11 Comments | Posted by Stephen Totilo on 5/13/08 at 1:36 pm.
Not that anyone should be surprised, but Shane Kim, head of Microsoft Game Studios, told me, Brian Crecente (Kotaku), Chris Grant (Joystiq) and N’Gai Croal (Newsweek) yesterday that “Gears of War 2” will be the biggest Xbox 360 game of the year, the flagship exclusive for the holiday season.
Not “Fable 2“? He said that game is coming along really well. But “Gears 2″ is the big one.
So no giant surprise game for Holiday 2008, 360 fans. You already know which title Microsoft is betting its chips on.
UPDATE: Just to be clear, he’s talking about titles coming from Microsoft Game Studios.
Filed Under: Gears of War, PreE3 May Gaming Tour
May 13th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
bigger than gta??!?!?
well, the PR work is to build hype anyway…
May 13th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
GTA wasn’t a first party game.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
My personal favorite (which I consider “Biggest First-Party Xbox 360 Game of 2008″) is Banjo-Kazooie 3, because it could be the first good platformer for Microsoft.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
So…
2005 - Perfect Dark
2006 - Gears of War
2007 - Halo 3
2008 - Gears of War 2
I’m really surprised that Microsoft isn’t trying to branch out a little on the type of game that they put their largest PR budget into. I would think Gears of War 2 will sell plenty well without the media blitz and maybe another game from a different genre could be highlighted. Surprised they aren’t using Banjo-Kazooie 3 or some other as of yet unannounced game to be their darling this year, I think it may be short-sited.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
“Un” seems to go well with MS and the 360..
“Unreliable”
“Unimpressive”
“Unsure”
Yes, Shane “I don’t know anything about games” Kim why have 2 big budget titles when you can just get by with 1.
MS first party games are important because they are budget intensive and are catered to the 360 hardware to push it and show what the hardware is capable of. I am anxious to see more of Gears 2 because right now it’s looking like the system is maxxed out and not getting incremently better(ie pushing the hardware more). If MS is leaving everything up to it’s third party multiplatform games then meh, I sure am glad I don’t only have a 360.
May 13th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
“UPDATE: Just to be clear, he’s talking about titles coming from Microsoft Game Studios.”
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard yet. He can’t even get the terminology from his own industry right. Unless he thinks MGS owns Epic, this is not a first party title.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
@deez
Microsoft doesn’t own MGS, but they do own the Gears of War franchise. Mark Rein said so himself at an E3 interview with Joystiq. The second that the game has a “Microsoft Game Studios” logo on it, it is a first party title. Epic may be developing it, but Microsoft is publishing it.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:15 am
That’s called a 2nd party title. If it’s a first party, it means you own the studio developing it. Hence first party.
How do you explain a game with different publishers across two regions or even across two platforms? A game that is a first party title to two different companies?
May 14th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Face it Metal Gear, and Grand Tourismo ain’t saving the ps3. The hardcore gaming base is buying the 360 for it’s superior online structure, and selection of games. The ps3 is nothing but a cheap blue ray player, and as soon as the sony fans stop eating the crap sony shovels them, they’ll move on to a better GAMING machine, NOT movie machine.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:25 am
I borrowed Gears of War when I first got my xbox 360 last September when Halo came out. I ended up playing that 10 times more than I ever played Halo 3. Gears is an amazing game. Me and my buddies took turn doing the co-op campaign and that was maybe the best gaming experience of my life(I’ve been playing for over 20 years btw).
Gear 2 will be on me and my friends’ #1 most wanted list for the year. For those who haven’t played Gears, go try it…it’s STILL one of the best games of this generation and I believe part 2 will be the most fun game of the year, at least for me and my buds.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
C’mon Stephen, stop spoon-feeding readers. We know what “First-Party” means. If anyone doesn’t get it, they need to read more news articles.
Anyways, this comes to me as a big, BIG disappointment. I was hoping to hear about any huge 360-exclusive title on the horizon that will compete with MGS4 or FF XIII.
…wait, he’s talking about ones that are coming out this year… Still, sounds like he’s trying to do some crowd control just in case this year passes by without any big announcement.
PS. And no, Gears 2 isn’t it. I’m expecting something that will grab even Japanese non-Xbox360 fans’ attention right away. As a new Xbox360 owner, I’m so threatened by MGS4 and FF XIII. They sure will move a massive–to say the least–number of PS3s, just like Crisis Core did with PSP.