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>Owning id Tech 6 is or should be a play against Epic, Unity, Crytek etc. Does Microsoft even want to compete against their customers/partners in this space? A

>Owning id Tech 6 is or should be a play against Epic, Unity, Crytek etc. Does Microsoft even want to compete against their customers/partners in this space? After all, MS may not want to alienate them to the point they won't release their games for the Xbox.

WorldMaker 6y ago
Microsoft is a developer company and their oldest division is developer tools. They've made several attempts into the game engine / game engine adjacent space over the years, though rarely saw wins outside of low level DirectX. (XNA will be most remembered as an indie dev play, but a key piece of XNA was its content pipeline and Microsoft tried but didn't succeed that well at trying to replace the mostly mish-mash of custom tools that most AAA studios use for content pipelines for something somewhat more standardized; though of course with the easy retrospect failure of being hobbled by focusing on Xbox first/primarily.) So productionizing id Tech 6 isn't an entirely crazy idea for Microsoft in terms of something that makes cultural sense for them. Game Engines can be an important dev tool; especially in the increasing interest in non-game capital-E Enterprise in game engines for visualization tools (including AR/MR/VR). But yes, Microsoft seems to have a good working relationship with Unity at this point and probably wants to try to keep a good relationship with Epic, so I don't envy whatever product strategist would have to figure out if that minefield would be worth disturbing.
- basch 6y ago
  I honestly don't see it being the kind of competition that ruffles those feathers. Microsoft wants developers developers developers to fill Game Pass and run their Infrastructure on Azure, and Microsoft Hearts Open Source. Microsoft open sourcing id Tech 6, and then saying Azure/XboxStore is the best places to build your game and host it, regardless of which engine you want, is the cold war, mutually assured rising tide raises all boats, kind of competition. What Microsoft doesn't want is Epic or Google getting all the power, becoming the standard, and then being able to strongarm them. Competition, especially open competition, keeps the players more honest. It's just another entry on this page, albeit a strong one. https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/gaming https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/gaming
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    Though Epic being a very loud squeaky wheel right now (versus Apple) is exactly why Microsoft may show concerns of rocking the game engine boat right now. Xbox Game Studios is using the Unreal engine in a lot of projects (Rare's projects like Sea of Thieves; though divorced from Epic for several years now, The Coalition still sometimes seems to get "second party tech demo" support from Epic on Gears) and probably couldn't quickly switch everything to id Tech if Microsoft got into a showdown with Epic like Epic has been fighting Apple lately. Which partly means it is already too late for Epic getting "too much" power to strong arm in the engine space (and thanks to Fortnite increasingly having the confidence to use it). I want to think that Microsoft can do it, regardless of Epic (and even Unity), but I still think it is a minefield.
    - basch 6y ago
      I wouldn't see Microsoft pulling an EA and mandating ID tech like Frostbite. Maybe far down the road there would be a preference.
      - WorldMaker 6y ago
        Indeed, which is why the potential threat of Epic trying to end support for Microsoft for Unreal would be a very credible threat that I think Microsoft would have to deal with. Xbox Game Studios has a lot of projects invested in Unreal today.

WorldMaker 6y ago

Microsoft is a developer company and their oldest division is developer tools. They've made several attempts into the game engine / game engine adjacent space over the years, though rarely saw wins outside of low level DirectX. (XNA will be most remembered as an indie dev play, but a key piece of XNA was its content pipeline and Microsoft tried but didn't succeed that well at trying to replace the mostly mish-mash of custom tools that most AAA studios use for content pipelines for something somewhat more standardized; though of course with the easy retrospect failure of being hobbled by focusing on Xbox first/primarily.) So productionizing id Tech 6 isn't an entirely crazy idea for Microsoft in terms of something that makes cultural sense for them. Game Engines can be an important dev tool; especially in the increasing interest in non-game capital-E Enterprise in game engines for visualization tools (including AR/MR/VR). But yes, Microsoft seems to have a good working relationship with Unity at this point and probably wants to try to keep a good relationship with Epic, so I don't envy whatever product strategist would have to figure out if that minefield would be worth disturbing.

basch 6y ago
I honestly don't see it being the kind of competition that ruffles those feathers. Microsoft wants developers developers developers to fill Game Pass and run their Infrastructure on Azure, and Microsoft Hearts Open Source. Microsoft open sourcing id Tech 6, and then saying Azure/XboxStore is the best places to build your game and host it, regardless of which engine you want, is the cold war, mutually assured rising tide raises all boats, kind of competition. What Microsoft doesn't want is Epic or Google getting all the power, becoming the standard, and then being able to strongarm them. Competition, especially open competition, keeps the players more honest. It's just another entry on this page, albeit a strong one. https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/gaming https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/gaming
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  Though Epic being a very loud squeaky wheel right now (versus Apple) is exactly why Microsoft may show concerns of rocking the game engine boat right now. Xbox Game Studios is using the Unreal engine in a lot of projects (Rare's projects like Sea of Thieves; though divorced from Epic for several years now, The Coalition still sometimes seems to get "second party tech demo" support from Epic on Gears) and probably couldn't quickly switch everything to id Tech if Microsoft got into a showdown with Epic like Epic has been fighting Apple lately. Which partly means it is already too late for Epic getting "too much" power to strong arm in the engine space (and thanks to Fortnite increasingly having the confidence to use it). I want to think that Microsoft can do it, regardless of Epic (and even Unity), but I still think it is a minefield.
  - basch 6y ago
    I wouldn't see Microsoft pulling an EA and mandating ID tech like Frostbite. Maybe far down the road there would be a preference.
    - WorldMaker 6y ago
      Indeed, which is why the potential threat of Epic trying to end support for Microsoft for Unreal would be a very credible threat that I think Microsoft would have to deal with. Xbox Game Studios has a lot of projects invested in Unreal today.