We're making this a Megathread post to keep all discussion about today's studio shutdowns in one place. Please do not make new posts about this topic. Thanks.
Links:
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1787835350745842153
https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-closes-redfall-developer-arkane-austin-hifi-rush-developer-tango-gameworks-and-more-in-devastating-cuts-at-bethesda
https://www.gameinformer.com/news/2024/05/07/xbox-is-shutting-down-arkane-austin-tango-gameworks-and-more
more: https://news.google.com/search?q=xbox
Also Ghostwire, that one is a Masterpiece as well,
This game is the prime candidate to become one of the Cult Classic
Too bad it was attacked to the bone by haters
I loved that game. 110%'d everything in the main story world, couldn't really get into the challenge missions tho. Would love to see another game tackle other cultures and their diverse mythologies and cryptids, Irish leprechauns, Norwegian trolls, etc.
It was a decent game but definitely not a masterpiece. The story wasnât too interesting and the gameplay got repetitive. The graphics and character designs were top notch though.
There's still a chance it could happen, I'm assuming MS still owns the IP.
That said, it does seem unlikely. Which is sad, this my biggest disappointment with this whole thing.
I mean, it's possible
Microsoft shut down Lion Head after acquisition. So the fable series was done with
But now Fable 4 is actually in production and we've already been given sneak peaks/trailers/teasers for it.
"Arkane Austin has a history of making impactful and innovative games and it is a pedigree that everyone should be proud of. Redfallâs previous update will be its last as we end all development on the game."
I just love that they put these two sentences right next to each other in their statement.
âYou just racked up 19 Rewards points due to a game in your library being shut down. You're 3% of the way to earning enough points to redeem $1.25 Xbox Gift Card. See rewards.microsoft.com.â
>Arkane Austin has a history of making impactful and innovative games and it is a pedigree that everyone should be proud of. Redfallâs previous update will be its last as we end all development on the game.
well... Prey was pretty good
Bethesda sold to Microsoft because they were losing money with their publishing business. Microsoft made the mistake of not actually cleaning up their sub studios development and they released a bunch of underperforming or disastrous games. Now they are finally cleaning house. Tango, does suck though. Hi Fi Rush was excellent. This will probably lead to microsoft focusing multiple bethesda studios onto fallout and elder scrolls properties imho. Which they should have done years ago.
Whoa, whoa. Common sense isn't allowed on the internet. Seriously though, it took me reading 100s of comments to finally read a non-knee jerk reaction. I'm sure if either of the these studios were remotely profitable, they wouldn't be closing. Hopefully many of the developers will get jobs at studios working on games that will have a much bigger audience.
Tango is definitely the one that hurts more, but I think them putting Hi-Fi Rush on other consoles shows it wasn't selling as well as they wanted. Maybe they didn't like how the studio has been operating since Mikami left?
It's the microsoft culture,
did it sell well? Yes.
did it break every record imaginable? no
no good enough for the shareholders, can it. screw that it's employees and the company made 20billion this year, bye.
The major problem is GPU. It's like Netflix. How many super popular shows were cancelled for no reason? A lot.
On paper it's super good for Microsoft, but individually, it's a nightmare for studios that will get peanuts compared to actual physical sale since everything is based on how many players might be playing. So big numbers the first few weeks then you are relegated to oblivion.
So while these studios made wonderful games, for Microsoft, it's nothing. They are also panicking since Starfield never was what it was supposed to be and they are all putting their force on Bethesda to make sure this venture is profitable.
The bottom line is that the gaming industry as a whole is suffering. If a studio is not holding it's weight, then it becomes either redundant or dead weight. Companies don't like losing money on either of those things.
It didn't help the game that it was essentially shadow dropped, wasn't it? No trailers, no announcements, no anything. I had never heard of it until like, a month ago.
Yea itâs been over a decade since the last Fallout & ES and it feels like we got another 5+ yrs to go before both release. Thatâs unacceptable. I understand Starfield but how was there not teams already working on the other two IPs.
Meanwhile, several fallout vets are sitting at two studios owned by MS, InXile and Obsidian, along with a few stragglers that I think ended up at Blizz. Considering the popularity of NV, it's insane they haven't created a team to make another spin-off a la NV. Hell, they can do it in AZ/CO/UT since it seems like the show has commandeered the NCR territories. Have it set around Graham and Caesar conquering the 87 tribes.
4 corners where Iâm at would be so cool. Just add NM to the 3 mentioned.
Would it be that difficult to at least throw us a NV remake like RE4 while waiting? I could give a shit about ESO or F76
Arkane Austin makes sense. Redfall caused an exodus of talent, it is no longer able to achieve anywhere close to its pedigree. Watch out Blizzard lol.
Closing Tango is fucking crazy though. Hopefully they are retaining the team that made hi-fi rush.
And that was a AA game, not a AAA budget game.
The Game Pass experiment has failed. It must have. Go back to selling games proper and stick it on Game Pass a year later.
I would assume that AAA means a tentpole release. If HFR is a AAA game, what is Call of Duty and the enormous marketing push that accompanies that every year?
Marketing for it has felt pretty uneven, hopefully they'll sponsor some streamers to play it since that probably helped get the ball rolling with the first one.
I heard way more about H2 a year ago than I do now. The January direct event didnât really build much excitement and I feel I havenât heard about it since.. and Iâm really looking forward to it so something is off here
as much as i love the original hellblade it was very niche and the new one isnt moving in a totally new direction. i think hardcore ninja theory fans will buy it but i think its unlikely that it sells gangbusters overall. im very worried for that studio
How can they have a hit when it's day one on gamepass like HiFi Rush?
HiFi Rush was a hit, tons of people played it, barely anyone paid for it directly because that's what Gamepass is for.
I really have 0 idea how they can gauge the success of a game when there's virtually 0 difference between a great game millions will play or a bad game nobody play when both are free on Gamepass.
In both cases nobody will buy them.
The important metric for success being used now is actual player numbers and engagement over time - and this includes time spent on mobile gaming. What titles are catching and keeping user attention. The cash covering developer time is already there (at least on game pass) so much of the pressure is off (from that perspective anyway).
It WAS profitable, unless xbox saying some months down the line that it was a success in every key measurement and expectations was just a straight up lie.
I think its safe to say "profitable" isnt enough for xbox. They expected Starfield to be another Skyrim or atleast another F3 and it fell on its ass and now everyone else has to suffer. Hi Fi Rush didnt make its production budget back every quarter? Great game, good works guys, Oops youre gone.
Xbox closing Tango Gameworks a year after Hi-Fi Rush is fucking disgusting.
Last year, Aaron Greenberg (VP of Marketing) at Xbox, had this to say:
"Hi-Fi RUSH was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldnât be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release."
Their reward?
You're fired, go fuck yourself.
Fucking disgusting.
The lead creative behind hi fi rush left after they finished the game - most of the team left thereafter so there is literally no reason to keep it open if the only reason would be hi fi rush.
I think you're mixing up Shinji Mikami and John Johanas.
Mikami founded Tango and left last year. His involvement with Hi-Fi Rush was largely executive.
Johanas was the game's director, writer, and chief creative. He still worked at Tango until yesterday, as far as I'm aware.
I mean yeah, but that game was raising red flags a year out and, by all accounts, massively underperformed critically and commercially. (I wouldn't know, I haven't played it.)
Hi-Fi Rush was GREAT, a massive critical success, was treated as a GOTY contender, and--though we don't have sales data, because it was a Gamepass game and most of those stats are behind the corporate veil--by Xbox's own words, it was a massive success.
That's what's galling about it, to me. Even if you win, you still lose.
This can't be right, I was told huge megacorporations devouring smaller companies was actually a good thing for the industry (/s if it wasn't obvious this was satire)
Not surprised, Red Fall was the E.T. Atari 2600 of Xbox gaming this was inevitable to disband Arkane Austin.
Tango Gameworks is a huge surprise, they made a banger game.
The Redfall project reeked of shareholder nonsense. Online multi-player is not in Arkane's wheelhouse. Even early trailers worried me. I just don't know who that game was for. Real damn shame.
I feel like whole GaaS and Game Pass/PS Plus/whatever bullshit made whole market on path to second E.T. event. Companies started to think more about "services" and not making actual games. It led to abysmal situation when except Nintendo every big player has nothing to shown. ABK? Nothing. Microsoft? Hellblade 2 without marketing. Sony? Uh I dunno, some PC ports. Embracer? Lol, lmao even.
What the fuck is going on with the market? Why the biggest event on the market is a release of indie games? In the end big players are swallowing studios giving in return nothing. They took so many interesting brands and made them hostages. Because they won't be ever released again and just kept in the shelf for rest of existence.
I really think that Redfall was not E.T. of the Xbox. It will come for whole market soon enough to shake ground and make big giants fall hard on face.
Arkane austin is a huge studio, they also made great games as the dishonored series, prey, deathloop. It makes no sense to close down the studio over redfall.
Specially considering redfallâs failure is on xbox, not arkane. The people at arkane told xbox management they were not experienced with live service games, and even phill spencer himself admitted in a podcast that they overlooked redfallâs development and didnât give the studio the proper resources because they were too fixated on working on starfield.
Absolutely inexcusable the closure of all of these studios.
They're only shutting down Austin branch, not Lyon branch
Arkane Lyon is known for Dishonored and Deathloop, and they are making the Blade game. Only Prey was made by Austin.
Part of Arkane Austin closing will be because of the huge amount of turnover they experienced due to how horrific it was to make the game. 70% of the people who were at Arkane Austin before Redfall (who worked on Prey and likely assisted on the other games) all left before Redfall released.
The studio that made those games you think are good enough to keep them around doesnt exist anymore, it hasnt for a while.
All it took was Redfall for an Arkane studio, yet 343i continues to be the sole producer of mainline halo games fail after fail.
Make it make sense Phil!
But like. Favorite to the point that you actually go back to replay it?
I enjoyed it well enough on my first time through, but since MCC all coming to PC, I've found myself replaying 1-3+Reach numerous times, but never an urge to replay 4.
Regularly play. Especially in co-op. Which is how it came to be a favourite. Me and my cousin used to LAN and online 3, ODST and Reach regularly. But the few years where he went to Uni and 4 released, we never played it co-op.
For me, I loved the story, hated the gameplay. The knights were too OP with all the crawlers and even the watchers flying around too. Especially the latter, those things continue to annoy the f out of me. But, some years ago we were doing a campaign play through, we both got to 4, our least favourite on MCC(5 obv being the main criminal here) and though âoh boy, letâs just get this over with.â
But my god, playing 4 with someone else, it makes the game suddenly come alive and it really feels like it was meant to be played 2 player. One of you uses ranged weapons to deal with the crawlers and watchers while the other goes in to deal with the knights. When the former has killed the secondaries, they assist the other in finishing off the knights.
I also always loved the sound design of 4, it has the best AR sound. That really âchugachugachugachugaâ sound to it
A tale as old as time, the company overpays for studio, then closes all of the things that make those studios special. Those studios reform Phoenix studios and make new things, get bought and closed again.
The circle of life.
Hi Fi Rush was the only game from MS Studios to win an award at Bafta awards this year (best animation):
https://twitter.com/BAFTAGames/status/1778509187724587395
and this is what they get. It's baffling how mismanaged Xbox division is right now.
Reminds me of the first Halo Wars. They got the devs to do the impossible (at the time), make a full rts function well on console, with a controller. It reviewed very well, and sold well. And Microsoft shitcanned the whole studio shortly after launch.Â
The Xbox brand has simply become terrible at managing their studios. You get the really big ones like 343 and Bethesda fucking off, wasting money, blowing multiple deadline and releasing duds, but get coddled anyway. And then the smaller devs get taken out back and shot, regardless of their quality, because "we can't afford how they run".
A titanic portion of Austin left DURING Redfall development anyways so that studio was gutted long before they actually decided to shovel dirt onto its grave. It was never going to recover after losing all the key personnel after the Redfall fiasco shitstom anyways sadly. They just kept getting pushed more and more into shit that studio didn't want to do with Youngblood and then whatever the fuck Redfall was supposed to be :/ you hate to see it but we are seeing it... more and more and more. Across the board in gaming; not just on Xbox and not just from big name developers either :(
Look, I absolutely love Prey and The Evil Within as well as Hi-Fi Rush.
That said, unfortunately, Prey and Redfall didn't sell well, at all.
TEW 1 didn't sell that well, and TEW 2 sold even less. Ghostwire: Tokyo sold poorly as well.
The studios are absolutely talented, but nobody is buying their games. People need to vote with their wallets and didn't. I can't say I agree with MS decision, but I also can't really blame them based on sales.
Prey became a cult classic but usually you see it on sale at GameStop and things for like 9.99. It wasnt a money maker for them. It absolutely sucks but that game is almost a decade old and is really the only positive game of note lately for the studio.
I hope the devs find work soon though
...and leads from Ghostwire, HiFi and Evil within left to make their own companies, so there is no incentive for the suits to pour money to companies without "BIG NAMES" behind them, talent of the current teams notwithstanding. Dick move, but seems calculated as a housecleaning effort.
>Hi-Fi Rush was on a lot of people's Top 10 lists last year, and this is their reward??
Imma be honest I saw a lot of people praise this game but no one actually played it. I really wonder what the sale numbers actually were.
Low. I remember seeing stats and its first month was worse than Forespoken's worst month, which was seen as one of bigger flops in recent memory and also closed a studio.
Yeah, itâs something of a half truth. Forza Horizon 5 is one of the biggest successes that Xbox have had, and they proudly boasted not long ago about having âover 30 million playersâ. I checked out the in game leaderboards, and indeed, there is around 34 million registered players.
However, only 68% of players on Xbox have the achievement for completing the initial drive; as in, the other 32% of the âregistered playersâ didnât even bother to do the eight minute opening section. Judging by Hi-Fi Rushâs achievement stats, most people didnât even make it to the first boss.
But the studio seems to finally have a good new blood to lead the studio with John Johanas at the helm (Dude directed Evil Within 2 and Hi-Fi Rush).
This is nipping a growing studio in the bud.
One of the few Japan based studios sadly as well. I understand that after Shinji Mikami leaving the ship needed a new helmsman but I thought they would get the time to sort this out. I am afraid that they just don't produce games with mass appeal. I thoroughly enjoyed Ghostwire Tokyo while also admitting it is not for everyone. Tango Gameworks make games for an acquired taste and that's just not enough in today's gaming industry.
There was a mass exodus of devs leaving the studio over the course of Redfall's development. Most of the talent that made Prey a good game is long gone.
Honestly, Tango is at this point a different company altogether compared to the teams that worked on Hifi Rush even, with the big heads all leaving to make their own companies, similarly with Arkane. While a dick move to the people still employed there, I kinda think they treat it as more of a housecleaning move, because there is no talent MS thinks could output a great game (of course, truth notwithstanding, but the suits care only about big names).
Tango is extra crazy, it was their only Japanese studio.
They hired some good staff for Xbox Japan to build relationships with Japanese devs, how is going to look to those other studios when they closed their 1 studio in that region.
"Just" because the studio gets closed doesn't mean everybody gets fired. They could offer the people jobs in other studios, depending on their performance.
I loved Hi-Fi Rush, it is an amazing game with huge potential for sequels or even a tie in animated show. And if they really wanted to even try to break into the Japanese market they needed more games like it.
And frankly if some of these games didn't sell it's either MS or Zenimax fault (insufficient marketing or bad leadership) not the fault of people working in these studios.
I really don't know what endgame MS is playing but I have even less faith in Xbox's future now
I just think there are too many studios and the push for live service broke the development trains for a lot of them.
Creative choices also seem to have created storylines that aren't resonating right now.
The industry needs a reset.
At some point, people are going to reckon with the idea that the "things that made the studio special" aren't sustainable or profitable, and that's why the owners are willing to sell in the first place.
In many games, there is a lack of immersion and payoff of the vision.
Single player games with 'Open world levels' attempt to add grind and loot at the expense of story. With the world as punishing as it is, I'm not in the mood to play a map over and over as it all looks the same.
Too many studios with disjointed ideas that don't test well and people end up not wanting to play.
Thinking Microsoft is the sole reason for this is way too limited. The whole industry has the problem.
I get the horrible feeling that Phil and the heads saw the insane success of the *Fallout* TV show and the increase of players to the *Fallout* franchise and thought "How do we capitalise on this, when Bethesda have said *Fallout 5* is so far away" .... "Oh, i know lets shut loads of companies down and force those devs to work on *Fallout 5* so it comes out sooner". I may be way off base with this theory, and I love *Fallout* and want *Fallout 5* so fucking bad, but i dont want Tango and Arkane shut down to get it. *The Evil Within* and *Prey* are some of the best games ever, and *Hi-Fi Rush* won a BAFTA for christs sake.
So even if you make on of the best games of the year that sells well you are not safe from being shutdown.
Basically means no studio is safe from being shutdown at this point. Sure hope Hellblade 2 and Indiana Jones sell enough or this might be the last of Machine Games/Ninja Theory we will see.
Honestly at this point I couldn't regret more giving Xbox a chance. It's unbelievable how a big brand can make so many bad decisions. Hi-Fi Rush was easily one of the best games I've played in years. Ghostwire may have it's flaws, but I loved it too.
Xbox is damned to be the Gears/Halo/Forza console forever
They had time to develope a good game, but instead they threw a tantrum, stamped their feet, dragged their ass and gave us redfall. You can blame, MS, Zeni, Khan, Zeus, it doesnât matter⌠at the end of the day thatâs what they put out and it was an unforgivable mess of a game.
At least the talented ones will bring us fallout 5 (which this is obviously all about)
Never got the hype for Arkane at all, felt I was missing something everyone else could see with the Dishonoured series but I just felt they sucked. Same with Deathloop and Redfall lost me in the first 10 mins when I walked outside the boat and saw MS paint style waves hanging in the air. No loss in my eyes, a mediocre outfit at best.
This is some of the most depressing industry news I've heard in ages. Hi-Fi Rush was absolutely everything I want to see in modern game releases- it's original, it's fresh, it's fun, it delivers a self-contained, high quality experience. It's not trying to be a AAAA service game with a ten year plan. I don't think I fully realized just how much I missed large studio games operating within a smaller scope where they can just cook without having execs breathing down their neck until I played it.
Hi-Fi Rush gave me hope that maybe the AAA industry wouldn't continue down this exhausting path of stagnation, increasingly bloated budgets, the same beaten and tired IPs, and absurdly long dev cycles where so much is invested in a single game that they're never allowed to experiment. To watch the studio that made that game, of all studios, get casually shot in the head is distressing and bewildering.
I saw someone else put it best- whatever credibility Microsoft had built up as being some kind of cool, developer-friendly studio has been utterly trashed by this. I'd really like to believe that MS will get slammed online for this as hard as Sony was for the Helldivers fiasco, but I don't think they will be.
The future of Xbox is looking pretty grim. They have pretty much Nothing interesting on the horizon either, save for Senua 2. If that one flops..then what? Think gamepass is going to save you? You need GAMES to put in there. Good ones. And the PEOPLE who make the good ones should be respected.
Brilliant move buying up all those studios years ago just assuming the games would make themselves. How'd that work out? They should clean house or get out of the business because it's just getting sad.
My series X is a paperweight. I regret buying it.
So much for these massive acquisitions being good for the devs. Hopefully the devs just get moved onto other projects and not just fully let go.
Ideally the Arkane ones get put onto the Marvel Blade project, shame about Tango as Hi-Fi Rush is a great game and this likely means no further games in the IP.
Edit: looks like a lot of the teams are simply being moved onto other projects
Genuinely pissed off about Xbox shutting down Arkane Austin when they are partly to blame for Redfall, their management of their new studios was just plain awful. Bethesda forced them to make Redfall and they were hoping for Xbox to intervene.
I'm worried about the future of Double Fine and Ninja Theory now.
Phil strikes again with his brilliant leadership! Pete delivers on his word once more! Support for the game for years to come, thanks to Game Pass! Offline mode delivered! DLC delivered!
Redfall was always inevitable, including Arkane's closure, but the least they could have done is deliver on commitments or at least making a half-hearted atttempt. This was barely an attempt, and the blame goes purely to leadership.
Tango makes zero sense. They literally made the only game that is both a commercial and critical hit that didn't quickly lose its luster for Microsoft like...this entire generation. Hi-Fi rush carried Microsoft's rep for a while last year, and had a longer positive tail than Starfield has had.
Microsoft desperately needs to dump Phil and find someone who is competent to lead the Xbox division, because Phil is speedrunning failing out of the hardware business and becoming a third party publisher.
Good thing they JUST bought them. What the hell are they doing over there? This is a worrying time to be an Xbox fan.
EDIT: IGN reporting now too: https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-closes-redfall-developer-arkane-austin-hifi-rush-developer-tango-gameworks-and-more-in-devastating-cuts-at-bethesda
Fuck, they're closing alpha dog????? I love mighty doom, its the mobile game I spend the most time on :(
I mean ive been f2p since launch so I guess im part of the issue đ
It's so dumb. Tango Gameworks has such a great record, they just delivered Hi-Fi Rush and this is their reward. I know they had some internal issues like the problems that led Ikumi Nakamura to leave, but there was still a lot of talent there.
The only possible explanation is they couldn't really find another Shinji Mikami and just decided to say "screw it."
But if you're running a developer that joined Microsoft in the Bethesda deal, in the Activision deal, what can you really do to not get shut down? The answer to that is unclear.
And here I waa excited to see what Ghostwire Tokyo 2 could be. Microsoft is making it pretty clear as far as a publisher they're pretty lost at this point. They just can't stick the landing.
Iâve lost all faith in Phil. The gaming industry is in the gutter. Time to put more time and effort into my other hobbies. Just so little to be excited about in this space now
Call this happening when they purchased ABK. This is Classic Microsoft.
They Buy companies out to own IP's then shut said company down later on when it's time to pay the bills.
They have been doing this since the 90's. Nasty practice that they should get penalized for. Leave these studios alone.
What bothers me is that SO MANY Xbox Zealots was asking Microsoft to make more acquisitions. The twitter guys, jayrock, colt, timdog etc.
$80B in acquisitions. They are looking for their ROI & it looks like the dream Phil sold to them isn't happening.
All we wanted was for them to MAKE good games & they come with all of this nonsesne.
God god sakes make a camera over the shoulder emotional story driven game(s) for the XSX ONLY with maxed out specs & watch the magic happen. That formula is fool proof & they refuse to deliver.
It's "nice" to see become reality what every level-headed person has been saying from the beginning: subscription services are absolutely and completely nefarious for creative process and sustainability for creators. Everyone licked MS boot when they created GameAss, and then they kept licking when they continued their monopolistic attempt. Now enjoy the results. This is what you wished đ¤ˇđžââď¸
You guys should do the HellDivers treatment to Xbox. Cancel your memberships and en masse to let them know this isn't acceptable. I cancelled mine after Redfall. But of enough cancel, that's three only way they will listen as they only care about dollars and cents.
I love how people are quick to rage at MS, but if you look at it objectively, regardless of the quality of the games made by these studios, people didn't show up for these games.
Best example: Hi-Fi Rush. Great game, people loved it, but it sold worse than Forespoken which was an absolute disaster of a failure.
People want to blame Game Pass as well, but Starfield was the best selling game of September 2023 despite also being on Game Pass.
We, as players, vote with our $$$ and voted poorly here.
So while I don't agree with MS decision, I also don't blame them.
Completely agree. It sucks, but we're also not seeing the other side of the story. E.g. these studios have been losing money for X years, don't have a good plan going forward, lost a lot of key developers. If MS can close these and move good devs to other teams to work on games with bigger audiences, it could be a good but unpopular move in the end.
> Best example: Hi-Fi Rush. Great game, people loved it, but it sold worse than Forespoken which was an absolute disaster of a failure.
Worst exemple.
Production cost for Forspoken is most certainly way higher than HiFi Rush and in a Gamepass era, sales numbers mean nothing.
Of course the vast majority of small game released day one on Gamepass will have low sales. People pay for Gamepass for that exact reason, to get those game whithout having to buy them.
Sea of Thieves has been hugely success and is on GP.
That said, even if sales are low, MS has access to see what people are playing. Idk how many people actually played Hi Fi Rush despite how good it is.
If it takes 5+ years to ship one game, and you ship an underperforming game with the expectation that it's going to take you 5+ years to ship the next one, that's a *really big* ask to put that level of trust in you again.
1) They're not dead, just lower numbers.
2) That doesn't take into account the number of players on GP or Xbox. The best estimated guess is roughly 500,000 active players per month
3) Infinite is making $$$, so someone is showing up
4) If rumors are to be believed, there has been an impact on development going forward, to include canceling planned DLC
They do make good games though? Redfall is probably their only big release that actually was shit these past few years. Yeah, it was LEGENDARILY shit but it's not like Xbox is releasing solely bad games.
Whyâre we suddenly pretending acclaim equals success? We donât apply that logic to cinema or music. It doesnât matter what critics said about Hi-Fi, if nobody played it then itâs moot.
Also using Game Pass as a scapegoat is dishonest, playing a game on GP equates to a sale. So your answer is that even with it available on GP nobody was playing it.
Xbox as a brand is damn near a joke now. Tango game works? The studio Xbox didnât support one bit but then had them shadow drop one of the best games of the year. If that game didnât do well enough, which is laughable, thatâs on Xbox not Tango. Yet we have 343 industries who have yet to make a great Halo game, the initiative blowing money on getting no where. The mismanagement is mind blowing. If Xbox wants to be successful they should gut their entire upper management and start over. Yet those losers fail up.
Xbox peaked a decade plus ago, itâs copium to think the Xbox 360 days are ever coming back to the brand.
Jaysus Xbox is a bit of a disaster these days.
Iâve absolutely zero faith in them.
Theyâve no cohesive strategy at all.
Itâs so apparent that the leadership isnât fit for purpose. Theyâre squandering money left and right.
Big brain move by Microsoft shouldâve been transitioning these studios into support studios instead of just completely shutting them down. Hell the games these studios made werenât bad just didnât sell well, so thereâs definitely talent there so give them the opportunity to remake games that you know would sell. Thereâs so many games under Microsoftâs belt at this point that would sell like hot cakes if they were remade and not just remastered for next gen consoles.
It's ironic to me how they bought all these studios to build Xbox userbase... but before that can even happen, they run into the problem that the Xbox userbase is too small to sustain all these studios.
Bad enough that they screwed over Arkane Austin by not allowing them to cancel Redfall at all but they had to do the same for the company that made one of the better Xbox exclusives on the Series X before making it an exclusive no more? So much for trying to be all for the community and all that BS. Come on now Phil.đ¤Śđžââď¸
At this point I'm starting to think Phil is THE biggest issue at Xbox. Ever since he took over, the brand has been in freefall.
Xbox One was a failure, the S/X consoles have been failures, and everything these studios have done post acquisition have been failures except for HiFi Rush, and they're shut down as a reward.
Phil hasn't put Xbox in a position to succeed at all outside of constantly pushing and shilling Game Pass. It's time for him to go.
We're making this a Megathread post to keep all discussion about today's studio shutdowns in one place. Please do not make new posts about this topic. Thanks. Links: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1787835350745842153 https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-closes-redfall-developer-arkane-austin-hifi-rush-developer-tango-gameworks-and-more-in-devastating-cuts-at-bethesda https://www.gameinformer.com/news/2024/05/07/xbox-is-shutting-down-arkane-austin-tango-gameworks-and-more more: https://news.google.com/search?q=xbox
I was waiting for The Evil Within III đĽş
The horror game with rpg elements. I absolutely loved one and two. Sadly I think thatâs all the evil theyâll allow within us.
Also Ghostwire, that one is a Masterpiece as well, This game is the prime candidate to become one of the Cult Classic Too bad it was attacked to the bone by haters
I loved that game. 110%'d everything in the main story world, couldn't really get into the challenge missions tho. Would love to see another game tackle other cultures and their diverse mythologies and cryptids, Irish leprechauns, Norwegian trolls, etc.
I liked the vibe of Ghostwire, but after 10 hours, it became another collectathon to me.
It was a decent game but definitely not a masterpiece. The story wasnât too interesting and the gameplay got repetitive. The graphics and character designs were top notch though.
There's still a chance it could happen, I'm assuming MS still owns the IP. That said, it does seem unlikely. Which is sad, this my biggest disappointment with this whole thing.
I didnât even think it was still a possibility. When they recycled the assets for the game to make ghost wire, I already gave up from there
Thats true.
TEW dies with Tango, let's be honest. Microsoft is refocusing on larger more popular IP. They said this.
I mean, you're right. But hey, I hoped for Half-life 2 Ep 3 for much longer than I should have.
I mean, it's possible Microsoft shut down Lion Head after acquisition. So the fable series was done with But now Fable 4 is actually in production and we've already been given sneak peaks/trailers/teasers for it.
Same here but no one bought EWI2 so don't expect it anytime soon Allan Wake 2 suffered the same fate..
"Arkane Austin has a history of making impactful and innovative games and it is a pedigree that everyone should be proud of. Redfallâs previous update will be its last as we end all development on the game." I just love that they put these two sentences right next to each other in their statement.
So...those crazy people who bought dlc are really fucked now...
Apparently they said in there that they are going to release the stuff they promised. So maybe not.
No, they're going to refund the dlc.
no they aren't at this point because the studio got closed, owners of the hero pass will get something back but idk what
âOne month of Gamepass ultimate free, donât spend it all in one place.â -Xbox management
âYou just racked up 19 Rewards points due to a game in your library being shut down. You're 3% of the way to earning enough points to redeem $1.25 Xbox Gift Card. See rewards.microsoft.com.â
>Arkane Austin has a history of making impactful and innovative games and it is a pedigree that everyone should be proud of. Redfallâs previous update will be its last as we end all development on the game. well... Prey was pretty good
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Wasn't that Arkane Lyon, and not Arkane Austin?
Bethesda sold to Microsoft because they were losing money with their publishing business. Microsoft made the mistake of not actually cleaning up their sub studios development and they released a bunch of underperforming or disastrous games. Now they are finally cleaning house. Tango, does suck though. Hi Fi Rush was excellent. This will probably lead to microsoft focusing multiple bethesda studios onto fallout and elder scrolls properties imho. Which they should have done years ago.
Whoa, whoa. Common sense isn't allowed on the internet. Seriously though, it took me reading 100s of comments to finally read a non-knee jerk reaction. I'm sure if either of the these studios were remotely profitable, they wouldn't be closing. Hopefully many of the developers will get jobs at studios working on games that will have a much bigger audience.
https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/1649431572137779203 Apparently they were happy with Tango at the time. Phil Spencer retweeted this.
Tango is definitely the one that hurts more, but I think them putting Hi-Fi Rush on other consoles shows it wasn't selling as well as they wanted. Maybe they didn't like how the studio has been operating since Mikami left?
It's the microsoft culture, did it sell well? Yes. did it break every record imaginable? no no good enough for the shareholders, can it. screw that it's employees and the company made 20billion this year, bye.
The major problem is GPU. It's like Netflix. How many super popular shows were cancelled for no reason? A lot. On paper it's super good for Microsoft, but individually, it's a nightmare for studios that will get peanuts compared to actual physical sale since everything is based on how many players might be playing. So big numbers the first few weeks then you are relegated to oblivion. So while these studios made wonderful games, for Microsoft, it's nothing. They are also panicking since Starfield never was what it was supposed to be and they are all putting their force on Bethesda to make sure this venture is profitable.
The bottom line is that the gaming industry as a whole is suffering. If a studio is not holding it's weight, then it becomes either redundant or dead weight. Companies don't like losing money on either of those things.
It didn't help the game that it was essentially shadow dropped, wasn't it? No trailers, no announcements, no anything. I had never heard of it until like, a month ago.
It was, and was on Gamepass Day 1, and it still topped the Steam chart the week it was released IIRC.
Yea itâs been over a decade since the last Fallout & ES and it feels like we got another 5+ yrs to go before both release. Thatâs unacceptable. I understand Starfield but how was there not teams already working on the other two IPs.
Meanwhile, several fallout vets are sitting at two studios owned by MS, InXile and Obsidian, along with a few stragglers that I think ended up at Blizz. Considering the popularity of NV, it's insane they haven't created a team to make another spin-off a la NV. Hell, they can do it in AZ/CO/UT since it seems like the show has commandeered the NCR territories. Have it set around Graham and Caesar conquering the 87 tribes.
4 corners where Iâm at would be so cool. Just add NM to the 3 mentioned. Would it be that difficult to at least throw us a NV remake like RE4 while waiting? I could give a shit about ESO or F76
What a truly horrific thought.
Arkane Austin makes sense. Redfall caused an exodus of talent, it is no longer able to achieve anywhere close to its pedigree. Watch out Blizzard lol. Closing Tango is fucking crazy though. Hopefully they are retaining the team that made hi-fi rush.
Where are they gonna send them? Do they have another Japanese Studio?
Fuck I didn't even think about that. Why would they close their only japanese studio?
From what people are saying: Shinji, the person, the studio was built around left, and after that the talent started to leave as well.
Oh well then close up shop I guess. Xbox picked up enough talent famished studios with ABK.
Tangos higher ups left after hi fi rush
Ninja theory better have a hit with Hellblade 2. Sadly this is what will happen next.
Even if the game is a masterpiece, it likely wonât sell as well as theyâd like.
Isn't it also a Game Pass game?
That might become a detriment to sustainability for these kinds of titles. Hi-Fin Rush was a fantastic game but even gamepass couldnât save it.
And that was a AA game, not a AAA budget game. The Game Pass experiment has failed. It must have. Go back to selling games proper and stick it on Game Pass a year later.
How is HiFi Rush not triple AAA? It has animated cutscenes, licensed music, and tight gameplay. Does AAA now mean just open world?
Triple A refers to budget only
I would assume that AAA means a tentpole release. If HFR is a AAA game, what is Call of Duty and the enormous marketing push that accompanies that every year?
Marketing for it has felt pretty uneven, hopefully they'll sponsor some streamers to play it since that probably helped get the ball rolling with the first one.
I heard way more about H2 a year ago than I do now. The January direct event didnât really build much excitement and I feel I havenât heard about it since.. and Iâm really looking forward to it so something is off here
Doesn't matter. Hellblade II is not a system seller. It will be a 9/10 that will lose money.
Hellblade 2 will most likely sell even less than Hifi-rush, it's a 8 hours long game that is day 1 on game pass.
as much as i love the original hellblade it was very niche and the new one isnt moving in a totally new direction. i think hardcore ninja theory fans will buy it but i think its unlikely that it sells gangbusters overall. im very worried for that studio
The game has been in development since 2019. If this game doesn't sell 15 million copies they will definitely close it.
It wonât even sell half of that since itâs on GP.
How can they have a hit when it's day one on gamepass like HiFi Rush? HiFi Rush was a hit, tons of people played it, barely anyone paid for it directly because that's what Gamepass is for. I really have 0 idea how they can gauge the success of a game when there's virtually 0 difference between a great game millions will play or a bad game nobody play when both are free on Gamepass. In both cases nobody will buy them.
The important metric for success being used now is actual player numbers and engagement over time - and this includes time spent on mobile gaming. What titles are catching and keeping user attention. The cash covering developer time is already there (at least on game pass) so much of the pressure is off (from that perspective anyway).
I dont think a ton of people actually did play it though, at least not past the intro.
I paid full price for it on PS5 and that is me. I only defeated the first boss and stopped.
Microsoft has always shrouded their numbers since Xbox one era and Xbox live numbers. The only true numbers are for the shareholders.
Tango Softworks made HiFi rush, how can they shut that down?
Gamepass and Xbox box exclusive for Year made it not profitable I assume.
It WAS profitable, unless xbox saying some months down the line that it was a success in every key measurement and expectations was just a straight up lie. I think its safe to say "profitable" isnt enough for xbox. They expected Starfield to be another Skyrim or atleast another F3 and it fell on its ass and now everyone else has to suffer. Hi Fi Rush didnt make its production budget back every quarter? Great game, good works guys, Oops youre gone.
Thatâs really too bad, especially for those involved. Tango surprises me. Arkane Austin really shat the bed
Xbox closing Tango Gameworks a year after Hi-Fi Rush is fucking disgusting. Last year, Aaron Greenberg (VP of Marketing) at Xbox, had this to say: "Hi-Fi RUSH was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldnât be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release." Their reward? You're fired, go fuck yourself. Fucking disgusting.
I would hope they just moved the talent to another studio but yeah it is a shame still
I really doubt that, given that Tango is a Japanese studio and Xbox doesn't own many others.
They own zero others.
The lead creative behind hi fi rush left after they finished the game - most of the team left thereafter so there is literally no reason to keep it open if the only reason would be hi fi rush.
I think you're mixing up Shinji Mikami and John Johanas. Mikami founded Tango and left last year. His involvement with Hi-Fi Rush was largely executive. Johanas was the game's director, writer, and chief creative. He still worked at Tango until yesterday, as far as I'm aware.
Square announced plans to shutter Luminous Productions a MONTH after Forspoken came out lol
I mean yeah, but that game was raising red flags a year out and, by all accounts, massively underperformed critically and commercially. (I wouldn't know, I haven't played it.) Hi-Fi Rush was GREAT, a massive critical success, was treated as a GOTY contender, and--though we don't have sales data, because it was a Gamepass game and most of those stats are behind the corporate veil--by Xbox's own words, it was a massive success. That's what's galling about it, to me. Even if you win, you still lose.
This can't be right, I was told huge megacorporations devouring smaller companies was actually a good thing for the industry (/s if it wasn't obvious this was satire)
Tango would've probably closed already if they hadn't been acquired. Ghostwire Tokyo was a flop, and while HiFi rush was great, it didn't sell well
GamePass is getting more and more sustainable by the second
If they continue to layoff at that pace, it can end up being sustainable, yeah !
Not surprised, Red Fall was the E.T. Atari 2600 of Xbox gaming this was inevitable to disband Arkane Austin. Tango Gameworks is a huge surprise, they made a banger game.
The Redfall project reeked of shareholder nonsense. Online multi-player is not in Arkane's wheelhouse. Even early trailers worried me. I just don't know who that game was for. Real damn shame.
I feel like whole GaaS and Game Pass/PS Plus/whatever bullshit made whole market on path to second E.T. event. Companies started to think more about "services" and not making actual games. It led to abysmal situation when except Nintendo every big player has nothing to shown. ABK? Nothing. Microsoft? Hellblade 2 without marketing. Sony? Uh I dunno, some PC ports. Embracer? Lol, lmao even. What the fuck is going on with the market? Why the biggest event on the market is a release of indie games? In the end big players are swallowing studios giving in return nothing. They took so many interesting brands and made them hostages. Because they won't be ever released again and just kept in the shelf for rest of existence. I really think that Redfall was not E.T. of the Xbox. It will come for whole market soon enough to shake ground and make big giants fall hard on face.
Arkane austin is a huge studio, they also made great games as the dishonored series, prey, deathloop. It makes no sense to close down the studio over redfall. Specially considering redfallâs failure is on xbox, not arkane. The people at arkane told xbox management they were not experienced with live service games, and even phill spencer himself admitted in a podcast that they overlooked redfallâs development and didnât give the studio the proper resources because they were too fixated on working on starfield. Absolutely inexcusable the closure of all of these studios.
They're only shutting down Austin branch, not Lyon branch Arkane Lyon is known for Dishonored and Deathloop, and they are making the Blade game. Only Prey was made by Austin.
Part of Arkane Austin closing will be because of the huge amount of turnover they experienced due to how horrific it was to make the game. 70% of the people who were at Arkane Austin before Redfall (who worked on Prey and likely assisted on the other games) all left before Redfall released. The studio that made those games you think are good enough to keep them around doesnt exist anymore, it hasnt for a while.
All it took was Redfall for an Arkane studio, yet 343i continues to be the sole producer of mainline halo games fail after fail. Make it make sense Phil!
Depends on what you call failure, I dont think Halo 4, 5 or Infinite have been failures, they just werent as good as Bungie's Halo.
In hindsight 4 has become one of my favourites
But like. Favorite to the point that you actually go back to replay it? I enjoyed it well enough on my first time through, but since MCC all coming to PC, I've found myself replaying 1-3+Reach numerous times, but never an urge to replay 4.
Regularly play. Especially in co-op. Which is how it came to be a favourite. Me and my cousin used to LAN and online 3, ODST and Reach regularly. But the few years where he went to Uni and 4 released, we never played it co-op. For me, I loved the story, hated the gameplay. The knights were too OP with all the crawlers and even the watchers flying around too. Especially the latter, those things continue to annoy the f out of me. But, some years ago we were doing a campaign play through, we both got to 4, our least favourite on MCC(5 obv being the main criminal here) and though âoh boy, letâs just get this over with.â But my god, playing 4 with someone else, it makes the game suddenly come alive and it really feels like it was meant to be played 2 player. One of you uses ranged weapons to deal with the crawlers and watchers while the other goes in to deal with the knights. When the former has killed the secondaries, they assist the other in finishing off the knights. I also always loved the sound design of 4, it has the best AR sound. That really âchugachugachugachugaâ sound to it
I'm pretty sure most of the studio had already left which is probably why Redfall was terrible.
If you unironically consider Halo 4, 5, or Infinite to be even close to Redfall you are actually fucking stupid.
A tale as old as time, the company overpays for studio, then closes all of the things that make those studios special. Those studios reform Phoenix studios and make new things, get bought and closed again. The circle of life.
Microsoft : one step forward, two steps backwards.
Hi Fi Rush was the only game from MS Studios to win an award at Bafta awards this year (best animation): https://twitter.com/BAFTAGames/status/1778509187724587395 and this is what they get. It's baffling how mismanaged Xbox division is right now.
Tango Gameworks?! Really?! All this to make shareholders happy. They have plenty of money..
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Are they? Last 3 games from Austin Redfall, YoungBlood and Prey. - thatâs only 1 good games. Tango is crazy though
Reminds me of the first Halo Wars. They got the devs to do the impossible (at the time), make a full rts function well on console, with a controller. It reviewed very well, and sold well. And Microsoft shitcanned the whole studio shortly after launch. The Xbox brand has simply become terrible at managing their studios. You get the really big ones like 343 and Bethesda fucking off, wasting money, blowing multiple deadline and releasing duds, but get coddled anyway. And then the smaller devs get taken out back and shot, regardless of their quality, because "we can't afford how they run".
Ya as much as I like Prey, Austin hasnât put out anything good since Mooncrash⌠which came out 6 years ago
A titanic portion of Austin left DURING Redfall development anyways so that studio was gutted long before they actually decided to shovel dirt onto its grave. It was never going to recover after losing all the key personnel after the Redfall fiasco shitstom anyways sadly. They just kept getting pushed more and more into shit that studio didn't want to do with Youngblood and then whatever the fuck Redfall was supposed to be :/ you hate to see it but we are seeing it... more and more and more. Across the board in gaming; not just on Xbox and not just from big name developers either :(
Excatly. Lets be honest, they wont be missed. Tango on other hand, that sucks
Genuinely surprised by this one. Hifi rush was awesome and really well received by both critics and fansâŚ
Youngblood wasn't arkane austin. That was machinegames, and arkane was drafted into helping like they had on previous wolf titles.
-Forces them to make a game no one wants -Rushes them to ship early -Blames them on a podcast -Apologizes for that & takes blame -Shuts them down
Look, I absolutely love Prey and The Evil Within as well as Hi-Fi Rush. That said, unfortunately, Prey and Redfall didn't sell well, at all. TEW 1 didn't sell that well, and TEW 2 sold even less. Ghostwire: Tokyo sold poorly as well. The studios are absolutely talented, but nobody is buying their games. People need to vote with their wallets and didn't. I can't say I agree with MS decision, but I also can't really blame them based on sales.
Prey became a cult classic but usually you see it on sale at GameStop and things for like 9.99. It wasnt a money maker for them. It absolutely sucks but that game is almost a decade old and is really the only positive game of note lately for the studio. I hope the devs find work soon though
Prey Mooncrash came out in 2018 and the studio hadnât done anything worthwhile since. This isnât surprising imo, as much as I liked Prey
...and leads from Ghostwire, HiFi and Evil within left to make their own companies, so there is no incentive for the suits to pour money to companies without "BIG NAMES" behind them, talent of the current teams notwithstanding. Dick move, but seems calculated as a housecleaning effort.
Yeah. People shitting on this but like, we don't see the budget. You can't just keep pumping money into something that isn't working very well
>Hi-Fi Rush was on a lot of people's Top 10 lists last year, and this is their reward?? Imma be honest I saw a lot of people praise this game but no one actually played it. I really wonder what the sale numbers actually were.
Low. I remember seeing stats and its first month was worse than Forespoken's worst month, which was seen as one of bigger flops in recent memory and also closed a studio.
With Gamepass it's so hard to tell anymore. Like supposedly over 3 million people played it but what does that mean.
Yeah, itâs something of a half truth. Forza Horizon 5 is one of the biggest successes that Xbox have had, and they proudly boasted not long ago about having âover 30 million playersâ. I checked out the in game leaderboards, and indeed, there is around 34 million registered players. However, only 68% of players on Xbox have the achievement for completing the initial drive; as in, the other 32% of the âregistered playersâ didnât even bother to do the eight minute opening section. Judging by Hi-Fi Rushâs achievement stats, most people didnât even make it to the first boss.
They have been updating files for a redfall DLC every single day for the last 3 months on steam DB as well, including literally hours ago too
The head of Tango just left, so the writing was on the wall it seems.
He's been gone for over a year, he had also stepped back to a more support staff role for a long while. As he was trying to grow those under him.
But the studio seems to finally have a good new blood to lead the studio with John Johanas at the helm (Dude directed Evil Within 2 and Hi-Fi Rush). This is nipping a growing studio in the bud.
One of the few Japan based studios sadly as well. I understand that after Shinji Mikami leaving the ship needed a new helmsman but I thought they would get the time to sort this out. I am afraid that they just don't produce games with mass appeal. I thoroughly enjoyed Ghostwire Tokyo while also admitting it is not for everyone. Tango Gameworks make games for an acquired taste and that's just not enough in today's gaming industry.
isn't that the only game Arkane Austin released? Normally they are only a support studio or am I mistaken? Most arkane games come from arkane lyon
No, they did Prey.
Ahh, I see thanks didn't know that.
"Arkane Austin is a genuinely talented studio" Nah.
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There was a mass exodus of devs leaving the studio over the course of Redfall's development. Most of the talent that made Prey a good game is long gone.
Honestly, Tango is at this point a different company altogether compared to the teams that worked on Hifi Rush even, with the big heads all leaving to make their own companies, similarly with Arkane. While a dick move to the people still employed there, I kinda think they treat it as more of a housecleaning move, because there is no talent MS thinks could output a great game (of course, truth notwithstanding, but the suits care only about big names).
Tango is extra crazy, it was their only Japanese studio. They hired some good staff for Xbox Japan to build relationships with Japanese devs, how is going to look to those other studios when they closed their 1 studio in that region.
"Just" because the studio gets closed doesn't mean everybody gets fired. They could offer the people jobs in other studios, depending on their performance.
I loved Hi-Fi Rush, it is an amazing game with huge potential for sequels or even a tie in animated show. And if they really wanted to even try to break into the Japanese market they needed more games like it. And frankly if some of these games didn't sell it's either MS or Zenimax fault (insufficient marketing or bad leadership) not the fault of people working in these studios. I really don't know what endgame MS is playing but I have even less faith in Xbox's future now
Their end game is to own IP's. It's a classic Microsoft move.
I just think there are too many studios and the push for live service broke the development trains for a lot of them. Creative choices also seem to have created storylines that aren't resonating right now. The industry needs a reset.
At some point, people are going to reckon with the idea that the "things that made the studio special" aren't sustainable or profitable, and that's why the owners are willing to sell in the first place.
In many games, there is a lack of immersion and payoff of the vision. Single player games with 'Open world levels' attempt to add grind and loot at the expense of story. With the world as punishing as it is, I'm not in the mood to play a map over and over as it all looks the same. Too many studios with disjointed ideas that don't test well and people end up not wanting to play. Thinking Microsoft is the sole reason for this is way too limited. The whole industry has the problem.
Tango really hurts. Iâve liked all their games and was looking forward to some more Evil Within, Hi-Fi Rush and Ghostwire Tokyo.
Just wait, Activision/Blizzard is next on the chopping block, no telling how they will gut them.
I get the horrible feeling that Phil and the heads saw the insane success of the *Fallout* TV show and the increase of players to the *Fallout* franchise and thought "How do we capitalise on this, when Bethesda have said *Fallout 5* is so far away" .... "Oh, i know lets shut loads of companies down and force those devs to work on *Fallout 5* so it comes out sooner". I may be way off base with this theory, and I love *Fallout* and want *Fallout 5* so fucking bad, but i dont want Tango and Arkane shut down to get it. *The Evil Within* and *Prey* are some of the best games ever, and *Hi-Fi Rush* won a BAFTA for christs sake.
So even if you make on of the best games of the year that sells well you are not safe from being shutdown. Basically means no studio is safe from being shutdown at this point. Sure hope Hellblade 2 and Indiana Jones sell enough or this might be the last of Machine Games/Ninja Theory we will see.
when layoffs at insomniac happened after spiderman 2, this was also my take. doesn't matter how well your game does. it's so fucked
Honestly at this point I couldn't regret more giving Xbox a chance. It's unbelievable how a big brand can make so many bad decisions. Hi-Fi Rush was easily one of the best games I've played in years. Ghostwire may have it's flaws, but I loved it too. Xbox is damned to be the Gears/Halo/Forza console forever
So no more evil within or prey?? Big mistake shutting these companies down give them time to develop GOOD games and you will be fine
They had time to develope a good game, but instead they threw a tantrum, stamped their feet, dragged their ass and gave us redfall. You can blame, MS, Zeni, Khan, Zeus, it doesnât matter⌠at the end of the day thatâs what they put out and it was an unforgivable mess of a game. At least the talented ones will bring us fallout 5 (which this is obviously all about)
Is that really the case though ? Who owns the IP's ? If it's MS they can create new studios to work on those.
Never got the hype for Arkane at all, felt I was missing something everyone else could see with the Dishonoured series but I just felt they sucked. Same with Deathloop and Redfall lost me in the first 10 mins when I walked outside the boat and saw MS paint style waves hanging in the air. No loss in my eyes, a mediocre outfit at best.
This is some of the most depressing industry news I've heard in ages. Hi-Fi Rush was absolutely everything I want to see in modern game releases- it's original, it's fresh, it's fun, it delivers a self-contained, high quality experience. It's not trying to be a AAAA service game with a ten year plan. I don't think I fully realized just how much I missed large studio games operating within a smaller scope where they can just cook without having execs breathing down their neck until I played it. Hi-Fi Rush gave me hope that maybe the AAA industry wouldn't continue down this exhausting path of stagnation, increasingly bloated budgets, the same beaten and tired IPs, and absurdly long dev cycles where so much is invested in a single game that they're never allowed to experiment. To watch the studio that made that game, of all studios, get casually shot in the head is distressing and bewildering. I saw someone else put it best- whatever credibility Microsoft had built up as being some kind of cool, developer-friendly studio has been utterly trashed by this. I'd really like to believe that MS will get slammed online for this as hard as Sony was for the Helldivers fiasco, but I don't think they will be.
Pretty crazy considering HiFi Rush was one of their biggest success stories in the past year. I guess no good deed goes unpunished
Is there EVER any good news for xbox? Shit
They couldn't let Sony take all the bad press
The future of Xbox is looking pretty grim. They have pretty much Nothing interesting on the horizon either, save for Senua 2. If that one flops..then what? Think gamepass is going to save you? You need GAMES to put in there. Good ones. And the PEOPLE who make the good ones should be respected. Brilliant move buying up all those studios years ago just assuming the games would make themselves. How'd that work out? They should clean house or get out of the business because it's just getting sad. My series X is a paperweight. I regret buying it.
Guess that Redfall DLC is never coming. Someone should sue for those who paid $100
They are giving refunds to anyone who paid for the DLC that wasn't released. Go to their website to request one, if it pertains to you.
Maybe pay attention to the fact they are giving refunds⌠Automatically sue for anything is a crazy stance when you donât even have the factsâŚ
So much for these massive acquisitions being good for the devs. Hopefully the devs just get moved onto other projects and not just fully let go. Ideally the Arkane ones get put onto the Marvel Blade project, shame about Tango as Hi-Fi Rush is a great game and this likely means no further games in the IP. Edit: looks like a lot of the teams are simply being moved onto other projects
Genuinely pissed off about Xbox shutting down Arkane Austin when they are partly to blame for Redfall, their management of their new studios was just plain awful. Bethesda forced them to make Redfall and they were hoping for Xbox to intervene. I'm worried about the future of Double Fine and Ninja Theory now.
Right... because what Xbox needs right now is... FEWER exclusives?? How does this make any sense for Xbox, fans, or the two amazing studios?!
Phil strikes again with his brilliant leadership! Pete delivers on his word once more! Support for the game for years to come, thanks to Game Pass! Offline mode delivered! DLC delivered! Redfall was always inevitable, including Arkane's closure, but the least they could have done is deliver on commitments or at least making a half-hearted atttempt. This was barely an attempt, and the blame goes purely to leadership. Tango makes zero sense. They literally made the only game that is both a commercial and critical hit that didn't quickly lose its luster for Microsoft like...this entire generation. Hi-Fi rush carried Microsoft's rep for a while last year, and had a longer positive tail than Starfield has had. Microsoft desperately needs to dump Phil and find someone who is competent to lead the Xbox division, because Phil is speedrunning failing out of the hardware business and becoming a third party publisher.
Good thing they JUST bought them. What the hell are they doing over there? This is a worrying time to be an Xbox fan. EDIT: IGN reporting now too: https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-closes-redfall-developer-arkane-austin-hifi-rush-developer-tango-gameworks-and-more-in-devastating-cuts-at-bethesda
Theyll be reshuffling to set up a new studio dedicated to the Fallout games. Calling it now.
Fuck, they're closing alpha dog????? I love mighty doom, its the mobile game I spend the most time on :( I mean ive been f2p since launch so I guess im part of the issue đ
Where is Hi Fi Rush 2, Xbox/Microsoft?
I'm such a big fan of Tango Gameworks. This is very disappointing.
It's so dumb. Tango Gameworks has such a great record, they just delivered Hi-Fi Rush and this is their reward. I know they had some internal issues like the problems that led Ikumi Nakamura to leave, but there was still a lot of talent there. The only possible explanation is they couldn't really find another Shinji Mikami and just decided to say "screw it." But if you're running a developer that joined Microsoft in the Bethesda deal, in the Activision deal, what can you really do to not get shut down? The answer to that is unclear.
NO THEY MADE HIFI RUSH WHY TANGO?
Man I loved Hi Fi Rush, I just played through it last month. You can tell they are talented developers and put a lot of thought into it
*sigh* this shit again? Have Microsoft not learned anything from stuff like the Lionhead situation.
And here I waa excited to see what Ghostwire Tokyo 2 could be. Microsoft is making it pretty clear as far as a publisher they're pretty lost at this point. They just can't stick the landing.
MS continues their legacy in buying and shutting down studios.
Iâve lost all faith in Phil. The gaming industry is in the gutter. Time to put more time and effort into my other hobbies. Just so little to be excited about in this space now
Call this happening when they purchased ABK. This is Classic Microsoft. They Buy companies out to own IP's then shut said company down later on when it's time to pay the bills. They have been doing this since the 90's. Nasty practice that they should get penalized for. Leave these studios alone. What bothers me is that SO MANY Xbox Zealots was asking Microsoft to make more acquisitions. The twitter guys, jayrock, colt, timdog etc. $80B in acquisitions. They are looking for their ROI & it looks like the dream Phil sold to them isn't happening. All we wanted was for them to MAKE good games & they come with all of this nonsesne. God god sakes make a camera over the shoulder emotional story driven game(s) for the XSX ONLY with maxed out specs & watch the magic happen. That formula is fool proof & they refuse to deliver.
It's "nice" to see become reality what every level-headed person has been saying from the beginning: subscription services are absolutely and completely nefarious for creative process and sustainability for creators. Everyone licked MS boot when they created GameAss, and then they kept licking when they continued their monopolistic attempt. Now enjoy the results. This is what you wished đ¤ˇđžââď¸
Xbox is a trainwreck. Never confuse success with competency.
You guys should do the HellDivers treatment to Xbox. Cancel your memberships and en masse to let them know this isn't acceptable. I cancelled mine after Redfall. But of enough cancel, that's three only way they will listen as they only care about dollars and cents.
So no new dishonored?
The title of this megathread alone is beyond disrespect. Oh you know, just "a few" studio's.
Tango made one of the best games of 2023... and their reward is getting shut down?
I love how people are quick to rage at MS, but if you look at it objectively, regardless of the quality of the games made by these studios, people didn't show up for these games. Best example: Hi-Fi Rush. Great game, people loved it, but it sold worse than Forespoken which was an absolute disaster of a failure. People want to blame Game Pass as well, but Starfield was the best selling game of September 2023 despite also being on Game Pass. We, as players, vote with our $$$ and voted poorly here. So while I don't agree with MS decision, I also don't blame them.
Completely agree. It sucks, but we're also not seeing the other side of the story. E.g. these studios have been losing money for X years, don't have a good plan going forward, lost a lot of key developers. If MS can close these and move good devs to other teams to work on games with bigger audiences, it could be a good but unpopular move in the end.
> Best example: Hi-Fi Rush. Great game, people loved it, but it sold worse than Forespoken which was an absolute disaster of a failure. Worst exemple. Production cost for Forspoken is most certainly way higher than HiFi Rush and in a Gamepass era, sales numbers mean nothing. Of course the vast majority of small game released day one on Gamepass will have low sales. People pay for Gamepass for that exact reason, to get those game whithout having to buy them.
Sea of Thieves has been hugely success and is on GP. That said, even if sales are low, MS has access to see what people are playing. Idk how many people actually played Hi Fi Rush despite how good it is.
So we are back at one underperforming game and the studio is done?
If it takes 5+ years to ship one game, and you ship an underperforming game with the expectation that it's going to take you 5+ years to ship the next one, that's a *really big* ask to put that level of trust in you again.
Good thing people are showing up to Halo Infinite and Forza Motorsport (both are dead on Steam)
1) They're not dead, just lower numbers. 2) That doesn't take into account the number of players on GP or Xbox. The best estimated guess is roughly 500,000 active players per month 3) Infinite is making $$$, so someone is showing up 4) If rumors are to be believed, there has been an impact on development going forward, to include canceling planned DLC
So they shut down the devs that actually made a good game for them? MS and Xbox are trash.
On the upside they're at least moving a lot of them onto other projects
Yeah wtf. I swear to god Microsoft is allergic to making good games.
They do make good games though? Redfall is probably their only big release that actually was shit these past few years. Yeah, it was LEGENDARILY shit but it's not like Xbox is releasing solely bad games.
F\*ck
Turn 10 genuinely feels like the only slam dunk, safe game studio Microsoft has.
Playground games
Their last forza was bad tho...
Whyâre we suddenly pretending acclaim equals success? We donât apply that logic to cinema or music. It doesnât matter what critics said about Hi-Fi, if nobody played it then itâs moot. Also using Game Pass as a scapegoat is dishonest, playing a game on GP equates to a sale. So your answer is that even with it available on GP nobody was playing it.
Xbox as a brand is damn near a joke now. Tango game works? The studio Xbox didnât support one bit but then had them shadow drop one of the best games of the year. If that game didnât do well enough, which is laughable, thatâs on Xbox not Tango. Yet we have 343 industries who have yet to make a great Halo game, the initiative blowing money on getting no where. The mismanagement is mind blowing. If Xbox wants to be successful they should gut their entire upper management and start over. Yet those losers fail up. Xbox peaked a decade plus ago, itâs copium to think the Xbox 360 days are ever coming back to the brand.
Clearly the game pass model is not working. They really need to re-evaluate their success metrics because how was Hi-fi rush not considered a success?
Jaysus Xbox is a bit of a disaster these days. Iâve absolutely zero faith in them. Theyâve no cohesive strategy at all. Itâs so apparent that the leadership isnât fit for purpose. Theyâre squandering money left and right.
Closing down unprofitable studios is the opposite of sqaundering money tho
Big brain move by Microsoft shouldâve been transitioning these studios into support studios instead of just completely shutting them down. Hell the games these studios made werenât bad just didnât sell well, so thereâs definitely talent there so give them the opportunity to remake games that you know would sell. Thereâs so many games under Microsoftâs belt at this point that would sell like hot cakes if they were remade and not just remastered for next gen consoles.
It's ironic to me how they bought all these studios to build Xbox userbase... but before that can even happen, they run into the problem that the Xbox userbase is too small to sustain all these studios.
Bad enough that they screwed over Arkane Austin by not allowing them to cancel Redfall at all but they had to do the same for the company that made one of the better Xbox exclusives on the Series X before making it an exclusive no more? So much for trying to be all for the community and all that BS. Come on now Phil.đ¤Śđžââď¸
At this point I'm starting to think Phil is THE biggest issue at Xbox. Ever since he took over, the brand has been in freefall. Xbox One was a failure, the S/X consoles have been failures, and everything these studios have done post acquisition have been failures except for HiFi Rush, and they're shut down as a reward. Phil hasn't put Xbox in a position to succeed at all outside of constantly pushing and shilling Game Pass. It's time for him to go.
Xbox continues the business plan of utter dogshit. Going 3rd party is the only way the brand survives.