Phil Spencer, Head of Gaming at Microsoft, recently told CNBC that game development production might be more impacted by the effects of COVID_19 than hardware production of the new Xbox Series X console.
Now, in a new interview with Business Insider, Spencer posited that disruption will be felt far more in 2021 than this year because the games due for release in the next few months probably already have all of their motion capture done, whereas the same might not be true for the titles that are further out in the schedule.
Through the summer, early fall? I feel pretty good about those games. Games that were targeting a year from now or beyond? There'll be some impact, but they'll be able to react.
Mocap is just something that's basically stopped. We're not going into mocap studio. If you had all your animation captured and you're doing touch up in more individual art production and in areas like textures and other things, you're in a better position. If you're waiting for a lot of either large audio work — when it's with symphonies and other things — or mocap, you're held up right now and you're making progress in areas that you are.
It's really in those games that were trying to finally get all their asset base together in terms of art production that they might have the biggest impact.
Even in this interview, Spencer reiterated his confidence in Microsoft's ability to deliver the Xbox Series X this year. He's also adamant the industry will be able to provide a steady flow of games, even when considering potential delays.
Even though we're obviously not traveling to China, we feel good about our progress on hardware. I've got my take-home [console] downstairs and I'm playing on it most nights, and I feel good about the software updates that we're doing.
From the kind of pomp and circumstance around launches, you might find a time where there's some impact, some things that were going to launch, and maybe they moved a little bit.
I'm pretty confident in the industry's ability to continue a steady flow of games coming out. There's just a lot of games in production across the industry right now, and I think we're going to be — as an industry — we're going to be fine. I'm bullish on what this means in the long run for games, even if there's a certain impact to a certain launch window for certain titles that we might see.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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