borrowing. Any differences - they're wrong. 😉

@EvenStephen7 According to documents submitted to the US federal courts, Playstation had 500 (five hundred) percent the exclusives Xbox had in 2021. Context is everything.

@Jenkinss Ah, so timed exclusives and moneyhatting are okay as long as a competitor does it more. Thanks for the clarification; I’ll keep that in mind for the future!

@Cashews They have learned from the best! Sony!

@EvenStephen7 It's problematic when you have a 70% market share and abuse your monopolistic market share, yes you should keep that in mind in the future!

@Jenkinss Seeing as your profile says you love a millionaire corporate executive, I’m not entirely surprised by the snarky response but can see this conversation about goalpost moving isn't going anywhere. Best of luck with everything and I genuinely hope you have a good day.

@Jenkinss Sony doesn't have 70% market share.

@EvenStephen7 Good day and thanks for stopping by, I couldn't be bothered to read someone's profile (I'm an adult) but seeing as your name is Even Stephen, I can see how you might think "money hatting" is the same thing when an entrenched monopoly and a player with 30% market share do it, even steven and all. However, the situation is not that simple, and thankfully the underdog in this market has the resources to outspend to try to compete.

@Cashews That's cool, but they do.

@Ralizah "probably better off not calling people "yanks," since it means something different here."

........it always had the same meaning....that's why the Brits called the colonists "yankees" and the "yankee doodle dandy" song came about....it was not intended as flattery...

Of course we Americans managed to take a mocking British song designed to call us a bunch of ***kers in Ye Olde English as a patriotic pride song 'cause 'Murica.

@NEStalgia Well, reclaiming insults has always been an effective strategy when it comes to robbing them of their bite.

Just saying that if you're in a state where the civil war is taught as "the war of northern aggression," calling someone a northerner isn't always gonna turn out well, depending on the area.

@Ralizah Yeah, but we didn't reclaim the insult, we celebrated the song without understanding the meaning which basically reinforces the insult successfully but with sufficient ignorance to not know and thus not care.

But yea, going with the southern motif, "yank/yankee" was also copied...it was a revolutionary war slur against Americans by Brits, which was then blithely ignored by meaning, and then the south re-purposed it as an insult against the north with neither of them having a clue what it meant.

Really, not much has changed, has it?

@Kaloudz Nah, there's no "banned" songs unless it's something super explicit, and even then it's just banned from radio, not from sale Gangsta' rap exists......it's pretty impossible to get something banned

This game is firmly still in my backlog, I really must get round to playing it.

So, wait...what DID the developer ultimately want? That's what I want to know. Phil Spencer asked "What do you want?".