Xbox lead Phil Spencer pledges to build 'high-quality' first-party games, including single player

ps: Are exclusives important? Sure, by some extent.
Only a few did well and a lotta more sold like 1m or 2m and we have 70m ps4 owners, such importance...
Do you know what pushed ps4 this last few month? Monster Hunter World (most sales came from Japan). e.g. DQ in Japan is big but so not so much in the rest of the world. People who told me they play DQ, 8 outta 10 also told me they ONLY play DQ. Most J-gamers are not interested in western games. The market is divided. Sure yo sold more consoles, but the SW and HW ratio...
Things changed, this is not another ps3 era where we have so many weird stuff / exclusives for everyone to enjoy.
Not worth start making it if you cannot pass BP. I think being a enthusiast, fan or critic is fine but partime missionary...
Take Okami and Shenmue for instance, you are the odd one.
Uncharted, you are lucky you got it right.
But sure, companies love this typpa follower!

@Hirox K
Once again you're talking about your experience.
Once again you're making excuses for a company's lack of games. Just because you feel there are enough it doesn't mean that all companies should just stop making games. It's crazy when so-called gamers don't want companies to make games...smh

You are missing the point of what Jez and Hirox K are saying. There are hundreds of games on Xbox both AAA and Indie from 3rd Party companies as well as those from Microsoft to play. If you can't find a game that suits your interest then no amount of 1st party games from Microsoft will keep you happy either.

Of course I'm getting their point. But you don't seem to understand the actual point here.
MS as a gaming company and a console maker got to make games and not rely on 3rd party games. Jez and Hirox are probably the same people who will be celebrating a new XB console exclusive. These are the people who will probably hype these games. It's about being true to oneself. People who are not tied to MS and who sees games as the priority wants more games. It's not just about playing 3rd party games and being happy. It's about having bigger library and more choice. Can I ask you, don't you want more games? Don't you want MS to compete with Sony by investing in making more games?
How is having more games a bad thing? Just because We have 3rd party and a big back log it doesn't mean a certain company should just sit back and not make games...

I agree with you that it's a shame, but it's also a reality. And I disagree with the second part of your comment. I don't "want" exclusives to justify the fact that I own a PS4 and not an xbone, that's completely backwards. I bought the PS4 and not the xbone BECAUSE of the exclusives.

I must have expressed myself poorly, because I don't see our statements as necessarily incompatible. The bottom line is that exclusivity hurts the consumer.

This.. And only this.

Not at all, I agree with you for the most part, although it's not something that will change, sadly. What we're talking about is free market capitalism, and I don't see that going anywhere soon. All I was disagreeing with is that I think your reasoning about choosing one console over another is backwards.

@ Arbiter82
I totally disagree. You do know why games are exclusive. It's because they are made by console makers so that people buy their console.
Just imagine what a big loss it would be for gamers and consumers if Sony, Nintendo or MS didn't invest in making games for their customers.
Not having those games at all vs the choice of being able to buy these games. The sad thing is that I see a lot of people against the idea of having a company invest in making games. I often wonder if they are doing that because a certain company doesn't invest enough compared to their competition...

Yup, you do totally disagree.

A few (exclusives) did well, but a lotta more sold around 1 or 2m, and with 70m people owning the console... such importance. btw, DQ is big in Japan but not so much outside Japan. People who buy DQ... almost 8 outta 10 told me they only play DQ. And I bet most of'em have 0 interest playing western games. The market is so divided. Sure, sold more consoles but SW and HW ratio... console market in Japan is dropping YoY. The industry's trying to get into e-sports business but... sigh... In the end, exclusives or not, are just games and people just wanna play games they are interested. Only a few exclusives matter, rest are... means nothing. Fans, enthusiast, critics praising a game really don't mean much.
People who loves Okami and Shenmue, you are the odd one. People who loves Enchanted, you are just lucky that you got it right. Things changed, ps4 era's not like ps3 era where we have soooo many weird "exclusives" for everyone to enjoy.

@Hirox K
You do understand what diversity in games means. You do understand how important it is to have different type of games.
Choice is importance no matter what you're trying to imply.
I'm not into Baseball game but the PS4 has The Show. We've already discussed the importance of exclusive. But you just want to ignore the importance of the image of a console. The guy buying a console to play Monster hunter chooses PS4 because of future release like God of War or bigger library that lets him play Horizon ZD. And just to make it clear, even excluding games targeting the Japanese market the PS4 has more exclusives.

Exclusives are on their way out. It hurts businesses bottom line and consumers. That is why Microsoft is working to get games playable on all platforms no matter what device you have. Games are going to start following the same business model that movies, music and TV shows did. It doesn't matter what device you are on today you can watch and listen to your shows and music on any device now. You are starting to see the beginnings of it now with PlayAnywhere. Sony is resisting this direction but Nintendo is starting to warm up to the idea.

You seem confused about few things here. MS are not trying to get their games on all platforms. Their latest game Sea of thieves can't be played on PS4/Switch or a PC with steam or non-win10. PlayAnywhere? You do know that Sony has something called cross buy and cross play that started much before Play Anywhere came into being. And about exclusives hurting? I really don't think it hurts console makers. Not only does it bring money through sales, it helps them move consoles, subscription, hardware,... ofc it makes their console more popular and more people on your platform means possible more money from selling software...
And does it hurt gamers? Not at all. Having more games is great. Your argument is console maker should just invest money to make other platform shine... Sorry but that makes little sense. Your example is a bit weird because here we are not talking about a singer making a song and selling an album. Here we are talking about a console maker trying to sell his product.

I agree that exclusives hurt the customer, but they also hurt the supplier when those customers turn to their competitors due to these games.

I agree, games shouldn't be exclusive to specific consoles.

I'm with you on this but exclusives are also what sells consoles. The Xbox 360 early success was built on exclusives. For me the Xbox has had more exclusives I have wanted as I am a racing fan and forza ms 5 & ¡ and horizon 2 & 3have been amazing sony only offer GTS and Drive Club. Microsoft do have exclusives but it depends on your type of game as the PS4 has nothing close to halo 5 or gears 5 but Microsoft have nothing close to God of war and Unchanted its just your taste. But the Xbox one has had plenty of exclusives new like sunset sea of theaves and qumatom break to old/remastered like KI TMCC, Gears of War as well as new ups like titan fall, as well as gears 4 and halo 5

Those are nice games but also familiar games. Seeing Horizon, Nier and even God of War makes me pb&j of PS4 owners. Microsoft needs new big game franchises that much is clear.

Wait. So you don't want a console maker to make games for those who bought the console?
How is a gaming company investing to make games bad for gamers?

Generally speaking, I think the idea of making exclusives to try to sell more specific consoles isn't a good practice. I understand the logic in doing so, it's just lame for some consumers. I love zombie games and I know the last of us is a great game, but I'm not going to buy a PS3 or PS4 JUST to play that game.

But then that's what free market is and that's what competition is all about. A TV network invest money in series for it's network. A car manufacturer will invest money in making features and tech for their cars.
SoT or Gears 4 won't be ported to Sony or Nintendo consoles. That's how the world works. So tell, do you want a world where there is no competition? Where there is only one system and only third party games are made?
Look at what happened with Steam. They are in a near monopole over there. So they have stopped bothereing about investing in new games. Ultimately it's gamers that suffers. Now imagine the same thing happening to Sony, MS or nintendo. A world where none of their games would exist. If we think it like that I think we'll agree that the current system is better, right?
Oh and also, I'll totally understand if it's a financial problem but there are options for gamers. A new PS4 was less than 200 bucks last november. A used one can be really cheap and ofc you could always sell it after playing the games you want to play. There is also the option of exchanging it with a friend who doesn't have XB1. Or just borrowing or even renting it. Personally I'll never let this thing stop me from playing a game I really want to play. Playing games is still my priority...

Consumers? Fanboys are consumers but not all consumers are fanboys. Playstation fanboys bash Xbox exclusives and Xbox fanboys get insecure because of this, that’s why almost every fanboy in gaming is whining for more Xbox exclusives. Fact is that Playstation fanboys don’t want Xbox to have exclusives because they don’t want to buy a Xbox, they want those games to launch on PS4 as well.

Hmm. I think there a many gamers (not company fanboys) who actually want companies to make games. I want MS to make more games because I can play all their upcoming games. I was pissed with Sony's 2017 E3 because of the lack of announcements of new games. For me, Ubisoft had the best conference last year because of what they showed in terms of games.
I think you'll be surprise to see how many gamers actually just wants more games...

If you ever look at the sales charts for US/UK i've never seen a single playstation exclusive on the top 10 list ever. God of War will probably change that but people mostly buy multiplatform games. Sony's got a ton of JRPG's which imo unless you live in Japan most couldn't care less for those boring games.

I've already talked of this in the past. There are reasons as to why exclusive or even (to a lower extent console exclusives) are important to a console.
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1) It's simply logical People buy consoles to play games. Exclusive is one of the main reason why many people will buy one console over another. The point is When you're talking of multiplats like COD, FIFA, BF, NFL. They boost PS4 and XB1 sales.
God of war or Spiderman or Horizon: Zero Dawn don't boost on XB1 sales because they aren't on XB1. The only way a PC player can play Horizon is by buying a PS4.
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2) Image is important
When choosing a console to buy a COD, FIFA, BF, NFL, people might buy one platform knowing that one system has more games than the other. It's always a selling point when a person who likes baseball, Jrpg, story-based games, action adventure, RPG... knows that a console makes games that you may like...
More choice, more games, more diversity is important.
Even MS talks "exclusives", "exclusives", "exclusives" during their E3 conference or at Gamescom. Would they talk of it if it wasn't important?
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3) History shows the importance of big library
History that the console with greater number of exclusives and game library always finised on top of a generation. Now, while the Wii got most of the support after the initial popularity others had bigger library very early on... The NES (bigger library) beat the Master System
The GB (bigger library) beat the Game gear
The SNES (bigger library) beat the Genesis
The PS1 (bigger library) beat the N64
The PS2 (bigger library) beat the Gamecube and XBox
The DS (bigger library) beat the PSP
The Wii (bigger library) beat the PS3 and XBox360
The 3DS (bigger library) beat PS Vita
The PS4 (bigger library) beat XB1 and Wii U
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Also I already said even excluding all games oriented to Japanese, the PS4 still has more exclusive. And finally calling games that you don't like "boring" is uncalled for. Just because you don't like them it doesn't mean others don't. The point is diversity is great. I always think having more games and great diversity better than having less games and less diversity. Seeing some of the comments and how you guys want to downplay it. It almost looks like you guys don't want games and diversity. And that's probably the biggest problem here. MS should really stop listening to the current fanbase...

Apart from making completely new games....I think ms should bring back some old games like crysis.....by buying the rights to that game n launch it on pc n xbox.
It will be a big boost imo

I've been a huge Xbox fan since the launch of the original console eons ago and the 360 was magnificent.
Sadly however MS has dropped the ball big time this gen.
I have an x one that never gets used, there just aren't any games, a total waste of money, the store is a ghost town.
My son has given up and bought a ps4 to my disgust, but I'm green with envy watching the never ending stream of quality games he has at his disposal.
The availability of quality games, especially shooters, are embarrassing on the x one. I use my 360 more than the x one, sadly it's nothing more than a very expensive paper weight.

I'm not sure if i should write you a wall to explain you how much your brain is wrong...... Or just leave it alone just like I do usually to ppl comments....

@WolfRamHart
His brain is wrong? For stating opinion, his personal experience and facts?
It's funny how some people feel the need to attack others based on video gaming stuff... lol
Most of the people I see reacting like this happen to worship a company/brand...

@WolfRamHart The words d o u c h e bag come to mind

Riiiight

Words are wind. I hope MS can pull it's head out of it's arse when it comes to first party titles, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Just because there are games to play does not mean MS should become content and not make content for its console. First-party titles are meant to showcase the platform and push third parties forward. Exclusives are impressive because development resources and time are focused on one platform not 3. Look at the OG Xbox backward compatibility list, most of those games were EXCLUSIVE to Xbox, unique, and fun. I don't get that feeling with Xbox One. MS seems to be going for blockbusters which is Ok but overlooks a large portion of the fanbase.

Microsoft should buy the company making that Sessions skateboard game for the Xbox. It looks great and it would be the only skateboard console game on the market.

This problem will only begin to get resolved at the tail end of this Gen. Whilst that happens I'm afraid my Xbox One is collecting dust and my Switch and PS4 are getting all my gaming time. MS just say things to string fans along. Happened with Mobile, happening with Xbox. Difference is I think they realise how important gaming is right now, and last gen they really had a good one, EVEN with RROD. There's so much coming to the PS4 right now, God of War is putting to shame pretty much every effort MS has made at exclusives this Gen. Heck, Switch came out and in its first year it's had two huge, critically acclaimed exclusives. And on Xbox, people are playing....Sea of Thieves, which is just as bare bones and boring as the day they announced it. Crackdown 3 is nowhere to be seen, they have shush that game up completely. Best we can hope for from Xbox in terms of Exclusives is Forza Horizon 4 this year. E3 will get hyped up to be the greatest Microsoft has pulled out and it will end up a timed exclusive and launch exclusive fest.

I'm not sure what the issue is... I have 80+ games in my backlog to play, and it only gets larger each month I get free games.

But you don't have the great depressing green and gray exclusives that Sony has. Your system is no good if you don't have a bunch of sad suicide inducing games😒

Yeah, I love when I want to eat a bullet when I finish a game.

Sad suicide inducing games?
lol What? Can you name some of those?

Oh so since you have a backlog, MS and all other companies should just stop making games... LOL

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant.... I'm referring to the complaining of "no games" or the console the "collecting dust" because of the lack of things to play. That is just being ridiculous.

I'm not sure who said "no games". The topic here is specifically lack of games made by MS compared to their competition. The guy who talked of "collecting dust" clearly said he had other platforms and not just a XB1. He was clearly not talking about 3rd party games available on other platform.

Many clients?... No, no.... We need our half of cent.

When it comes to xbox I am extremely optimistic and as Phil Spencer rightly said it will take time. Especially since many studios where closed down and talent lost, which I need point out happened prior to Phil Spencer being promoted to the Senior Leadership Team (SLT). As such those decisions were not his to make but someone else in the SLT. The reason why I am extremely optimistic? Under Phil Spencer, the xbox division has accomplished something everyone thought was practically impossible and that is true backwards compatibility on a very, very low end custom Jaguar SOC. As well revitalising the xbox brand, after it took a hammering after the OG xbox one launch. Heck, even the xbox store has come a long way and it's not aggravating to use unlike the Windows Store or Sony's Playstation store. For instance when searching for GTA V, I always get GTA IV results. Sometimes I can spell whole words - allowing to search using "Grand" but even then I may not get GTA V results. The funny thing is that experience varies on another playstation 4, I am not sure if it's the faulty PS4 that I fixed but I don't have another PS4 to test this on. Lastly, with the renewed focus on gaming we now have the luxury of owning a goliath of a console that can do true 4k at very, very affordable price point. Prior to Ryzen to build a true 4k PC it was rather expensive. I do need to add, the cost of 4k screens have always fallen since then as that was part of cost - although one off - but without a 4k screen - a 4k capable PC is rather pointless if it's compute power is only being used for gaming. Now that Phil Spencer is in the SLT, I am hoping he is given hell of alot more resources to build on the past successes. Because without xbox, Microsoft's mind share will dwindle drastically even more so if they continue focusing solely on the enterprise. In addition, the biggest draw of VR/AR / Mixed Reality is really gaming as we are not at the point where holographic computing will become the norm without expensive headsets - we are going to need affordable quantum computing and profound leaps in screen technology for that to occur.

Wait, are you saying that Spencer had nothing to do with those studio closing even though he was head of Xbox? Do you have links to this? Either way, we cannot deny that it's under Spencer that studios were closed and projects cancelled. It's under Spencer that the number of exclusives dried up. If you want to not credit Spencer for the closing down then it can be argued that BC started before Spencer was in charge.
We got to also say that under Spencer MS went really hard on games as a service. Loot boxes were added to microtransactions and games like SoT happened. Games that are far from perfect...
And finally games. He was here since 2014. "His games" should have already been here by now. For me, the lack of major announcement in the last 30 months shows the lack of vision he had at the start. He didn't build studios. It just looks like he didn't want or couldn't compete with Sony when it comes to games.
Maybe MS didn't backed him up, but I don't think that should be an excuse.

Financial decisions that impact company profits are made at the senior level, therefore it wouldn't have been his decisions to make. Sure, some of them happened when he was in charge of the xbox division but he did not have a seat at the senior leadership table. He does not have his old job anymore but has a broader, overseeing role and has much more access to resources. Generally speaking Financial decisions fall under the chief finance officer, the chief operating officer and the CEO. Either the CFO is given carte blanche to maximise profits or give the CEO and COO recommendations to maximise profits and either CEO or COO acts accordingly. But the company direction is set by the CEO, upon which everyone acts. Therefore prior to Phil Spencer getting promoted to the SLT, the decisions were already made and he wouldn't have been able to do much about it. We can see that as gaming was not a heavy focus within the O/S. However since he was promoted we are seeing much focus on gaming. I don't know about you but I attribute that focus because Phil Spencer is on the SLT. Another example is Cortana, however it took OEMs to actively push Alexa on Windows Laptops (even though these Laptops come with access to Cortana). For Microsoft to renew focus on Cortana. I can type a novel as the list of examples is endless.

There are probably people at higher position that make financial decision but I can't believe Spencer didn't have say in the decisions. We can't be out here saying he was helpless while trying to praise him for move like BC that started before he was head of XB.
Also he actually made those statements. He actually said that cancelling Scalebound was good thing for xbox gamers. He said it was a difficult decision meaning he was part of the decision and he apologized for it.
There are many articles about how MS manage studios and how they try to direct studios when it comes to making a game. I can't believe that the head of XB didn't have his share of decisions or that the head of XB can't give creative freedom for devs or try to say "instead of investing $2.5b on Mojang, let's build studios that makes games", or say "let's not have loot box in full price games"... I think at the end of the day we are both speculating about how much Spencer had a say in this. All that can be said is that he was head of XB when that happened. For me, it's a failure because they wouldn't have needed to close the studios or cancel games if XB was doing well financially or if those projects were well managed.

@Guest_Aotf. It's pretty simple, follow the profit seeking pathway or get fired.

I've been reading comments here and it's ridiculous. Instead of wanting more games it looks like many XB gamers are satisifed with having fewer games.
Many of these people don't want MS to invest in making games for them. I wonder if they are even gamers. I mean gamers not wanting gamers??? Ridiculous... The funny thing is that these are probably the same people who will be dancing around when they announce the new Halo, Forza or Fable. They will be hyping the next State of decay, or crackdown. They are probably celebrating whenever a new old gen BC game is announced. These will be the ones dancing around if games are announced at E3... I really hope MS and their execs don't listen or ignore these people. Many of these are just fans of the company who probably owns multiple XB1.
MS should not listen to the people who are already on their knees. They should listen to people who didn't buy a XB1 or don't agree with their current policies. People who say XB1 lacks exclusives, those who say MS isn't investing enough on games. These are the people who can take XB to the next level.
--------------------------- About Spencer, he already made similar statements in the past.
He said it in:
2015
"We should have new exclusive IP at E3. I'm trying to make this E3 more about 1st party than past E3s."
and
"So we're making a conscious decision to focus on our first-party games. It doesn't make it harder or easier, it's just a decision. I do think that building up first-party exclusives is creatively more difficult than signing a deal, just by the nature of what it is. But I'll point out too that Sony has some great first-party franchises." 2016
"Should be a very good. Shipping more new IP than we have in a long time. Good challenge to make new IP succeed." 2017
"I feel very good about this year. Should have more 1P games than last year, great diversity + launching new IP. Good year." I think all we can do is hope that he isn't talking bs once more...
He did say something about diverse games. I'm really hoping he is talking about new IPs and not more sequels... For me, I'm really hoping that for a future where both compete with each other trying to make the best possible games. That would be amazing... Amazing for the consumers and actual gamers...

My big problem with Phil is that he intentionally misuses the term "first-party" to refer to "second-party". He clearly does this to mislead the public into thinking Microsoft's first-party lineup is more robust than it is. I'd respect him a lot more if he called them what they are: second-party games. When Phil took over, Microsoft Studios had 10 first-party studios, but now they only have 5, and none of them are really working on new IP (343 = Halo, Coalition = Gears of War, Turn 10 = Forza Motorsport, Rare = Sea of Thieves, and Mojang = Minecraft). He got rid of Team Dakota, Press Play, Twisted Pixel, Lionhead, and more, choosing instead to bring in second-party developers on one-off contracts that often don't work out at all (see the cancelled Scalebound and Phantom Dust reboot).

You guys don't realise financial decisions aren't the remit of division heads do you? But that's understandable, as Microsoft in the past has offset losses using other departments. But under Satya Nadella, it's all about profits and the stocks. Sadly, cutting wages is the easiet way for any CEO to increase profits.... is simple book keeping. If you keep revenue flow the same but reduce over heads your going to have more cash in your account, it's simple mathematics.

@TechFreak1
I posted tweets about the promises and statements he made. He made the statements not the higher ups of MS who manages finances. He didn't need to make these statements and mislead consumer. He didn't need to call second party or third party games first party games.
No one is forcing him to do that. And about the financial problems. He should take the blame too. Even if decisions were made from chief finance officer or other party, it doesn't change Spencer's contribution as head of XB. If these studios or projects were being well managed and brought in money they wouldn't need to closed them down.

@Guest_aotf. It's all about messaging and damage limitation. Say for instance, You're head of a Games Studio, but one of the investers comes out and makes comments why a game your studio is working on is cancelled and that it's a good thing for gamers. People would speculate that you are about to get fired or you've lost the plot and have no say anymore in how your studio is run.

I think exclusives are important to consoles. Otherwise what’s the point of different consoles? They give a console it’s identity. As an Xbox fan for 16 years I’m disappointed with the state of their exclusives atm. Bought a PS4 Pro today and I’m excited for God of War and a bunch of other Sony games

What about an upgrade for the controller?

"the Xbox One OS has a wealth of features, apps, and services, that arguably beat Redmond's rivals." A wealth of ads.
That's all the Xads One has over the PlayStation. Which is why the PlayStation is the superior platform and is beating the sh*t out of it: Sony doesn't live in a current attempt to rip off PlayStation users.

..................... ..................
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Damn people care too much about this good thing I own all three platforms (Xbox, PlayStation, Switch)

Same, any true gamer doesn't care exlusives they care about game play and replay value. Everything really falls into those two categories.

The thing is me too. I can play all exclusives or console exclusives. The main thing is about some companies investing in making a lot of new games, new IPs, and help provide a big divers lineup, while the competition doesn't do as much.

I own all three too, but right now I'm wondering why I even have the Xbox One. I picked the Xbox One up on launch having had the Original Xbox and my 360 as my primary consoles. Loved the exclusives on those. Exclusives on the most part have fallen flat. And 3rd party games, I can play them on the PS4 I have, along with the awesome line up of exclusives on there.

I'm perfectly fine with MS pushing out more exclusives. But judging by the comments, the idea we're "Dying for content" is a bit disingenuous. The company's strategy, appears to be giving you options, and we have alot if them. Between game pass and the huge amount titles available on xbox one, combined with the fact if you have an X, it's the best way to experience them, Sales wise that's speaking to gamers more. Exclusives are important but it's not the total picture

Not a huge gamer, but lots of workmates and family members are. And I applaud MS acting like a software company and creating first party software to showcase its own platform. As a UWP developer I only wish somebody on the "productivity" side of the fence at MS would get their act together like Phil Spencer, start at least pretending they're a software company again, and create some high quality 1st party UWP or even PWA apps that would fill some of the app gap, that still exists, on the store. The Personal Finance app gap immediately comes to mind. But yeah, any efforts out of Redmond to start behaving like a software company again and showcase their own platform is to be applauded.

The big mistake was Kinect. Xbox One was more expensive and less powerful because of that.

This could be nice to happen. But MS is ran by an idiot who likes to abandon stuff, obsessed with cloud...so I do not trust any public statements, not even from Phil

Microsoft may have the most powerful console on paper with the One X, but what is the point if the games are just ports from PS4. They needed Halo 6 with split screen and visuals to match on the release of the X. It took longer for us to download Halo 5 then it took my 8 year old to finish the campaign. I don't buy Phil's excuses, we are 5 years in and the hardware and software teams are separate.

Lol, so true about the downloading part.
They're done this generation.