158 million is one of the highest development budgets of any game ever. Star Citizen, better not disappoint backers. Several kickstarter (crowdfunded) games have turned out lackluster, hopefully this one delivers.
A whole bunch of those games, you listed aren't MS IPs, the company has no control over them.
Battlefield 1, had some of the worst enemy AI I have ever seen.
I think MS, should focus on building new studios in US, Canada and Europe. And focus on the numerous IPs fans have been asking for year-after-year. Fans want Banjo, Conker, Perfect Dark, Battletech, Crimson Skies, Project Gotham racing, etc. The Xbox division, is lead by a guy that likes to tease, but never show, while Aaron Greenberg gets paid big bucks to say silly things.
I noticed the game largely lacked echoes and directional audio in multiplayer. In the campaign, o sound effects were occasionally barely audible. For example I could barely hear the Cyberdemon and its weapons, during its boss fight. I have no clue how the Game Awards gave Doom best music/sound design over Battelfield 1 (and even Gears of War 4 & Uncharted 4). Sure Doom had great music, but I don't think the audio was particularly great or well mixed.
With games taking 2-5 years to create, I think most projects should be announced at most 1 year from their projected release date. As for the quality of Crackdown, sometimes the game looks bombastic and awesome, other times it looks pretty bad. Microsoft has not presented the game well. Microsoft E3 and Gamescom conferences were embarrassing.
Great review, however, I personally wouldn't rate the Doom's audio so high. The directional audio, and some of the sound effects are weak (notably the multiplayer only weapons and plasma rifle). During my play-through, I noticed several sound mixing issues on PS4. Doom would of likely been, my 'Game of the Year" for 2016, if I thought the MP was any good. The MP simply wasn't well designed, nor did it live up to it's potential, due to it distancing itself form the cam...
Multiplayer games have plenty of demos called "betas".
No licensing on MK characters, since Warner Bros owns DC comics and Mortal Kombat.
The game's PvP is only 4v4,and runs at 30 FPS on consoles. Maybe, Bungie can legitimately blame hardware for 30 FPS in PvE. The 30 FPS in PvP is likely due to Bungie not optimizing their game.
I think Dark Souls is an Action-RPG, but it isn't as quest heavy as games like the Witcher, Fallout and Mass Effect. I personally, thought the genre of Action-RPG was pretty well defined. Unlike Action-Adventure, which seems to a be a catch all genre.
I wouldn't be shocked by a buyout, MS needs more teams and IPs.
Bethesda stated a that the PC is the primary focus for Quake Champions. However, a console release was not ruled out. https://gamerant.com/quake-...
Lame
Phil Spencer did an admiral job from 2014 to 2016. However, he over invested into hardware. And his incentive for studios to develop on both XB1 and PC, likely contributed to delays and cancellations.
Already quite a few multiplayer have good to exceptionally large player-base. Lawbreakers, was unfortunately sometimes treated as an "Overwatch-clone", an arena shooter (which it isn't), and it launched when PUBG was dominating PC.
Hopefully, Quake Champions does well, so we can get a resurgence of arena shooters. Also I hope this comes to consoles, as my laptop certainly can't run this game.
New games won't be pushing sales of the Xbox One this year. The Xbox One X has very niche target audience. MS can only have a strong holiday, by relying on strong bundles.
2017 is the worst year for Xbox ever. Step your game up Phil.
Star Citizen's development budget is likely comparable to GTA V's. GTA V took about 5 years to develop.