Phil Spencer comments on bringing 'high-quality' first-party games to Xbox

Quality and being exclusive has no correlation.
Some exclusives has broader audience / catch more eyes, some don't.
Some multiplats has broader audience / catch more eyes, some don't. Persona5, 2.7m WW... then we have Last Guardian, 10 years in the making... now look at Uncharted and Spider-Man? Okami was on ps2/3... niche, but fans and critics love it.
Yakuza, another niche.
Ninokuni?
Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey are both badly designed, and niche.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. You're talking about games being niche, talk about the number of years development and number of copies sold. You tried to mix these and come up with reply me that makes little sense. Why does "niche games" come in this discussion?
I was clearly talking of priority when it comes to making games. First party studios are more likely to have creative freedom and not be "encouraged" to include ways of making more money out of customers after initial game was sold. That's the point I made. Persona 5 was a very highly rated game and The Last Guardian got a good score despite having some design flaws. But the point is that the devs of TLG didn't need to put microtransactions and lootbox in the game because there was no publisher pushing them to do it. That's why often we see 1st party games from Nintendo and Sony not having them... MS also but to a much lesser extent. But again, if you bother watching Spencer's interview you could see that now Spencer is thinking of giving more creative freedom to his 1st party studios.

Exclusive and quality are not correlated. In terms of techs.
https://youtu.be/5Hv6IRac_CE
2:26~2:28, what's your take on this one? https://youtu.be/VL_LgL-tL68
0:51~0:52, what's your take on this one? In terms of non-techs.
Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey == quality work?
Red Dead 2 != quality work?
If Knack, The Order, Until Dawn, Last Guardian and other exclusives == quality / a must play, why won't people buy it?

Your posts are more and more weird and unrelated to the point I'm making.
You're bringing individual examples to prove some kind of point. I'm talking of priority of dev teams and potential pressure from publishers. Once again you're trying to say sales = quality. From your logic XB1 is a low quality console because less people are buying it compared to PS4/Switch.
Same thing with XB on Win10... Read my previous post again and try to understand the point that I'm making before replying to me.

Cause it's not related.
Exclusive or not, can be bad, can be good. They are all just games. Oh, I made a game and people rate it X points. What if I made it exclusive? People would rate it X + BONUS points? Many reasons can sell a game but if a game is niche, it's prob boring / not as good as you think. FAN == illogical. https://youtu.be/5Hv6IRac_CE
2:26~2:28, this quality work to you?
The story, acting, battle system, all the mini games, quality work to you? Why majority ignored it?

Imagine a world without exclusives. A world where MS, Sony and Nintendo hardly ever invest in making games.
A world where there is no competition, where companies won't invest massively in making games where quality is a priority.
Where with the lack of competition a company could just sit back and make third party do all the work as they collect money.
Well, you don't have to imagine too much because Steam is an example of that. First party games and exclusives are very positive for consumers. I'd rather they continue doing this and than end up like a steam who hardly invested anything on new games once they got the monopoly. Why would they invest? Why would they take the risk? Here you got to look at the bigger picture to understand the importance of exclusives.
I think games is the priority for a big percentage of gamers.
When we have a few console makers competing with each other one of the few ways to stand out from the others is to make their own games. The reward of investing in making games is more than just getting the profit from games, it's about attracting a whole lot of players so they can keep playing in their ecosystem. When you think of exclusives you should think of the amount of money that is invested by these company into gaming. Sony puts a lot of cash into making games. And the priority is more about quality games rather than just make a game that makes huge profits.
They can afford to make games like Horizon ZD, GoW or spider-man which are games that don't depend on microtransactions and loot box, they don't need to make huge profits that way but are just there to make the console popular.
Same thing with Nintendo and their first party games. Do you think these companies would invest so much if they were 3rd party games?
I would rather see them invest money into making games exclusives for their platform than they not investing at all.
Exclusives are actually a VERY positive thing. Not timed exclusives though, they are very negative thing. And to the question why make billions when they can make millions?
Simple because they invested billions. I'd rather see a company getting rewarded for investing in making games than one that sits back and depend on 3rd party and PR/marketing bs...

Buy out the distribution rights of any pending game from the studios they bought so that nothing is released on PS4 from the studios Microsoft now owns. For example, Outer Worlds should be an Xbox exclusive.

Games that were created before Microsoft acquiring them, is all the developers decision to still release them on PlayStation or wherever. U simply cannot dissapoint the players that were all waiting on those games and have it affected by the studio buy-ups. Only creates negativity. Just look at the Epic store and steam nonsense lately, so MS did good with backing those decisions.

@bobsentell
What a ridiculous statement!!
And what will that bring you as a XB gamer? Bragging rights?
Watch the entire interview by Spencer. He talks about people like you...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7O_mVgzlmw&feature=youtu.be&t=991

Consoles need Exclusives, no matter how it may s*ck for those that think Exclusives are bad. It's a selling point that is required for people to buy consoles. I think Phil and team are doing a great job acquiring studios that fit with Xbox and not random wild buying up stuff, really looking at studios that potentially can build games people will like and play. 2020 is a nice fresh start, and Phil finally has his own Xbox with Scarlett. Can't wait to see it all happening.

Agreed although I think the longer term play and the why of beefing MS studios ips is their Gamepass service and soon xCloud. Exclusives are great for the platform even if I'm stewing it on my phone

Exclusives are fine, if every console had the same games, there is literally no point in having different companies making consoles.

3DO learned that years ago.

Not really. Price, features, design, performance, brand loyalty, reliability. All are reasons to pick one over another, regardless of if any of the information is true or not. There are tons of products without exclusive anything, and those same reasons are why people buy them over others.

Of those reasons only price is relevant, power is and always was irrelevant unless the difference is huge (Wii U to Xbox One/PS4). No one chose one console over the others because of features, and the same happens with services (in the future this could Change though). Then what would happen if exclusives didn't exist is that the company that has more money to subsidize the console more would end up winning and possibly end up having a monopoly.

Service creates the differences. 1 maker has crazy network infra, middleware, IDE, dev tools, has tech leading role, synergy between other products and services, and goodies for consumer e.g. purchase once and you can run the same copy on different devices simultaneously, or, your game lib and saves support cross-gen/device/OS/platform-play and save. 1 cannot do any of those but to rely on its brand, stick with traditional business models.

" e.g. purchase once and you can run the same copy on different devices simultaneously,"
You mean like cross-save, cross-buy and cross-play? Or are talking about remote play?

XPA (and possible xvc support) + xCloud on WinClassic, WCOS, phones or Xboxes with different accounts. I game mainly on my xb1x in the living room.
I bought a spare xb1s for my GF, I share my game lib with her.
I created a family account, sharing GamePass with my 2 brothers.
1 moved my old xb1 to the office after I bought the xb1x.
I have Alienwares and Surfaces for XPA / Ultimate.
I recently bought a m3-8100Y 7" win10 tablet (2in1 actually) as my temporary Xbox portable solution, for Ultimate of course.
This year, I might be able to run my games on my phone through xCloud (I have Ultimate, so I'll be using Azure. Why would you want to go with remote play anyway? home ↔ public internet ↔ server ↔ phone?)
And I'll be getting some form of WCOS with a 8cx in it next year then give my 7" handheld away. I'll replace my xb1x with a Scarlet next year, then I'll replace my spare 1s with my old 1x, move old 1s to the office and I'll give away the xb1.

Cool story. I mean I would also write a whole lot of PS4 features that you're ignoring that other people use. But I won't it's pointless. XB/MS "fans" will always buy and support MS products whenever they can. "Fans" who were mostly playing the original weaker XB1 for years suddenly decided that power and resolution became a priority when XB1x came along... But I'm guessing that the original point didn't consider company fans...
Or at least I would guess that they are far from being a majority.

So, you spent $60 on PsStore to obtain a copy.
On a fast moving train, on a plane, in a basement of some coffee shop, behind some thicker walls, on a tube / subway, any chance of running your $60 copy natively on a Win10Classic or WCOS?
Q: 100% chance? 0% chance? So, you spent $60 on PsStore to obtain a copy.
Any chance to continue your progress on the go if you don't have a stable network and unlimited 4G/5G quota?
Q: 100% chance? 0% chance? * RemotePlay let you run everything you already own / uses your own game lib, BUT, home ↔ public internet ↔ server ↔ public internet ↔ phone.
* PSNow is server ↔ public internet ↔ phone, BUT, won't let you run everything you owned. So, you spend $60 per game on PsStore.
Streaming or not streaming, can your girlfriend share your game lib, run-your-copy-and-join-your-game using her phone, whichever device or whichever-gen-console?
Q: Can? Cannot? So, which is more logical?
A) PS family offers more, and I choose to buy games from MsStore.
B) PS family offers more, and I choose to buy games from PsStore.
Q: A/B?

I would like to see more single player games like Uncharted or The Last of Us

Yes, that's been a weak spot on the Xbox side, though I played Quantum Break through and really liked that. Gameplay could have been better -- I found the control for combat overly complicated, and I'd always prefer a first person option when fighting -- but it was worth it for the story and I've not heard others complain about the control, so probably just me.

I thought QB was good. Nowhere near Naughty Dog games for me, but still good. I didn't find the controls or combat too complex. The only thing missing for me, is QB 2.

I agree, and I didn't play the game until later when the 4K patch came out. I thought it was quite fun and almost simple. To me the game play was a bit smoother than Alan Wake, which I also liked.

Agreed on Quantum Break, I really enjoyed it as well, I found the game to be less manageable if you treated it like a third person shooter, you really had to encompass all of the different abilities in order to survive, which is what I enjoyed about it. And even though I was one of those people that hit a brick wall for a really long time on the final boss until I finally beat it (even had troubles on Normal, my hard playthrough was easier because I had a better understanding of what to expect), I still love the game. I just wish there was more of it, so I'm really looking forward to Control.

I'm glad to see that Phil Spencer and the xbox division have been given autonomy as you cannot limit creativity. Plus you need fresh content to keep growing and maintaining subscriber numbers. Can't wait to see what the master minds dream up and create.

I would like to see some high quality adventure games. There are many of us that don't for such intense violence, language, and shooting everything in sight.

A typical Microsoft!
Spencer is all talk, with no serious evidence backing up his all too boastful account.
This way, „overpromise, underdeliver“, they already ruined Windows Phone. And they will continue their strategy and fulfill the Xbox‘ spot as a distant third in videogame marketshare...

In a sense I do agree. He did this for years now.
The only reason I have a bit of hope here is that they have invested in studios and it looks to me like this could be true this time. ofc what I'm afraid of is the long term vision.
He is saying: Stadia is a restriction it tells you "not to play on console" whereas we tell people play on all devices and consoles if they want. It's all customer's choice...
Maybe he is saying this just to kill Stadia off and in time the goal is just to kill physical game and maybe even console as they exist now and push for the more restrictive service only world like what MS is doing at the moment with many of it's products...
Time will tell.

@Guest_aotf. You're burying the lead here Phil Spencer only got promoted to the senior leadership team in 2017. Prior to that any fiscal decisions would have been made for the Xbox Division and they would have to comply whereas now they have autonomy thus allowing Xbox to grow. Credit where credit is due, Phil Spencer would have to have been given the breathing space by Satya Nadella in order to turn the Xbox division around. Which Phil totally accomplished as hardly anyone talks about the initial diabolical Xbox One launch under Don Mattrick - which really tarred his xbox legacy imo.

@TechFreak
Oh no not the Don Mattrick scapegoat argument.
What's funny is that when Mattrick was in charge I could hardly see MS fans criticising him. I only see them criticising after he left the company. Mattrick left the company more than 4 and half months before the launch of the console and he is still getting trashed for the poor state of the entire generation. The initial vision was actually getting a lot of praise and damage control by the XB fans then. Almost all the policies were removed less than one month after the initial release and people still blame Mattrick about this. The weird thing is that Spencer has attain cult-like status but he was very much part of that initial vision. He was there with his marketing and damage control with stuff like power is subjective... People trash Mattrick and praise Spencer but Mattrick provided a lot more console exclusives in equivalent time. Games like Ryse, DR3, SO, KSR, Halo 5, Crackdown 3, QB, KI...
Potentially even Gears 4. ofc excluding the yearly forza game. Look at what Spencer did since taking over in 2014. He ended a few projects and close some studios. He was in charge when it came to the ****ing timed deals for ROTR or deadrising 4.
He was head of Xbox in 2014 the "Spencer games" should have been released from 2017-2018 but the drought is real. And even the few games here and there (Sea of thieves, SOD2 or Recore... weren't the best rated games around) The handling of kinect under Spencer was really poor. He kept hyping it up even though he knew he wasn't investing much in making new games for it. It's really amazing how in the same post you give huge importance to Mattrick blaming so much on him this generation even though he left the company 4.5 months before the start of the generation. While you say Spencer who was at the same position as Mattrick (head of XB) for most of the generation had his hands tied because of his position.

I didn’t actually think about it that way. But considering your point, this isn’t a question of physical console versus game streaming. If you eradicate the physical console from the equation, current differentiators like the computing power or the exterior aesthetics of the console are lost for the buyers as factors to consider. If anything in a game streaming only world you would need exclusive game exclusives even more, because how else would you differentiate from competitors.
And regarding their promises to invest in first party games: They have been making faux promises to deliver quality first party games for years now. But with the two exceptions of Halo (which takes way too much time between the individual games to keep non-fanboys around) and Forza they have hardly delivered anything that could compete with Sony‘s roster of exquisite games.
And they had all the Triumphs in their hands. But with the decision to relegate gaming to be a just a feature among others on the Xbox One and the accompanying closure of several of Microsoft’s own game studios they handed the gaming crown to Sony.

The way he talks about the importance of first party games and content is great.
And it's also a nice slap on the face of all those clowns who say it's not important.
These fanboys talked bs just because MS happened to release less exclusives.
Their opinion will probably change if MS suddenly have few more exclusives or first party games.
That's what these idiots do. Also when Spencer said when talking about quality games: "We've work to do there. We haven't done our best work over the last few years with our first party output."
I'm sure this is another slap on the face of those who were trashing people and critics who criticised recent games like Sot, SoD 2 or Crackdown 3. Some calling them "best online game of all time" or "game of the year 2017 and 2018". And that these games are flawless.
ofc people can love them, but to come out attack and trash people who don't is laughable. Anyway, interesting interview. Once again he talks about the business model for XCloud and how for him, XCloud is more different way of accessing content.
He will just talk about 3 different type of distribution.
1) Renting services (like game pass)
2) Buy content (something like Stadia)
3) Free2play What I get from that (and maybe what I'm hoping) is that XCloud might be free feature. No extra cost if you're on gamepass. Buying a Xcloud (xbox) game means you'll be able to play it using MS's servers for free whenever you want and for an unlimited period (like stadia). And Free2play games will just be free. No need of gold subscription. He was very weird, evasive and vague when it comes to how profitable. I don't believe someone who is in his position for so many years doesn't know when and for how many years it's been making money. When the guy pressed a bit more it looks like he shifts positions talking about how much they invested in buying companies.
Honestly, I just don't see how they are currently profitable with all the investment on studios and their new console.
It is very easy to make PR or marketing sentences by taking certain conditions into account and excluding some others. The best way to see it is by publishing how profitable they are every quarter or year. And the fact, that they don't want to show these numbers. They'll talk about XB MAU which are a lot less meaningful. It's nice that he takes a shot at all those silly fanboys who wants the death of competition and who celebrate the failure of a company. About autonomy, I'm still sceptical about this. I mean Gears 5 has microtransactions. Forza still has these boosts locked behind VIP pass or expensive versions. I really don't think devs WANTS to include microtransactions in games. I think they'd rather make a good game that gamer like. I'll be waiting to see how much autonomy all studio will truly have at the end. For me, Spencer does sound sincere about this. We'll see... There are so many things that can be said about the interview. The vision is interesting. On paper, it does sound good. My problem is when people starts talking about steaming and services being the norm in years to come. For me this looks like they have a vision and they are slowly trying to move there. Unlike in 2013 they are doing it in stealth mode. Releasing something like a digital-only console...
They are already pushing streaming even though it'll probably take them a long time before this gets anywhere near mainstream.
It's actually crazy how much they are pushing for services.
The ads about Office 365 vs Office 2019, where they are trashing their only product shows what they are all about. We can clearly see features that "could" be on Office 2019 but are just absent to make the service version more attractive. Just today we were talking at work about how much MS is pushing Visual Studio Subscriptions. It's becoming incredibly frustrating to use unless you keep paying MS. For me it almost look like the microtransactions business model, frustrate consumer until he gives up and subscribe making consumer think that's the best/only option.
For me it looks like MS just can't wait to get rid of physical game and maybe even console as they exist now. I think they are trying to slowly implement that 2013 vision but in worse. And that's what I'm afraid of at this time. Right now, I'll say great, but I'll be cautious...

I like how the discussion in the interview is about first-party games, not "exclusive" games. There is an important difference, of course. Minecraft is a first-party game, but definitely not exclusive, which is incredibly wise. Of course, the game was an acquired third-party title, which likely lent to keeping it multiplatform, but that has turned out to be a very good thing. Minecraft alone has outsold the bulk of Playstation's biggest exclusive titles, combined. Spencer here is talking about the public perception of game quality coming from Xbox. This is not to say that Xbox hasn't had quality first party games, because they've had truly great ones. Unfortunately, Xbox has had to battle a politically biased media when it comes to critics, as well as a broken appraisal system. Ryse was grossly underrated due to bias, as was Quantum Break and others. Still, I like Spencer's determination to output a greater quantity of high quality first-party titles, and I absolutely love the push to do so without them being "exclusive." The reality is that popular games sell. One would like to think that the highest quality games become the most popular, but it doesn't always work that way, especially with a media system that does more to interfere with that process than to help it, but popular games sell. And the vast majority of those games are not exclusive.

"Xbox has had to battle a politically biased media when it comes to critics, as well as a broken appraisal system. Ryse was grossly underrated due to bias, as was Quantum Break"
Oh no, the victim "media hates MS" card.
I like QB and it good a good score. But neither of these are flawless games. I wouldn't put it anywhere near Uncharted 4, or Witcher 3 quality. We've seen FH getting great scores so I don't think you can talk about reviewers bias against MS. If anything I've seen some pro-MS media like WindowsCentral, MondoXbox, ICXM... who are openly bias towards MS.

"I like QB and it good a good score. But neither of these are flawless games." Interesting that you are defending these scores. Ryse definitely got more of the bias treatment than did Quantum Break, as it came out with the 2013 Xbox One launch. But Quantum Break should definitely have better than a 77. And Ryse has a 60? Yeah, it's a problem. Especially since websites will commonly have a cutoff of, say, 80 or more to acknowledge good games on a system. It's arbitrary and convenient. By the way, Puyo Puyo Tetris has an 83 on PS4. So I guess Puyo Puyo Tetris is a better game than Quantum Break, and WAY better than Ryse? On PS4, though, mind you, because on Switch it's 81 and PC it's 78. The rating system is a joke. It has no validity in terms of objectivity. It serves a function to politically hinder games that otherwise might have more success, or to favor others that otherwise wouldn't. "We've seen FH getting great scores so I don't think you can talk about reviewers bias against MS. If anything I've seen some pro-MS media... who are openly bias towards MS." So you're more than willing to acknowledge bias for Microsoft, but won't acknowledge any against it? Well, you've just clearly shown your bias.

The thing is that you are trying to say that your opinion is more worthy than a collection of gaming journalist.
In the case of QB, there were 105 different reviewers. And each of them write reviews and reasons for the eventual score. I think 77 is actually a good score.
I think this system of average a collection of gaming professionals is the most fair system. Even if there are some few bias (e.g. XCIM) at the end their score averages it up against all the different scores. If you take any of the review you'll see the flaws they saw. I mean I even saw the AI was quite dumb. I didn't mind the huge TV serie part of the game, but I can totally understand people turned off by that. Saying that reviewers are bias toward PS is being a bit dishonest because some of their games like The Order: 1886 or Knack... The order got 63. It's a game that I actually enjoyed a lot but I can totally listen and understand the criticism. Also like I said XB has some very good rated too.
Sony puts a lot of resources into their games so the result is that more often than not we'll see quality games. God of war, uncharted 4, Spider-man, Horizon ZD, The last of us are highly rated game because they moved most players and reviewers who played them. Saying that "media is bias" is like giving an easy excuse for the poor work done by MS. Even Spencer said their games haven't been the best. I would think that this is a much better system. Would you prefer individual reviews or user review where company fanboys gives 10 for the company they worship and 0 for the competition? I would rather see a bunch of professional reviewers gives scores and justify their scores with a well written article. I am willing to acknowledge bias to companies from sites that are openly fans of the company. Not just MS but we have some PS focused sites. The reality is that there are not one side that have more fan site than others as most are neutral sites. Can you tell me how many writers or sites are pro Sony and anti MS? And how many are actual neutrals or how many are pro-XB?

"The thing is that you are trying to say that your opinion is more worthy than a collection of gaming journalist." No, that's not what I was trying to say, although I definitely believe it's true when that collection of "gaming journalists" can give scores ranging from 30 to high 80s on one game. I'm saying that the scoring system is broken and irreconcilable for one, and that the system is only in place to promote or damage a game more than would naturally occur. "Saying that reviewers are bias toward PS is being a bit dishonest because some of their games like The Order: 1886 or Knack..." I didn't say that, but I did say that the bias against games like Ryse and Quantum Break is evident, more so with Ryse. Especially when you read a lot of the reviews. Their score justifications are absolutely terrible. Ryse got a lot of 30s and 40s. There is nothing fair, objective, or excusable in scores like that. Once again, when games like Guacamelee 2 and Puya Puya Tetris are scoring in the 80s, but Ryse is 60, the system is clearly and irreconcilably broken. It's just not useful at all in an objective way. Worse, a lot of people actually consider a score and will pass on a game that they would likely genuinely greatly enjoy because of these absurd reviews. "I would think that this is a much better system. Would you prefer individual reviews or user review where company fanboys gives 10 for the company they worship and 0 for the competition? " If you're going to have review scores that pretend to be objective, then there should be well-established and transparent rubrics for judging these games. The scores should be well-justified according to the rubrics. Having a range of scores from 30 to 90 on one game from "professionals" betrays a complete lack of consistency and objectivity. A range like that would be completely understandable from a random user base, but from professional journalists? What is the need for that? The standard internet user base can already provide that. "I think 77 is actually a good score." Perhaps, but not when sites compile lists of best games on Xbox or Playstation, and only include scores of 80 or better. People browsing these major gaming sites might peek at the Xbox list of notable games, and Quantum Break just isn't there, which is a notable game if you happen to have an Xbox. This is where the system just doesn't serve its purpose at all. If Quantum isn't there, but Guacamelee 2 is, that's a problem. "The reality is that there are not one side that have more fan site than others as most are neutral sites." Well, I don't know, I haven't counted. Besides, it's more complicated than that. It's certainly possible to have biased individuals on sites as well. "Can you tell me how many writers or sites are pro Sony and anti MS? And how many are actual neutrals or how many are pro-XB?" No, I haven't counted. But I am fully aware of a majority of headlines regarding major announcements or events from both companies. For example, when it was announced that Project Scorpio was coming in an E3, the articles were exuding overwhelmingly negative vibes. I can't tell you how many times I read that Microsoft was "confusing" its customer base with so many hardware options (Xbox One S & Scorpio). When the Pro and PSVR was announced, the media fed the internet with overwhelmingly positive vibes. That's something major. The fact that the internet world was absolutely against Xbox and Microsoft in general following the Xbox One launch is, in my mind, unquestionable. The evidence is way too abundant. We still see and read the effects of that today.

"If Quantum isn't there, but Guacamelee 2 is, that's a problem."
The problem here is that it looks like you can't accept reviews are also opinion so subjective. There is no definite rule to mesure "fun" it's an individual thing. I haven't played Guacamelee 2 but I've completed the first at 100%. For me both QB and Guacamelee are good games. It's difficult to compare the two because they are so different but if I got to factor everything into account then I don't think there is a problem here. I would say for what it is I would put the first Guacamelee over QB. And there is nothing "wrong" about an opinion.
For example, you may like the extremely long cut scenes, others may hate it and that's how you can get a difference in opinion and a difference in final scores There are very high rated games like Journey that I didn't like. But I accept the score and I totally accept that people absolutely love it. I found a game like SoT incredibly boring but some love it. It's ok. It's their opinion. Nothing is really broken here.You're reading way too much into this media bias against MS. Things like BS, Scorpio and game pass are actually getting a lot of praise. When Sony forced the br player on the PS3, they had the incredibly expensive PS3 at launch or they didn't want to have cross play with other consoles they were getting trashed by the media. What happened in 2013 was 100% MS's fault. Even if you think MS didn't deserve criticism in 2013 and should always be praised while Sony doesn't deserve all the praise they get. You got to remember that that itself is just your opinion. You got to understand that people can have different opinion and that's whats happening here. Honestly I would rather listen to the opinions of 100s of professional gaming journalist. All writing detailed report of their opinion. Rather than opinions of fanboys who will always support games made by the company they worship.
If anything metacritic is the best solution I can think of. The best solution to get a general subjective opinion of a game.
From personal opinion, I've been following these ratings for years and it's almost always accurate. Games around the 88-100 are in general amazing to me. Those in the 50-60 range are more often than not disappointing with obvious objective flaws. Those between 60-70 are mostly average to me. And finally 70-87, games are most of the time good.

"The problem here is that it looks like you can't accept reviews are also opinion so subjective." Then against what did you claim that Quantum Break "isn't flawless" and should be nowhere near The Witcher? Subjective opinion? The title and role of gaming journalist suggests that there's something more than mere opinion going on here, or else their role simply is not needed. The user base already gives ratings based on their opinions, so a representative of popular opinion is already established. I'm saying that their role is NOT needed, because there is more than simply expressing opinions in these roles. That role is, as I've expressed repeatedly before, to politically help or hinder games beyond mere popular opinion. But they do this under the guise of some sort of "expertise," aka some semblance of objectivity. If objectivity is the goal, or at least "less bias", then there ought to be transparent rubrics and tied justifications to them. "There is no definite rule to mesure "fun" it's an individual thing." Then how is any score by gaming journalists even remotely valid? "Things like BS, Scorpio and game pass are actually getting a lot of praise.
What happened in 2013 was 100% MS's fault. Even if you think MS didn't deserve criticism in 2013 and should always be praised while Sony doesn't deserve all the praise they get." I didn't say anything about what was or wasn't deserved as criticism. I said that the bias in the media has been obvious. If Xbox launches their product with unpopular DRM in 2013, does that justify biased scores of 30s and 40s for the game Ryse, one of their premiere launch titles? "Things like BS, Scorpio and game pass are actually getting a lot of praise." Does that justify the obvious media bias of overtly negative articles prior to Scorpio's release, in an attempt to squelch excitement for it? "Honestly I would rather listen to the opinions of 100s of professional gaming journalist." Yeah, that word "professional" betrays something more than mere individual opinion. "The best solution to get a general subjective opinion of a game." If that's the case, there's no need for gaming journalists, unless you are making the claim that they are "less biased" than general users. In that case, I think there needs to be well-established and transparent rubrics.

what did you claim that Quantum Break "isn't flawless"?
The game had plenty of bugs. Remedy themselves apologized for that. "Then against what did you claim that Quantum Break [...] should be nowhere near The Witcher? Subjective opinion?"
Yes, subjective opinion. "The user base already gives ratings based on their opinions, so a representative of popular opinion is already established."
1) Gaming journalist are professionals. That's their work. They are paid to play games and give their opinion. They have played a lot more games than the average customers.
2) There is way more fanboy nonsense from the general public. Those giving 10 for the company they worship and 0 for others.
3) A person giving a rating and having a detailed article about it, is for me more reliable than the average gamer giving a rating based on a game he may have not even played. ofc they are needed. They are a lot less bias then fanboys. It's so easy for fanboys to be openly bias and just give 0 or 10 without even playing the game. With zero accountability. It's not that easy to for professional reviewers who needs to play the game give exact reasons why they don't like or like some points. AND everyone can comment and call them out for their opinion. "Then how is any score by gaming journalists even remotely valid?"
It's valid because it's their opinion. It's their opinion that is detailed in an article. "I didn't say anything about what was or wasn't deserved as criticism. I said that the bias in the media has been obvious. If Xbox launches their product with unpopular DRM in 2013, does that justify biased scores of 30s and 40s for the game Ryse, one of their premiere launch titles?"
Please show how many reviews gave Ryse 30-40 because of DRM. Please show me that. It's easy to say "bias in the media has been obvious".
Well it wasn't obvious for me. Again it's just YOUR opinion. "Does that justify the obvious media bias of overtly negative articles prior to Scorpio's release, in an attempt to squelch excitement for it?"
How about media praise what deserve praise and criticise what deserves it?
The only people who claim there is media bias only brings about examples when the company they like gets criticised. They ignore other instances when it's the other way round. Funny thing from what I've seen, it's mostly people who are fans of company who sees this. For people who aren't fans of companies, they don't really see much media bias. I would only see "media bias" in sites like windows central or ICXM, which ironically are bias to a company. "Yeah, that word "professional" betrays something more than mere individual opinion."
Do you have a proof of that or is it once again just your opinion? "If that's the case, there's no need for gaming journalists, unless you are making the claim that they are "less biased" than general users. In that case, I think there needs to be well-established and transparent rubrics."
Like what? What rubrics? What rubrics that are not subjective?

"what did you claim that Quantum Break "isn't flawless"?
The game had plenty of bugs. Remedy themselves apologized for that." Are you suggesting then that The Witcher and Uncharted's higher scores are based on their lack of bugs? I thought they were simply based on opinions. "ofc they are needed. They are a lot less bias then fanboys." I wouldn't call a range of 30 to 90 on a single game "a lot less biased". "It's valid because it's their opinion." Hmm, not your strongest argument. The user-base already provides their opinions, and many of them write reviews with justifications for their scores. People are free to disregard or dismiss any such scores or reviews. But the scores of gaming journalists are factored into media gaming sites, which determines which games get more exposure in advertisement. "Please show how many reviews gave Ryse 30-40 because of DRM." Xbox obviously gained a lot of flak for their DRM policy prior to launch. That snowballed into an internet and media bias against the company, which, I believe, influenced gaming journalists to trash their most compelling products. 30s and 40s for Ryse are absurdly low, not justified at all by the respective reviews. ""Yeah, that word "professional" betrays something more than mere individual opinion." Do you have a proof of that or is it once again just your opinion?" You said it yourself. You claimed "they are a lot less biased than fanboys." Which is just not verifiable, given that these gaming journalists have such absurd review score spans for games. "What rubrics? What rubrics that are not subjective?" That's just it. They are subjective, but people give objective weight to their scores. At least rubrics will keep them more consistent in their scoring, and will discourage political favor/malice. ""Does that justify the obvious media bias of overtly negative articles prior to Scorpio's release, in an attempt to squelch excitement for it?"
How about media praise what deserve praise and criticise what deserves it?" You did not answer the question. I gave you the specific example of article negativity regarding the time period prior to the launch of Scorpio. If you don't have a valid response, just say so, instead of attempting to dodge the question. "The only people who claim there is media bias only brings about examples when the company they like gets criticised." That's a sweeping generality. I hope you don't use the reverse logic of that statement to accuse people of bias. "I would only see "media bias" in sites like windows central" I'm curious. Can you give an example of bias from this site?

I think Ryse was a great game, but it wasn't a game that was worth full price. I enjoyed the lore, and the visuals were insane, gameplay was actually fun as well, but there just wasn't enough of it, and the combat got very monotonous. So given I paid twenty bucks for the game, I would definitely rate it highly, but had I paid 80-100, that would have left a sour taste in my mouth. Quantum Break is an interesting one, I would definitely rate it higher than its meta average, but I can also understand the faults it had. Like for instance, although the TV idea was great, it really threw the pacing of the game out of whack. Which many wouldn't have like, it didn't help that outside of the three main actors the rest of the cast were passable in terms of their deliveries which made it less enjoyable to sit through. And in terms of the game itself I think a lot of people treated t like a third person shooter, but the abilities were really important and I know a lot of people who complained that they wanted it to be more of a shooter.

"I think Ryse was a great game, but it wasn't a game that was worth full price." I can respect your opinion, but I think the graphic fidelity, the historic research, the narrative treat, and yes, lore, alone, are worth full price for that game. Never mind the fact that the game was absolutely fun. I have played plenty of brawlers in my day, and Ryse did not disappoint. The game is a work of art.

"Never mind the fact that the game was absolutely fun."
That's not a fact, it's an opinion. I think you're confused by facts and opinion here. Just because you thought it was fun it doesn't mean others think the same.

"That's not a fact, it's an opinion. I think you're confused by facts and opinion here." I never said it was a fact. I think you're confused about what you're reading into this.

virtuosoft: "I never said it was a fact."
I'm quoting you DIRECTLY:
"Never mind the fact that the game was absolutely fun."
Meaning you're saying that the game being absolute fun was a fact.
Your words not mine.

You're right, I used the word 'fact'. I used it colloquially to express the agreement we both had that the game was fun, rather than its meaning in the literal sense. I agree that my statement is an expression of opinion.