By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.
30.11.2023 - 11:27 / videogameschronicle.com / Tim Stuart / Haiyan Zhang / Ai / Will
Xbox’s chief financial officer has discussed some of the benefits Microsoft believes artificial intelligence will have on game development.
As well as making the artform more efficient for existing professionals, Tim Stuart believes the technology will help democratise game development, creating millions of “citizen creators”.
AI’s ability to generate code, instances, art assets and more could enable “anyone in this room to be a game developer”, Stuart told attendees at the Wells Fargo TMT Summit, TechRaptor reports.
“The barista at your local Starbucks has an awesome idea for a game and they can now use Copilot and AI to go create a great mobile experience. “
While he thinks this reality is still “a little ways away”, Stuart expects to see “a pretty fast acceleration on putting the art plus the code plus the level design together” to create “some great games in the short while”.
Earlier this month, Xbox announced a multi-year deal with Inworld to build AI dialogue and narrative tools at scale.
“Together, we aim to deliver an accessible, responsibly designed multi-platform AI toolset to assist and empower creators in dialogue, story & quest design,” said Haiyan Zhang, Xbox’s general manager of gaming AI.
Stuart elaborated on this subject during this week’s Wells Fargo event.
“On the developer side, you think about the millions and millions of dollars in a game spent on localisation, script, how you think about players moving from point A to point B and you have non-player characters have dialogue,” he said.
“AI can take care of all that. You now say, ‘I need the player to get from A to B’ and instead of having to write thousands of lines of scripting or code, you just have the AI get you from A to B. Things like localisation and putting things in new languages.
“When we think about game testing, a million AI bots can run through a level of Minecraft and find where players get stuck, where they spend money, how they think about the level. So, this is—pun intended—game-changing for the developer.”
By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.
Microsoft could expand to new markets with ad-supported game streaming.
Microsoft is reportedly planning to offer free game streaming in exchange for advertisements. As per TweakTown, Xbox Gaming CFO Tim Stuart suggested during the recent Wells Fargo TMT Summit that to expand geographically, it would be ideal to leverage the company's xCloud service, allowing players to cloud stream games at any ‘endpoint' via a simple Game Pass Ultimate subscription. He further added, “For models like Africa, or India, Southeast Asia, maybe places that aren't console-first, you can say, ‘Hey, do you want to watch 30 seconds of an ad and then get two hours of game streaming?'”
Microsoft is considering ad-based business models for its Xbox Game Pass streaming service, according to chief financial officer Tim Stuart.
Microsoft is exploring the possibility of offering access to Xbox Game Pass in exchange for viewing advertisements.
At this year's PAX Unplugged—a special edition of PAX dedicated to tabletop games—Wizards of the Coast's designers presented a panel celebrating the upcoming 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. At the end of that panel they looked ahead to 2024 and the upcoming Revised editions of the core rulebooks, previously codenamed OneD&D.
Xbox Series X|S maker Microsoft has once again expressed a desire to release its membership service Game Pass on to PS5, PS4, allowing first-party titles like Starfield and Forza Motorsport to become available to a wider audience. Xbox CFO Tim Stuart made the comments during the Wells Fargo TMT Summit, stating it to be a «bit of a change of strategy».
Microosoft's latest ID@Xbox Game Demo Winterfest event is now underway, this time featuring a total of 33 playable demos for indie titles old and new.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer says Microsoft spends over $1 billion a year bringing third-party titles to Xbox Game Pass.
With Game Pass being as central to Xbox’s strategy as it has become over the years, it goes without saying that Microsoft has pumped a massive amount of money into the service, especially given how many third party titles the service features in its catalog (many of which launch day and date). How much money exactly, though?
Despite indications and rumours that Xbox might be keen on expanding its Game Pass offerings to also be available on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms, Microsoft Gaming boss Phil Spencer has revealed that the company doesn’t have any current plans to do it.
Considered by many to be more than worth the monthly cost, Xbox Game Pass is the front-runner in gaming’s fast lean towards subscription-based services. On top of Microsoft CEO Phil Spencer expressing interest in an Xbox mobile gaming store, the company’s Chief Financial Officer is now keen on bringing Game Pass to… well, just about everything.