Rare Boss To Become New Head Of Xbox Game Studios

I don't know much about this guy. Except that Rare's output has been very rare indeed.
Surely we need someone who knows how to get quality content out the door on a regular basis?
I wish him all the luck, but I'm not convinced this will give the brand a new momentum. Hopefully I'm wrong and he will shake what needs to be shaken....

I think this is a mistake Rare is a nightmare and hasn't developed a game in years.

I didn’t even know there was a head of Xbox Game Studios aside from Matt Booty, and I don’t really know how to feel about this move since Xbox Game Studios’ output has been very lackluster only delivering Hellblade 2 this year and Forza last year, but Rare’s has been even worse with them only having Sea of Thieves back in 2018 and Everwild in development hell for half a decade…

@Titntin

Its a big unfair to state that Rare's output has been Rare.

They continue to support their highly successful live service game Sea of Thieves. There has been plentiful content releases for this. I assume SOT keeps them very busy with not much time to spend elsewhere.

So is Spencer still head honcho or is Duncan?? - I think we can all agree Phil's decisions as of late haven't exactly been for the players....I know that's Playstations slogan, but even so 😕

@richyroo 280 staff and a 60 acre site and they develop a few DLC's?
I was a dev for two decades - there is no way you can say 'it's all on Sea of Thieves'... It's absolutely fair to say they have produced very little and I'm well aware of what they do on SoT.

Xbox's team titles are so confusing I needed this article to understand who he was replacing.

He presents well and Rare certainly has become a very good studio overall. But, him being the studio head and then having Everwild in dev hell under his watch and now having him being head of Xbox game studios worries me a litttle pit. Would have much rather seen Obsidian or Playground leadership become the head of Xbox game studios.

@Medic_alert zing!

@Medic_alert haha. I almost edited a bit like this in.

Glad Microsoft snagged a rare boss. Legendary would have been preferred, but much better than an uncommon.

@Mrzoomer Absolutely well played😆🫡

@Fishmasterflex96 “ Would have much rather seen Obsidian or Playground leadership become the head of Xbox game studios.”

Most of the senior leadership that would have good for the role has left Playground Games… and while Obsidian is good at pumping out content. Most of it isn’t worth talking about… This guy was in charge of the team that has delivered Xbox most successful title in years. Management unfortunately isnt look at how many games you pumped out. They only care if it brings in the big bucks, and Sea of Thieves has done that.

@IOI this is how out of touch I am too. Last I knew, Phil Spencer was head of Microsoft Gaming, Sarah Bond was head of Xbox and Matt Bootylicious (to use his actual name) was head of Xbox Game Studios.

I like this. He was not a fan of Rare's games, so better to have somebody else directing Rare. Gregg Mayles is a good candidate for boss of Rare, although I love his creative side -he's the creator of Banjo-Kazooie-. I hope that Craig Duncan is better at managing more general things as a middleman between Spencer and Booty.

Most of the negative comments I read about Sea of Thieves seem to come from people that haven't played it. It's a very polished game, it has been successful since it was released six years ago, the audio is incredible and, in my opinion, is the most beautiful game of the last generation.

@AverageGamer very fair point about Playground. Would say you are very much under selling Obsidian. While Rare has gotten into an awesome cycle with content, under his watch Rare also has had Everwild which has been in development hell. Just saying I would rather see a leader from a team like Obsidian which clearly knows how to run their teams efficiently and effectively and release games consistently vs a team like Rare which took a while to figure out what to do with Sea of thieves and also has everwild on their track record.

That's good news. Some people said Rare hasn't done any games in years, of course they did, it is called Sea of Thieves and is one of the best multiplayer games available in terms of support.

Always getting updates and expansions and with a lots of players, an example of successful game.

Having someone who knows how to do this leading Xbox Game Studios sounds great.

The fact that there's two heads of xbox studios, with one reporting to the other, aside from the head of xbox, and all report to the head of gaming is everything that's wrong with Microsoft.

@richyroo yes sea of thieves is one Xbox’s biggest W’s. But you also have to consider Rare’s mismanagement of the everwild team…

Maybe bring in a Japanese talent or someone who thinks outside the box … staying within Xbox hasn’t been helping lately

@NEStalgia Kind of the same as SIE having 2 CEO's

@TheSimulator They have done this recently Mena Sato Kato

@Darylb88 Lol yeah. Though this is worse. Sie has one competent CEO of platforms and one incompetent CEO of software. Microsoft has a 2 tier incompetent CEO of software, an impotent CEO of platforms and a competent but impotent CEO over those ceos

So the guy who oversaw the terrible release of Forza Motorsport was promoted to this position...and retired within a year. Rare hasn't been a great example of releasing polished, on-time games either. Sea of Thieves had a poor launch, and Everwild has been in development forever.
I expect we continue to see Xbox games get delays and still release unfinished.

@Fishmasterflex96 It not about underselling them. Obsidian is good at pumping out content… But the sales numbers for those games aren’t exactly that great especially compared to Sea of Thieves… and that most likely what Xbox management is probably looking at that more so how much content they helped release. The current person in charge Alan Hartman was studio head of Turn 10, and that was a studio that was also very good at pumping out content, and that did very little to help Xbox.

@CenturianShark Agreed.

Craig Duncan's Rare has developed 2 games in 6 years (0 since 2020).

Mark Gordon's Treyarch has released 4 games in that same timeframe (6 if you count the zombies mode they wholly developed for other CoDs).

But sure–Hire Craig. Great decision. He's exactly what XGS needs.

I mean, it can’t get any worse at this point, right?
Right?

@InvaderFromSpace “ So the guy who oversaw the terrible release of Forza Motorsport was promoted to this position...”

Yes. Let’s focus on the one bad spot out of the 19 years of being studio head.

Don't know enough about, whatever he has been doing in Rare then.

If the leadership is better sure but I don't have hope at all. Modern gaming feels empty or I get more inspired by old games for mechanics, movesets, modes and more. The content handling is eh and other priorities are still in place for modern games so to me I'm just not satisfied with 1st or 3rd party from ANY of them besides what puzzle games or tactics games in a way. Hack n slashes maybe. Most other genres whether shooter, platformer, racing and action adventure/RPG haven't really appealed to me these days Indies

(some have good ideas, others are nostalgically inspired or just still getting their of talent but just not doing it for me their proritiies are still graphics, or following other games then prototyping longer on original ideas or I don't know too much their dialogue/artstyle/cultures and while it's fine to do so the gameplay makes it fun not the world/themes.

I don't really care about what characters say, look like or what the world looks like [unless the level design but colour palette or where it's set or whatever it's supposed to represent and yes I don't like holiday destination cough real world locations unless it's playground gameplay like fun] if to play in your world I want to do that first before i see the world. It's like the instruments if the sound/structure isn't exciting I don't think your lyrics which I don't usually care for unless a spin on things I don't need that singing human element in there, I'll just ignore your song and your instrumentation/electronic sampling)

or AA/AAA they just haven't had the sort of angle to things I'm really looking for or find have enough depth or 'yeah I'm into this' they feel a tad uncooked in their execution.

Forza Motorsport 5 to 7 sucked but are better then 8 being so 'racing' and devoid. 5 to 7 I have issues with but the remixing of content and the variety they offer (the little things) are still good about them for sure that I was still willing to buy and play them enough. Not as much as 1-4 (seeking 1 to finish the series even though played it before) but yeah the direction of some games are a bit eh.

DIrt 3 vs Dirt 5 to me 5 has more racing and less do tricks around a outside curated area or the obstacle courses to drift, spin around on, hit posts and more. Dirt 3 had variety, 5 feels like 1% that and 99% racing and I just find it boring. That's how I feel about Forza Motorsport 8 is it's got none of what made even 7 good enough to me of content variety and pacing to be fun. Just racing and a level up/collecting or more cars to drip feed, crashes and more. Nah pass. I won't even buy or try it. GT7 I've tried and gone well it has still the GT5 leveling strictness and FM6 roulettes but worse for both but besides how eh I don't like the format of GT7's career mode while 1-6 I think did a fair job trying to mix things up or PSP being a collecting game on the go. I think GT7 still has it's what fuel challenges from 6 or other stuff that makes it still better than other games without the variety of modes.

I can play Juiced 2 and find 3+ different drift modes among the race modes. Not just standard drifting and that's it in a Grid Legends or Autosport. What happened to touge in TXR or Grid 2008/Race Driver.

Part 2:
Obsidian have a great way to balance projects but yes they don't have the name or the presentation people look at which is sad as their games are excellent even if they aren't my kind of games I respect them for sure. It's more on customers and their tastes, timing of release and more so it's unfortunate for them.

Forza Motorsport/Horizon balanced things between them but yeah I found Motorsport got worse and worse. Different is fine but the ways they did it were so bad. 5 felt like 2 did but worse, a new gen game but the content is light and not that great, at least 2 had the region system of 1 and even if the 1 tracks I actually liked didn't make it over they still had the original tutorial layout tracks then only the real tracks as those appeal a lot in the late game and I hate them so much. Nowadays Ride 4 has put a spin on the region system to be more restrictive and while I don't mind it the game itself had harder AI which is why I hated it not the region system Forza Motorsport used to have and has ditched so at least Milestone has that experimental side to them even if not the same as Apex or Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano (what Grid 2008/Forza Motorsport 3 dumbed down of rewind system and no RPG elements that licensed 1 make title had)

6 was just so much we remixed it and ok mods but not that necessary, cars as rewards like 5 that were too much candy car giving but unless a class to use in career were arcade usable so was pointless, but yet the remixing made the pacing of it so boring I wanted to only do the side content, 7 rebalanced it to be like 5 with races and side content again so that was good but more selection then in order like 5 and I mean I can compare 7 to PGR2 and go huh they have that restrictive classes or track/event variety but it's just not the same as PGR 2 with it's car dealership to walk around, Geometry Wars or even the city layouts just being more exciting then the real world circuits to me to drive on.

Rare, hasn't been the same, since Microsoft bought them. So I wouldn't get any hopes up...

"In his new role, Craig will continue to focus on helping our studios deliver high-quality, differentiated game experiences that can grow into successful franchises and reach more players by investing in new IP."

Here is a big problem with the industry today. That every damn game, has to become a franchise, that they can milk forever...

Give us a new, true, non "woke" sequel to conker. No idea how perfect dark is panning out, how far along in development it is, or if its too late to make any possible needed changes, but at least give us back conker.

@Steel76 POSSIBLY, with him in charge, he may have the power and authority to bring rare back to its roots. I know all the "original" people are long gone, but maybe he sees what we all want and is able to bring that spark back.