Loinhead

From Gamesindustry.biz via Kotaku:

Q: Peter Molyneux recently dropped one or two hints to GamesIndustry.biz about the sorts of things we might expect from Lionhead’s next game - will that definitely be published under the MGS banner?
Phil Spencer: Yeah, absolutely.

Q: No Bungie- or Ensemble-style plans there then?
Phil Spencer: Well I’m going to drill in on that a little, but no - no plan for Lionhead. But even the Bungie games that come out as Bungie - the entity they are today - are still MGS games. We look at those as first party games.

So, Lionhead are are currently safe from an Ensemble style closure, but will they part ways with Microsoft, Bungie style, where MS retain a 10% share?

After Microsoft closed its games studio Ensemble Studios, responsible for Age of Empires and Halo Wars, comments have been coming in that internal studios are more expensive to keep than externals.

Microsoft game studios are now just Lionhead and Rare, after Bungie split amicably from Microsoft last year.

In an internal letter, Microft Game Studios’ head Phil Spencer said

I want to emphasize that the overall investment Microsoft is making in videogame development is not diminished, and we will continue to bring in talent to work on titles and franchises where we’ll see the most ROI.

The CEO of Rebellion studios, who have bought several other studios, commented that internal teams, such as Lionhead now, used to be seen to be cheaper than independent teams, such as Lionhead pre-2006 when it was bought by Microsoft.

Lionhead’s future depends in some way on Fable 2’s performance, of course, but in any case, these developments could foreshadow an eventual split between Microsoft and Lionhead. The question is: Bungie- or Ensemble-style?

Despite their refusal to be drawn out by us, Lionnose have scored an interview with Felix Petzel, head PR guy for Entertainment & Devices of Microsoft’s German division. (Unfortunately, all the actual Lionhead guys were too busy to talk to them.)

Petzel, pictured left, could tell Lionnose in an exclusive interview at the Games Convention in Leipzig that the Games Convention in Leipzig is really pretty great, that Fable 2 is great, that fans won’t enjoy Fable 2 unless they get a cold drink, German fans don’t get any cool “pre-sell” stuff, and he can’t comment on the pub games exploits. He does go on to say that Fable 2 is really, really, really going to be great.

Lionose’s article is in German, but Google has a translation.

Bungie and Microsoft are parting ways. Not too long ago, Microsoft didn’t buy Bizarre Creations - another important game studio making big games for the 360. Industry analyst Michael Pachter said that Microsoft “might not have wanted to acquire the developer after its experiences with Lionhead and Rare.” This could be significant of a major change in strategy for Microsoft and how it handles first-party development. Immediate effects for Lionhead are not expected (by me, but who knows?).

An E3 floor manager supposedly had a chat with somebody, told them a whole bunch of stuff and it made its way onto the wii360 forums. Quite a lot of info there which, if true, means Lionhead will be at E3! (We totally posted that rumour a month ago.) This is all pretty much sourceless and unverifiable, hurray. Update ~ Xboxic say that a MS insider said it’s not true, but even he considers Lionhead showing off Fable 2 an obvious guess.

Xbox 360 and Microsoft Rumours for E3′07:

• Microsoft start first at 6.30pm GMT+0:00. (Fact)
• New Crimson Skies game to be announced.
• Bungie working on new title/series not related to anything in the Halo/Marathon Universe.
• Epic Games to show some gorm of Gears of War 2 Trailer.
• Microsoft have bought the Star Wars Battlefront 3 rights. Trailer/Demo to be shown.
• Rare to show off Banjo Kazooie 3 (Banjo-Theerie).
• Rare to announce 2 new games.
• Rare to announce Kameo 2.
• Lionhead Studios show more of Fable 2.
• Microsoft to fund a new game based on Jason Bourne. It’ll be based on the books and not the film with Matt Damon.
• Team Ninja to show off Ninja Gaiden 2. Labeled 360 Exclusive.
• Apparently there’s news of a MGS Game for the 360. May or may not be the 4th Installment.
• Dead Rising 2 to be shown. May not be ready.

From an E3 Floor Manager supposedly.

Microsoft Game Studios has just set up a branch in Reading to deal with publishing in Europe - that happens to include Lionhead! It’s headed by Phil Spencer, who’s currently general manager at MGS. Changes to what comes out of Lionhead and what we see do not seem likely, although this is probably of internal significance. Redmond, Microsoft’s HQ in Seattle on the American West Coast, is rather far away and the time difference caused some sleepless nights.

One of Microsoft’s chief bods, Chris Satchell, claims that the development studios are ecstatic that their bosses and moving closer.

We’ve had great feedback on this already - developers absolutely love the idea of having Microsoft people on the ground who can come to see them.

Here’s the press release, via Games Press: - Read on »

Much like that RPG Panel that never was, Microsoft were supposed to give a 45-minute demo of Fable 2. If it actually happened, it certainly hasn’t materialised yet.

From IGN:

On Tuesday, March 6, Microsoft’s Developer Conference Suite will feature a handful of 45-minute demos of this year’s pre-eminent role-playing games from BioWare’s Mass Effect and Lionhead’s Fable 2 to Mistwalker’s Blue Dragon.

Via Portarock.

Update: this seems to have happened, but in the form of 30-minute demos  to journalists only. The videos of this are here.

Molyneux will be sitting on a panel discussing RPGs changing in the future on Tuesday at the GDC. The talk entitled “The Evolution of RPG development” is presented by MGS and journalist Geoff Keighley will be hosting. Other panelists are Hironobu Sakaguchi (of Mystwalker) and Ray Muzyka (of Bioware), among others. It will be held tomorrow (that’s Tuesday) - more details once the GDC website stops being annoying.

Update: Check this link: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6166924.html

There’s a brand-spanking new interview with Molyneux up on Gamepro.com. They ask him a whole bunch of questions, and although he can’t reveal anything concrete about Fable 2 he says a lot about how they’re working on it, how the story in Fable 2 is getting so much more work than in Fable, how the English have most evil percentage points and how interesting Xbox Live is as a game mechanism, what you can do around that (bearing in mind that Xbox.com still has Fable 2 up as a single-player game, this could be for the secret game … ?). Interview follows after the jump.

- Read on »

Italian site Spazio Games has a huge list (Google translated - original version here), which is now also on a sister site, of games with release dates in 2007, the info apparently freshly gathered off Xbox.com.

These are the items of interest:

80. Fable 2 - by Lionhead Studios - Release given 2007 TBA (Official Situated)
176. Project “Dimitri” - by NGS/Peter Molyneux - Release given 2007/8 TBA (Further Information)
1. B.C. - by MS Games Studios (Further Information)

This should all be cautiously believed at most, but if it is true … oh my god - although of course Lionhead are only supposed to be developing two games, not three.

Stomp 224 noticed the mention of Dimitri. A genius.

On one of the sites, the disclaimer is:

We attend confirmations or refutation from part of Microsoft.