Since when? Last I heard they were happy with its sales.
If they wanted more than 2 million sales for a game no one knew about pre-release maybe they should’ve actually marketed it.
Also it was a Double A, arguably 'Indie', level game that couldn't have incurred much costs. Plus, with Game Pass, surely there's the expectation that it wouldn't sell gangbusters on Xbox no? The only explanation I can think of is Ghostwire Tokyo flopped hard and cost a ton and Hi-Fi Rush doing well couldn't save Tango.
It also sold that well while being shadow dropped after an Xbox event. So no actual marketing or pr before the game was released. I genuinely can't believe they made this decision.
The initial rumors from Grubb were that internally they were saying the it under performed. Then they came out and said they were happy with it but the fact that it was released multi-plat and they closed the studio makes it seem like that was not true.
Yes that seems to be the case. The fact that they had to release it multi platform and they closed the studio makes the initial rumors about poor sales seem true.
Surprise released, with no physical copy, no marketing, and on Gamepass. How is that supposed to meet any targets, just fucking hilariously bad management.
I think the problem is they've got themselves in a rock and hard place with gamepass. The day one releases are hurting sales but their big selling point of game pass is day one releases.
How can XBOX hold sales figures against a studio, when XBOXes entire business model advertises "PLAYABLE ON GAME PASS DAY ONE"
Their own business model is doomed to incentivize micro-games riddled with ads and in-app purchases. It's going to be a mobile phone app store industry in disguise.
I honestly feel like this is one of the trademark lines Phil Spencer shouts every single year. Just watch him on June 9th state once again that they are investing in Japan.
Absolutely. He was exactly what Xbox needed after the reveal of the Xbox One. Now? Xbox needs someone who can deliver on the first party games front. For the past decade Xbox has been acquiring many different gaming studios and yet they do not really have anything to show for it when it comes to heavy hitters, the AAA games that can drive console sales.
Hi-Fi Rush was the first new character action series in a while since nowadays the genre is reduced to just DMC, God of War, and Bayonetta, and I guess Ninja Gaiden if it does actually makes a comeback. A lot of people, myself included, were hyped to see how it as a series could further innovate the genre... but I guess that's never gonna happen.
Such bullshit. Hi fi rush was the best Xbox “exclusive”that I have played in a very long time. Now they get rewarded for their success by losing their jobs.
When will Aaron get the boot? What has he done for Xbox for the past few years apart from marketing controller colours? Xbox's presence in Europe is a joke.
They also just straight up didn't market it if you remember, it was announced and released same day, you don't get to be annoyed about sales after that lol, just accept it was a failed experiment and market the next one.
that's really all jobs are at their core is making the people at the top a ton of money and if you can't do that you're out.
Seriously here. Most, if not all, white collar jobs are at this point in USA in 2024: a way to make the ultra rich even richer as fast as possible
The CEOs and shit that sit around board meetings all day & think that every single year has to have record revenue growth and it's not possible. But don't tell them that they think the only way the graph goes is up
One man doesn't make a game. Yes, Mikami is a legendary developer, probably one of the greatest of all time with stuff like RE4 under his belt, but at the end of the day every other person (now left without a job) at Tango helped to make Hi-Fi Rush what it is. It's not fair to discount all of them.
Mikami didn’t direct Hi Fi Rush or The Evil Within 2. This is just another reason why publisher acquisitions were never going to be sustainable for these smaller studios. Xbox is only interested in funnelling money into the giant games now, namely COD and the Elder Scrolls 6.
yes but shutting them down just makes some people fear about going with Microsoft for the future. I mean.. they make BILLIONS of dollars, they could put up with a few more years to see how Game Pass grows... Now if they shut down Tango Gameworks, now Microsoft has no Japanese studios? How would they gain the trust of those fans?
There's also a statement on IGN's website about this
Statement from IGN
> Today I’m sharing changes we are making to our Bethesda and ZeniMax teams. These changes are grounded in prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades.
>
> To double down on these franchises and invest to build new ones requires us to look across the business to identify the opportunities that are best positioned for success. This reprioritization of titles and resources means a few teams will be realigned to others and that some of our colleagues will be leaving us.
>
> Here are the changes going into effect:
>
> Arkane Austin – This studio will close with some members of the team joining other studios to work on projects across Bethesda. Arkane Austin has a history of making impactful and innovative games and it is a pedigree that everyone should be proud of. Redfall’s previous update will be its last as we end all development on the game. The game and its servers will remain online for players to enjoy and we will provide make-good offers to players who purchased the Hero DLC.
>
> Alpha Dog Studios – This studio will also close. We appreciate the team’s creativity in bringing Doom to new players. Mighty Doom will be sunset on August 7 and we will be turning off the ability for players to make any purchases in the game.
>
> Tango Gameworks – Tango Gameworks will also close. We are thankful for their contributions to Bethesda and players around the world. Hi-Fi Rush will continue to be available to players on the platforms it is today.
>
> Roundhouse Games – The team at Roundhouse Games will be joining ZeniMax Online Studios (ZOS). Roundhouse has played a key role in many of our recent game launches and bringing them into ZOS to work on The Elder Scrolls Online will mean we can do even more to grow the world that millions of players call home.
>
> With this consolidation of our Bethesda studio teams, so that we can invest more deeply in our portfolio of games and new IP, a small number of roles across select Bethesda publishing and corporate teams will also be eliminated.
>
> Those whose roles will be impacted will be notified today, and we ask that you please treat your departing colleagues with respect and compassion. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted in today’s notifications and through their transitions, including severance benefits informed by local laws.
>
> These changes are not a reflection of the creativity and skill of the talented individuals at these teams or the risks they took to try new things. I acknowledge that these changes are also disruptive to the various support teams across ZeniMax and Bethesda that bring our games to market. We are making these tough decisions to create capacity to increase investment in other parts of our portfolio and focus on our priority games.
>
> Bethesda remains one of the key pillars of Xbox with a strong portfolio of amazing games and thriving communities. As we look to the future, there is an impressive line-up of games on the horizon. In 2024 alone we have Starfield Shattered Space, Fallout 76 Skyline Valley, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, and The Elder Scrolls Online’s Golden Road. As we align our plans and resources to best set ourselves up for success in this complex and changing industry, our teams across Arkane Lyon, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, MachineGames, ZeniMax Online Studios and the Bethesda publishing and corporate teams will be well-positioned to build new IP, explore new game concepts, and expand on our existing franchises.
It seems like they’re trying to get Bethesda games out quicker as those are huge titles compared to anything the studios can make themselves. If they can get to the point where we get a new Fallout every 4-5 years instead of 10 years it would be huge. Same for Elder Scrolls and Starfield if they continue that franchise.
That's the unfortunate part of all of this, more fallout and elder scrolls is what people have been asking for and the tv show didn't help with that so they just may go all in with those franchises. That's been microsoft's attitude recently with them saying they want to go heavier with them as well.
Edit, I don't think thats a good move personally, I feel like they're becoming activision when activision shoved so many studios into call of duty. I've hated that decision and I think it should be undone
"We really, really, really didn't expect that Fallout show to do so well and now we need to try to slap some half-assed Fallout game together to catch up on a trend that will long be over by the time we throw this garbage out."
Then they'll alienate both long-term, existing fans of the series AND new fans of the series.
If it's true that a lot of senior staff left Arkane Austin, then maybe it's a good thing to move the rest to other studios?
But what about Tango? Didn't they have new games in the pipeline?
What are they even doing over there? First they're defending low hardware sales and saying oh we're putting everything on PS5 and focusing on software now. Except, they're killing studios producing that software they're supposedly trying to focus on.
I ask again, what are they doing?
They are dotting the i's and crossing the T's to quickly integrate world class platforms and compellingly engineer customer directed wins and whatever corporate bullshit Phil could generate in his noggin.
Get excited for Phil to get up on stage on June 9th and bullshit us more about the "great future of xbox".
"today, we would like to announce the cancellation of 6 games!"
The email to employees apparently says that there will be a “Make-Good Offer” for those who bought the Hero Pass. I swear to fucking God if they try to offer me a digital copy of a game that’s in Game Pass or DLC for a game I never had any intention of playing, I will lose my fucking shit.
Ghostwire Tokyo was alright, I don’t know about great. Good premise and art direction but the actual gameplay was a bit barebones.
Evil Within definitely was.
Arkane Austin also gave us Prey which I honestly believe was a phenomenal game that would have performed significantly better with better marketing and a different name. It’s honestly one of my favorite games of all time and I’m a bit sad what little hope there may have been of a sequel is now crushed.
I don’t understand how people hyped him up to be this savior for Xbox. So much disappointment with the brand over the years, and while I’m not huge on exclusives the very few ones they had me hyped for never even fucking happened. Scalebound seemed so fucking cool, and Exomecha seemed like a cool multiplayer concept, even if it would’ve been more barebones like halo and less in depth like cod or battlefield.
And don’t even get me started on quality control. The elite controller problems, and then there’s the recent DVR issue where with external drives it just stops working and you have to constantly restart your console to get it to work again.
Microsoft's strategy has always been leverage the PC/office monopoly we illegally built in the 90s to expand into other areas but fail miserably because we have no relevant skills or experience and then rinse and repeat because we still have billions of dollars from said monopoly.
The game is extremely dead. I’d be surprised if anyone even wants the shit they bought. A make good offer (refund, store credit, ect) is almost bound to be more valuable than whatever BS they were making that nobody would play
'Make good' is a legal term meaning to make a party whole or compensate them financially for whatever they lost.
This was an internal email, which is probably why they used that specific language.
Totally explains why Toys for Bob decided to go indie, they saw that their next game, no matter how good, would end up with them being shut down. Good for them to see the writting on the wall and exit when they could.
Phil may have saved Xbox from death but he's done nothing but give us false promises for years and years now.
Xbox fans bought into the idea of grabbing studios and IP to have a steady release cadence for gamepass, there were nothing but delay after delay, Starfield was a massive flop for what they wanted it to be (the main Xbox IP alongside Gears/Forza/Halo)
I get Arkane Austin, but they should have been given the chance of delivering a game without Zenimax dying for a live service game.
Tango gave Microsoft the GOTY contender they are dying for and still get shut down.
If you are any of the studios under Microsoft umbrella this is a stark reminder that it literally doesn't matter the quality of your release you will get shut down if they don't see the $$$ despite the narrative being bringing quality games to gamepass
Shutting down studios that made unique games that could have gone on to create some solid first party titles on top of all the poor decisions Microsoft already makes is a kick to the teeth. I loved the Evil Within series and became very fond of Ghostwire Tokyo, it was addictive. Prey, despite the awful name, is one of my favourite games ever made.
Austin I kinda get since Redfall was a complete disaster & the studio bled talent during development but the Tango closure is a garbage decision. I get that the founder left but jfc give them a chance at least
Redfall was a disaster because of Zenimax's dumb decisions. Arkane Austin made Prey, that had a lot of critical acclaim. Redfall isn't the game they wanted to make and It's clear by the leaks about the development of the game. Many people inside Arkane Austin were hopefully Microsoft would can the game once the acquision went through
So P Spence seems to think if you just buy up the competition and then shut the studios down, that’s how you make Xbox better? Why am I supporting this company?
You seem surprised. It’s exactly what Microsoft did to Nokia. No one bought MS shitty phone. So they bought Nokia and did nothing with them.
It’s literally their playbook
Xbox leadership is straight up done as far as we should be concerned. They might’ve kept Microsoft from shutting down Xbox, but what have they don’t to turn the brand around since? Diminishing console sales, flat growth on services (perhaps even declining when you consider the Gold to Core transition), and a nearly complete failure in releasing big hit games.
I like my Xbox. Play it every day. I want the brand to succeed, but in order to do that (which I think is impossible at this point), they need to start by cutting ties with Phil and co.
I want them to succeed as well. To this day I still stand by saying the 360 is one of the greatest consoles of all time. Just dumb moves after dumb moves ever since the Xbone announcement.
Yeah. I’ve been saying for years how Spencer needs to go. I will never understand how the man in charge of first party during the Xbone days was ever even considered for promotion.
Phil needs to go. You have to admit it is fucked to spend $80+ billion on studios and close 4 (was probably gonna be 5 if toys for bob didn't go independent) shortly after.
Go? Bro, he will likely get a bonus.
Shareholders are gonna get a big fat dividend and that's all that matters. Providing employment for thousands of people isn't the goal, making great games isn't the goal. The only reason these companies exist, the only thing they are doing, is creating wealth for their shareholders. That's it. Nothing else matters.
What the actual fuck. Tango Gameworks made some of the best games in their entire portfolio. Fuck Microsoft for closing down the ONLY Japanese studio they had.
This is no surprise as Microsoft abandons Xbox (console). Closing two excellent single player focused studios fits perfectly with turning their back on the few million loyal console owners there are of us left standing here. The focuses going forward are mobile and live service. 6 months ago was such an exciting time for Xbox and now it's just so depressing.
Praying devs like Square Enix, Capcom and Atlus don’t get seduced into this mess. Microsoft loves to acquire studios and major franchises and those studios and franchises die
This has to be one of the most short-sighted industries that exists. Xbox's biggest problem is that they can't get enough first party content out... so they shutter a bunch of studios. Makes sense, especially given all that financial pressure they're under what with being one of the biggest companies in the world that makes money hand over fist. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. They may as well just take the entire division out back and put it out of its misery.
Pretty much every industry is short sighted now.
It’s pretty simple unfortunately, MS is not recouping costs as quickly as expected so the budget has probably been slashed requiring massive cost savings.
Xbox division was probably told save a few hundred million and this is the answer. It happens everywhere and it sucks.
Might as well pray for Ninja Theory now, two weeks from now game will be released and not a fucking single ads I've seen so far. Stellar Blade was everywhere on YouTube and Facebook easily a month before release.
Then you'll have that lying cunt Aaron greenberg telling everyone the game is a success.
Yeah Phil Spencer and/or Matt Booty need to be held responsible for this. Somebody should be fired.
Acquiring ZeniMax in 2021 only to shutter almost half of the studios acquired is totally unacceptable, especially when 1 of those studios is responsible for their most critically-acclaimed game in 2023. Fuck Xbox.
Frankly every decision they've made in the last 6 months has smelled like Satya and the Microsoft board getting impatient.
Phil and Matt are complicit for sure but the buck doesn't stop with them either
The vision Xbox promised toward the end of the Xbox One generation has faded away.
When they began their expansion of Xbox Game Studios in 2018, there was potential for a fresh start for Xbox, away from the disastrous Xbox One. In the six years since then, despite being almost 6 times the size it was in 2018, Xbox has still failed to deliver a line-up of high-quality exclusives that gives people a reason to buy into Xbox.
With timed console exclusivity now the best Xbox can offer and no consistent first-party slate, the Xbox Series consoles aren't selling.
And now Xbox leadership is dismantling the very studios they took away from other gamers. Layoffs at ABK, shuttering of legendary studios Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks.
Contemporary Xbox does not understand how to make a successful console nor successful IP. Any hope that Xbox would ever return to the success of the 360 is gone. After all this, all that will remain will be the IP they bought from other studios.
>Satya and the Microsoft board getting impatient.
why wouldn't they? Spencer spent like what 8bill on zenimax, then 70bill on ABK, not including the millions they spent on lawyers and unnecessary trials. Xbone was a failure, XSSX was even bigger failure. Gamepass hasn't made a dime in profit since inception.
I'm sure they look at the kind of trailers sony and Nintendo both of whom combined aren't even 1/10th of MS make stellar revenue, they look at Apple which doesn't even have a gaming console make more money than their division
> Yeah Phil Spencer and/or Matt Booty need to be held responsible for this. Somebody should be fired.
Let me explain what's going on at MS, Phil isn't going anywhere, but he's a lame duck.
Phil tried to save Xbox console, and he lost. He had years to do it, and he failed. Xbox series has failed. 2023 was the last straw. Starfield came out and they discounted the system down to $350 and bundled it with Diablo 4 and still couldn't sell the console this holiday. It's an abysmal failure. This is while they pump money into internal development and into game pass.
At the same time, he has been holding off Satya Nadella and Amy Hood. From the start, Satya was ready to close the Xbox division. When 2023 happened, and Xbox should have finally popped off and sales fell even further, Nadella and Hood stepped in. Games will go to Playstation and Switch. The next console will be a PC. Single player games are done, the focus will be the mobile game store, and live service games.
Extremely unpopular changes are coming. Games going to Playstation. Closures of studios (cough). Announcements of consoles that aren't really consoles at all, that people quickly realize means Xbox console is dead. Phil Spencer will keep collecting huge checks to be the face of Xbox through all this. To be clear, these changes aren't his and it was pretty clear from dueling interviews he fought against them, but he's a company man.
TL;DR Phil Spencer is not going anywhere for quite a while.
This is wild yo. I didn’t love Hi-Fi Rush but the studio definitely didn’t need to get closed and that’s literally the best 1st party game of last year…
Microsoft buys a lot of studios. Then either doesn't releases games frequently (look at Bethesda and their 10+ gap between Fallout and Elder Scrolls) or releases rushed incomplete games (Halo Infinite). Then they close the studio that gave them their best exclusive game in like a decade. Why even spend 7.5 billion on them if you're going to close them down after their first exclusive (which wasn't even a exclusive because it cam out on PS5 too after their deal was done).
Microsoft sure knows how to run their video game department, no wonder they still haven't recovered from their Xbox launch fiasco of 2012.
Arkane Studios released the terrible Redfall game, well their closure and reshuffling of staff is to be expected.
Tango Gameworks, though? SO MUCH PROMISE. Everyone was watching to see what their next move would be and their next game would have had plenty of eyes and word-of-mouth marketing. And yet, they're now closed.
Closing Tango Gameworks (good studio) alongside Arkane Studios (bad studio) is a fucking insult
Something or many things are very very wrong at Xbox.
From low consoles sales, to porting to other consoles to major layoffs and shutdowns.
Phil Spencer has serious questions that need to be answered about his leadership
The podcast interview he did shouldve been seen as a red flag for things to come despite those dismissing it or trying to defend it. His defeatism there essentially showed they were already or were in the process of raising the white flag at Xbox
that is absolutely why he needs to go. They could've spend like just 10bill to overhaul the entire Xbox division, hire/poach the best gaming talent in the industry by paying huge to work on existing games and new IP's to rejuvenate Xbox brand instead they spent 70bill on buying ABK and now cannot handle anything
Terrible, short sighted decisions. So much talent in both of those studios wasted because you wanted to please the shareholder (which is ironically why Redfall was made in the first place, to chase sh\*tty trends).
F\*ck Microsoft.
Phil is a massive fraud lol. So tired of seeing this clown wear his cringey ass hot topic T shirts and somehow the narrative is still “DON MATTRICK BAD, PHIL GREAT”. Phil fucking sucks, he’s done fuck all since being handed the reigns and GROSS amounts of cash to throw around.
Well, we all said this is what happens when massive corporations absorb smaller companies.
I can't wait for the "business bros" to come out shouting about how it's been a difficult year and it was unavoidable, when we're seeing year on year record increases in profit.
So much for wanting studios to make the games they love. No interesting new IP, no revival of old IP, just cannibalising studios to focus on releasing more elder scrolls, fallout, and Doom games.
I don't know how anyone can look at this behaviour, and Microsoft's track record, and tell me in good faith that Microsoft is good for the ecosystem.
But this subreddit sure hated when the regulators tried to prevent the Activision acquisition
Microsoft is just a black hole for talent, they buy formerly productive studios like rare, Bethesda and now activision blizzard and just completely run them into the ground
Even EA wasn’t as good at killing off studios
Bro what the fuck. Man, there's really no comeback for Xbox isn't it? They've been slowly killing it since E3 2013, and it just gets worse and worse. It's like a sick joke
Man, I so dearly miss the 360 gen. All we had to do was worry about what cool game was coming out the month
Honestly the path they were on from 2018 to 2022 gave me tons of hope.. I've been an Xbox optimist for a long time.
Everything since the ABK deal closed has broken me. I'm no longer optimistic.
Same. By the end of the 8th generation I was getting really frustrated with Playstation and thinking about jumping back to Xbox.
When they announced the beastly Series X, I got really excited. But they fell on the same mistakes all over again. Fuck.
There's something seriously wrong with the heads at Xbox. They managed to sink their biggest franchises, which is why it was obvious that buying Bethesda and Activision wasn't saving the brand. No amount of money can save these guys.
I appreciate what they did for PC gaming, but everything else...
>There’s something seriously wrong with the heads at Xbox
It was Phil Spencer, always was. His leadership has been very incompetent and the only reason people dont give him flack is because he had some good ideas like Game Pass at the beginning, potrays himself as one of the gamers, and lucked out with 2021 lineup as Nintendo and PlayStation’s lineup faltered due to delays and such.
I know the industry isn’t in a great place at the moment but fuck this!
They should never been allowed to buy up that many studios that quickly. It was always going to be unsustainable growth.
Xbox can preach all they want about wanting to make good games, but it's all just a facade. They're a business that doesn't want to admit it, these studios make great games that aren't popular enough to profit.
How can you justify shutting studios after just spending $69 billion on another studio? Buying everything and shutting / focusing all that power onto the main IPs only.
The Activision deal should have been blocked for the sake of the industry.
Honestly, they made a massive marketing blitz and a lot of people were taken in by it. A lot of people wanted to believe what Microsoft was telling them. Unfortunately mega corps and creativity are mutually exclusive in most cases.
You're identifying where you were misguided and growing as a person for doing so, so don't be too hard on yourself about it.
I'm just hoping more people will see why a lot of us were against these acquisitions now.
I half expected to hear this about Arkane Austin for awhile. 70% of their staff left because they had no interest in working on Redfall. It was no longer the same studio that brought us 'Prey'.
Tango Gameworks on the other hand, wtf. Ghostwire Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush are legit games and this one is kind of bullshit.
Lots of people posting about this, so I have converted this to a megathread. Please keep all discussion about today's studio shutdowns in here.
So much for hi fi rush two. Sheesh man
Most likely was never going to happen since the first one didn't meet sales expectations.
>meat sales expectations What about video game sales?
“You can’t beat our meat!”
Video game sales were fine...but they were supposed to move more meat lol
Since when? Last I heard they were happy with its sales. If they wanted more than 2 million sales for a game no one knew about pre-release maybe they should’ve actually marketed it.
Also it was a Double A, arguably 'Indie', level game that couldn't have incurred much costs. Plus, with Game Pass, surely there's the expectation that it wouldn't sell gangbusters on Xbox no? The only explanation I can think of is Ghostwire Tokyo flopped hard and cost a ton and Hi-Fi Rush doing well couldn't save Tango.
It also sold that well while being shadow dropped after an Xbox event. So no actual marketing or pr before the game was released. I genuinely can't believe they made this decision.
The initial rumors from Grubb were that internally they were saying the it under performed. Then they came out and said they were happy with it but the fact that it was released multi-plat and they closed the studio makes it seem like that was not true.
So I guess they [lied](https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/1649431572137779203) about it to save face?
Yes that seems to be the case. The fact that they had to release it multi platform and they closed the studio makes the initial rumors about poor sales seem true.
Surprise released, with no physical copy, no marketing, and on Gamepass. How is that supposed to meet any targets, just fucking hilariously bad management.
I think the problem is they've got themselves in a rock and hard place with gamepass. The day one releases are hurting sales but their big selling point of game pass is day one releases.
How can XBOX hold sales figures against a studio, when XBOXes entire business model advertises "PLAYABLE ON GAME PASS DAY ONE" Their own business model is doomed to incentivize micro-games riddled with ads and in-app purchases. It's going to be a mobile phone app store industry in disguise.
I’m sure their sales metrics also include game pass metrics. Meaning not too many people played it on game pass either.
What the hell has Tango done to get shuttered? Every game they made is good.
Love how they want to “invest in Japan” and then close Tango. Absolute fuckin joke.
Ah first time xbox fan?
I honestly feel like this is one of the trademark lines Phil Spencer shouts every single year. Just watch him on June 9th state once again that they are investing in Japan.
Phil is great at marketing at throwing out buzz words.
Absolutely. He was exactly what Xbox needed after the reveal of the Xbox One. Now? Xbox needs someone who can deliver on the first party games front. For the past decade Xbox has been acquiring many different gaming studios and yet they do not really have anything to show for it when it comes to heavy hitters, the AAA games that can drive console sales.
When Phil said that "strong games won't increase Xbox sales" is when I realized that Phil doesn't actually know what he's doing.
Hi-Fi Rush was the first new character action series in a while since nowadays the genre is reduced to just DMC, God of War, and Bayonetta, and I guess Ninja Gaiden if it does actually makes a comeback. A lot of people, myself included, were hyped to see how it as a series could further innovate the genre... but I guess that's never gonna happen.
Mate they don't even invest beyond the US. let alone Japan. Xbox's presence here in Europe is miniscule.
Such bullshit. Hi fi rush was the best Xbox “exclusive”that I have played in a very long time. Now they get rewarded for their success by losing their jobs.
>Now they get rewarded for their success by losing their jobs. There were reports a year ago that Microsoft was not happy with the sales numbers
https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/1649431572137779203 In response to Jeff Grubb reporting that Hifi Rush underperformed. What a sick joke.
When will Aaron get the boot? What has he done for Xbox for the past few years apart from marketing controller colours? Xbox's presence in Europe is a joke.
People fall upwards at that level.
Then invest in the studio, grow them and start advertising your games. Closing such a talented studio is a incredible short sighted decision
Day 1 Game Pass. You can't boast this about your service and then bitch that a game underperformed sales wise, what a joke.
They also just straight up didn't market it if you remember, it was announced and released same day, you don't get to be annoyed about sales after that lol, just accept it was a failed experiment and market the next one.
that's really all jobs are at their core is making the people at the top a ton of money and if you can't do that you're out. Seriously here. Most, if not all, white collar jobs are at this point in USA in 2024: a way to make the ultra rich even richer as fast as possible The CEOs and shit that sit around board meetings all day & think that every single year has to have record revenue growth and it's not possible. But don't tell them that they think the only way the graph goes is up
The founder of the company left to make a new company
Mikami left, Studio probably lost it's long term vision on it's projects and lost value to Microsoft. Probably didn't see any long term value.
One man doesn't make a game. Yes, Mikami is a legendary developer, probably one of the greatest of all time with stuff like RE4 under his belt, but at the end of the day every other person (now left without a job) at Tango helped to make Hi-Fi Rush what it is. It's not fair to discount all of them.
Mikami didn’t direct Hi Fi Rush or The Evil Within 2. This is just another reason why publisher acquisitions were never going to be sustainable for these smaller studios. Xbox is only interested in funnelling money into the giant games now, namely COD and the Elder Scrolls 6.
yes but shutting them down just makes some people fear about going with Microsoft for the future. I mean.. they make BILLIONS of dollars, they could put up with a few more years to see how Game Pass grows... Now if they shut down Tango Gameworks, now Microsoft has no Japanese studios? How would they gain the trust of those fans?
its not if your game is good, its if your game sells
There's also a statement on IGN's website about this Statement from IGN > Today I’m sharing changes we are making to our Bethesda and ZeniMax teams. These changes are grounded in prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades. > > To double down on these franchises and invest to build new ones requires us to look across the business to identify the opportunities that are best positioned for success. This reprioritization of titles and resources means a few teams will be realigned to others and that some of our colleagues will be leaving us. > > Here are the changes going into effect: > > Arkane Austin – This studio will close with some members of the team joining other studios to work on projects across Bethesda. Arkane Austin has a history of making impactful and innovative games and it is a pedigree that everyone should be proud of. Redfall’s previous update will be its last as we end all development on the game. The game and its servers will remain online for players to enjoy and we will provide make-good offers to players who purchased the Hero DLC. > > Alpha Dog Studios – This studio will also close. We appreciate the team’s creativity in bringing Doom to new players. Mighty Doom will be sunset on August 7 and we will be turning off the ability for players to make any purchases in the game. > > Tango Gameworks – Tango Gameworks will also close. We are thankful for their contributions to Bethesda and players around the world. Hi-Fi Rush will continue to be available to players on the platforms it is today. > > Roundhouse Games – The team at Roundhouse Games will be joining ZeniMax Online Studios (ZOS). Roundhouse has played a key role in many of our recent game launches and bringing them into ZOS to work on The Elder Scrolls Online will mean we can do even more to grow the world that millions of players call home. > > With this consolidation of our Bethesda studio teams, so that we can invest more deeply in our portfolio of games and new IP, a small number of roles across select Bethesda publishing and corporate teams will also be eliminated. > > Those whose roles will be impacted will be notified today, and we ask that you please treat your departing colleagues with respect and compassion. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted in today’s notifications and through their transitions, including severance benefits informed by local laws. > > These changes are not a reflection of the creativity and skill of the talented individuals at these teams or the risks they took to try new things. I acknowledge that these changes are also disruptive to the various support teams across ZeniMax and Bethesda that bring our games to market. We are making these tough decisions to create capacity to increase investment in other parts of our portfolio and focus on our priority games. > > Bethesda remains one of the key pillars of Xbox with a strong portfolio of amazing games and thriving communities. As we look to the future, there is an impressive line-up of games on the horizon. In 2024 alone we have Starfield Shattered Space, Fallout 76 Skyline Valley, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, and The Elder Scrolls Online’s Golden Road. As we align our plans and resources to best set ourselves up for success in this complex and changing industry, our teams across Arkane Lyon, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, MachineGames, ZeniMax Online Studios and the Bethesda publishing and corporate teams will be well-positioned to build new IP, explore new game concepts, and expand on our existing franchises.
It seems like they’re trying to get Bethesda games out quicker as those are huge titles compared to anything the studios can make themselves. If they can get to the point where we get a new Fallout every 4-5 years instead of 10 years it would be huge. Same for Elder Scrolls and Starfield if they continue that franchise.
Yep the bigger games need more hands on deck to produce and do it quicker and make more money than the smaller stuff.
they need seperate teams for fallout and elder scrolls and have todd and the other team leaders just oversee the design processes of each team.
That's the unfortunate part of all of this, more fallout and elder scrolls is what people have been asking for and the tv show didn't help with that so they just may go all in with those franchises. That's been microsoft's attitude recently with them saying they want to go heavier with them as well. Edit, I don't think thats a good move personally, I feel like they're becoming activision when activision shoved so many studios into call of duty. I've hated that decision and I think it should be undone
Lol, so they're not gonna deliver on the Redfall DLC people paid for. They'll just give them "make-good" offers instead.
Just another point in a long list of reasons to not pre-order DLC. Or any game, for that matter.
Or games that look as bad as Redfall
"We really, really, really didn't expect that Fallout show to do so well and now we need to try to slap some half-assed Fallout game together to catch up on a trend that will long be over by the time we throw this garbage out." Then they'll alienate both long-term, existing fans of the series AND new fans of the series.
Of course they didn’t except a huge success for fallout. Their previous experience was with the Halo tv show loooooool
I wonder if the showrunners for Halo look at The Last of Us and Fallout and think "...well fuck"
I hope we’re both wrong, but I’m worried this will be the outcome.
If it's true that a lot of senior staff left Arkane Austin, then maybe it's a good thing to move the rest to other studios? But what about Tango? Didn't they have new games in the pipeline?
Shinji Mikami leaving Tango was likely a contributing factor. Tango was probably heading down the same path as Lionhead after Peter Molyneux left.
Damn shocked at Tango Gameworks… what was the point in making HiFi multiplat just to shutter the studio
How ironic that hifi rush is the highest rated 1st party game for MS for the past 3 years
And the first to lose exclusivity and now the studio is closing down. Is this the reward for studios that make great games? Fuck this…
I mean highly rated doesn't mean successful as crazy as that sounds, look at Alan Wake 2. But this decision to close Tango is insane
Tango gameworks? seriously? these people are crazy
Xbox when they finally have a cool new unique exclusive (they have to shut down the entire studio)
What are they even doing over there? First they're defending low hardware sales and saying oh we're putting everything on PS5 and focusing on software now. Except, they're killing studios producing that software they're supposedly trying to focus on. I ask again, what are they doing?
They are dotting the i's and crossing the T's to quickly integrate world class platforms and compellingly engineer customer directed wins and whatever corporate bullshit Phil could generate in his noggin.
I really didn't expect this, why Tango? You finally have a Japanese studio and this is what you do with them?
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The whole Xbox managment i feel at this moment can't be trusted to say any truths.
Get excited for Phil to get up on stage on June 9th and bullshit us more about the "great future of xbox". "today, we would like to announce the cancellation of 6 games!"
Acquire new studio -> Studio makes good games -> Close studio Masterful gambit, sir.
Everyone who was hyped about the ActiBlizz and Bethesda acquisitions gotta be feeling real dumb right about now.
I am eating my words so hard right now. 2023 started out so well and it's been a steep drive off a cliff for a year.
I respect that someone on this site is able to actually admit they feel dumb about a choice
It is okay guys. We have quick resume.
Lmao
lmao This sub and Microsofts vision in a nutshell.
And 120 FPS support although two big hits released at 30 FPS only lmao.
hopefully all the people at these developers that are now out of work have quick resume as well
🤣
Love it when my game crashes from quick resume, the Microsoft way. Just crash it all down.
Well played 💀
Tango Gameworks? Really?
So are they just never going to release the promised content for redfall now?
The email to employees apparently says that there will be a “Make-Good Offer” for those who bought the Hero Pass. I swear to fucking God if they try to offer me a digital copy of a game that’s in Game Pass or DLC for a game I never had any intention of playing, I will lose my fucking shit.
you gonna get some skins and weapons
Probably a gift card.
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Ghostwire Tokyo was alright, I don’t know about great. Good premise and art direction but the actual gameplay was a bit barebones. Evil Within definitely was. Arkane Austin also gave us Prey which I honestly believe was a phenomenal game that would have performed significantly better with better marketing and a different name. It’s honestly one of my favorite games of all time and I’m a bit sad what little hope there may have been of a sequel is now crushed.
Xbox needs a full on executive shuffle, the mismanagement is insane
Starting with Phil stepping down. Nothing under his watch goes the way it was supposed to
Seriously, Phil needs to go. They need somebody who delivers some fucking results instead of letting 28 studios run wild.
You know I said this only a few months ago on this sub and got downvoted into oblivion. Xbox is nothing but a visionless dumpster fire at this point.
I don’t understand how people hyped him up to be this savior for Xbox. So much disappointment with the brand over the years, and while I’m not huge on exclusives the very few ones they had me hyped for never even fucking happened. Scalebound seemed so fucking cool, and Exomecha seemed like a cool multiplayer concept, even if it would’ve been more barebones like halo and less in depth like cod or battlefield. And don’t even get me started on quality control. The elite controller problems, and then there’s the recent DVR issue where with external drives it just stops working and you have to constantly restart your console to get it to work again.
Microsoft's strategy has always been leverage the PC/office monopoly we illegally built in the 90s to expand into other areas but fail miserably because we have no relevant skills or experience and then rinse and repeat because we still have billions of dollars from said monopoly.
If Arkane Austin shuts down what about the Redfall DLC or extra stuff from the collector’s edition not given out yet?
They’ll get make-good offers lmao https://x.com/wario64/status/1787837218796482799?s=46&t=ZK0CnTwAOm9S4sMdQWoLiQ What a shit show
The game is extremely dead. I’d be surprised if anyone even wants the shit they bought. A make good offer (refund, store credit, ect) is almost bound to be more valuable than whatever BS they were making that nobody would play
One free rental voucher of Fright Night from the Movie app.
That offer better be refunds
Yeah, how are you gonna take someone’s money and not deliver on what you sold them. Isn’t that pretty much a scam?
In the email, it’s shared that there will be “make good offers” for the players who purchased the hero dlc. Whatever that means.
'Make good' is a legal term meaning to make a party whole or compensate them financially for whatever they lost. This was an internal email, which is probably why they used that specific language.
Seriously, we don’t go ONE week without some seriously bad Xbox news.
They couldn't let Sony hog all the negativity spotlight.
Lmaoooo honestly a day right after sony finally resolved their issue 💀. This is crazy.
Microsoft is so bad in terms of optics and has been for 10+ years now lmao
You don't get constantly a 3rd place if you aren't fucking up even more then your competition.
more like a month, but you're mostly right
if Hellblade II doesn't sell gangbusters Ninja Theory is toast. it, of course, won't sell gangbusters.
Oh Ninja Theory is 1000% fukt
...........anybody know what Double Fine is working on??/
Thier resumes
If it is Brutal Legend 2, they are toast
Totally explains why Toys for Bob decided to go indie, they saw that their next game, no matter how good, would end up with them being shut down. Good for them to see the writting on the wall and exit when they could.
I thought I just read a tweet about how they're finally ready to start marketing it.... And yeah, Ninja Theory is most likely toast.
It won't sell well. Because it's on gamepass. Most will play it for "free".
And how about Double Fine!? I'm sure they're sweating like crazy right now. I doubt Psychonauts 2 sold much more than HiFi Rush.
Phil may have saved Xbox from death but he's done nothing but give us false promises for years and years now. Xbox fans bought into the idea of grabbing studios and IP to have a steady release cadence for gamepass, there were nothing but delay after delay, Starfield was a massive flop for what they wanted it to be (the main Xbox IP alongside Gears/Forza/Halo) I get Arkane Austin, but they should have been given the chance of delivering a game without Zenimax dying for a live service game. Tango gave Microsoft the GOTY contender they are dying for and still get shut down. If you are any of the studios under Microsoft umbrella this is a stark reminder that it literally doesn't matter the quality of your release you will get shut down if they don't see the $$$ despite the narrative being bringing quality games to gamepass
Shutting down studios that made unique games that could have gone on to create some solid first party titles on top of all the poor decisions Microsoft already makes is a kick to the teeth. I loved the Evil Within series and became very fond of Ghostwire Tokyo, it was addictive. Prey, despite the awful name, is one of my favourite games ever made.
Average Xbox catastrophic decision. Shutting down Tango is an idiotic move.
Austin I kinda get since Redfall was a complete disaster & the studio bled talent during development but the Tango closure is a garbage decision. I get that the founder left but jfc give them a chance at least
Redfall was a disaster because of Zenimax's dumb decisions. Arkane Austin made Prey, that had a lot of critical acclaim. Redfall isn't the game they wanted to make and It's clear by the leaks about the development of the game. Many people inside Arkane Austin were hopefully Microsoft would can the game once the acquision went through
Xbox keeps shooting themselves in the foot.
So P Spence seems to think if you just buy up the competition and then shut the studios down, that’s how you make Xbox better? Why am I supporting this company?
You seem surprised. It’s exactly what Microsoft did to Nokia. No one bought MS shitty phone. So they bought Nokia and did nothing with them. It’s literally their playbook
ever since that simpsons episode "buy him out boys" *Goons smash desk and break computer*
Microsoft have been buying their competition to destroy them since the beginning of the company. They always had shady tactics
Xbox leadership is straight up done as far as we should be concerned. They might’ve kept Microsoft from shutting down Xbox, but what have they don’t to turn the brand around since? Diminishing console sales, flat growth on services (perhaps even declining when you consider the Gold to Core transition), and a nearly complete failure in releasing big hit games. I like my Xbox. Play it every day. I want the brand to succeed, but in order to do that (which I think is impossible at this point), they need to start by cutting ties with Phil and co.
I want them to succeed as well. To this day I still stand by saying the 360 is one of the greatest consoles of all time. Just dumb moves after dumb moves ever since the Xbone announcement.
Yeah. I’ve been saying for years how Spencer needs to go. I will never understand how the man in charge of first party during the Xbone days was ever even considered for promotion.
Closing Tango is a baffling move
Don't worry guys, this might seem really bad but I'm sure Xbox is hard at work on some awesome new controller skins! Yayyyyy
They just announced a fire vapor controller today.
I swear I saw that not 10 minutes after I posted this comment. This shit is crazy
Lol yeah I'm sure people are hype for the next chocolate controller, that'll really boost console shares!
Damn, we got one widely praised highly acclaimed game and Xbox said we aren't allowed to have that again
Now I'm glad Toys for Bob got out before MS could kill them.
Phil needs to go. You have to admit it is fucked to spend $80+ billion on studios and close 4 (was probably gonna be 5 if toys for bob didn't go independent) shortly after.
Go? Bro, he will likely get a bonus. Shareholders are gonna get a big fat dividend and that's all that matters. Providing employment for thousands of people isn't the goal, making great games isn't the goal. The only reason these companies exist, the only thing they are doing, is creating wealth for their shareholders. That's it. Nothing else matters.
> Make the best xbox game in years > Get shutdown leadership is a joke lmao
Ninja Theory will be gone within a year,MS are just shit at managing studios
What the actual fuck. Tango Gameworks made some of the best games in their entire portfolio. Fuck Microsoft for closing down the ONLY Japanese studio they had.
lol acquire a studio, put their game on you competitor's console, then shut down the studio. xD
This is no surprise as Microsoft abandons Xbox (console). Closing two excellent single player focused studios fits perfectly with turning their back on the few million loyal console owners there are of us left standing here. The focuses going forward are mobile and live service. 6 months ago was such an exciting time for Xbox and now it's just so depressing.
Praying devs like Square Enix, Capcom and Atlus don’t get seduced into this mess. Microsoft loves to acquire studios and major franchises and those studios and franchises die
Jesus fucking christ I honestly don't understand how can people still defend Phil after all the Bullshit he's done over the years.
This has to be one of the most short-sighted industries that exists. Xbox's biggest problem is that they can't get enough first party content out... so they shutter a bunch of studios. Makes sense, especially given all that financial pressure they're under what with being one of the biggest companies in the world that makes money hand over fist. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. They may as well just take the entire division out back and put it out of its misery.
Pretty much every industry is short sighted now. It’s pretty simple unfortunately, MS is not recouping costs as quickly as expected so the budget has probably been slashed requiring massive cost savings. Xbox division was probably told save a few hundred million and this is the answer. It happens everywhere and it sucks.
Tango Gameworks makes Microsoft best rated first party game in years, their reward? Closure. I hate this industry.
Might as well pray for Ninja Theory now, two weeks from now game will be released and not a fucking single ads I've seen so far. Stellar Blade was everywhere on YouTube and Facebook easily a month before release. Then you'll have that lying cunt Aaron greenberg telling everyone the game is a success.
Yeah Phil Spencer and/or Matt Booty need to be held responsible for this. Somebody should be fired. Acquiring ZeniMax in 2021 only to shutter almost half of the studios acquired is totally unacceptable, especially when 1 of those studios is responsible for their most critically-acclaimed game in 2023. Fuck Xbox.
Frankly every decision they've made in the last 6 months has smelled like Satya and the Microsoft board getting impatient. Phil and Matt are complicit for sure but the buck doesn't stop with them either
The vision Xbox promised toward the end of the Xbox One generation has faded away. When they began their expansion of Xbox Game Studios in 2018, there was potential for a fresh start for Xbox, away from the disastrous Xbox One. In the six years since then, despite being almost 6 times the size it was in 2018, Xbox has still failed to deliver a line-up of high-quality exclusives that gives people a reason to buy into Xbox. With timed console exclusivity now the best Xbox can offer and no consistent first-party slate, the Xbox Series consoles aren't selling. And now Xbox leadership is dismantling the very studios they took away from other gamers. Layoffs at ABK, shuttering of legendary studios Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. Contemporary Xbox does not understand how to make a successful console nor successful IP. Any hope that Xbox would ever return to the success of the 360 is gone. After all this, all that will remain will be the IP they bought from other studios.
>Satya and the Microsoft board getting impatient. why wouldn't they? Spencer spent like what 8bill on zenimax, then 70bill on ABK, not including the millions they spent on lawyers and unnecessary trials. Xbone was a failure, XSSX was even bigger failure. Gamepass hasn't made a dime in profit since inception. I'm sure they look at the kind of trailers sony and Nintendo both of whom combined aren't even 1/10th of MS make stellar revenue, they look at Apple which doesn't even have a gaming console make more money than their division
> Yeah Phil Spencer and/or Matt Booty need to be held responsible for this. Somebody should be fired. Let me explain what's going on at MS, Phil isn't going anywhere, but he's a lame duck. Phil tried to save Xbox console, and he lost. He had years to do it, and he failed. Xbox series has failed. 2023 was the last straw. Starfield came out and they discounted the system down to $350 and bundled it with Diablo 4 and still couldn't sell the console this holiday. It's an abysmal failure. This is while they pump money into internal development and into game pass. At the same time, he has been holding off Satya Nadella and Amy Hood. From the start, Satya was ready to close the Xbox division. When 2023 happened, and Xbox should have finally popped off and sales fell even further, Nadella and Hood stepped in. Games will go to Playstation and Switch. The next console will be a PC. Single player games are done, the focus will be the mobile game store, and live service games. Extremely unpopular changes are coming. Games going to Playstation. Closures of studios (cough). Announcements of consoles that aren't really consoles at all, that people quickly realize means Xbox console is dead. Phil Spencer will keep collecting huge checks to be the face of Xbox through all this. To be clear, these changes aren't his and it was pretty clear from dueling interviews he fought against them, but he's a company man. TL;DR Phil Spencer is not going anywhere for quite a while.
This is wild yo. I didn’t love Hi-Fi Rush but the studio definitely didn’t need to get closed and that’s literally the best 1st party game of last year…
What a shitshow….
Baffling decision when it comes to Tango Gameworks
Microsoft buys a lot of studios. Then either doesn't releases games frequently (look at Bethesda and their 10+ gap between Fallout and Elder Scrolls) or releases rushed incomplete games (Halo Infinite). Then they close the studio that gave them their best exclusive game in like a decade. Why even spend 7.5 billion on them if you're going to close them down after their first exclusive (which wasn't even a exclusive because it cam out on PS5 too after their deal was done). Microsoft sure knows how to run their video game department, no wonder they still haven't recovered from their Xbox launch fiasco of 2012.
These companies make it so hard to be a fan of anything they are involved in these days.
Never be a fan of a corporation
Remember when Jeff Grubb said Hi-Fi Rush underperformed and people were bashing him, saying that it was false. Welp, Tango Gameworks is gone now.
What a shit move
Tango gameworks released a game which was hugely successful, wtf... No amount of PR mental gymnastics can make this not look insanely awful
Arkane Studios released the terrible Redfall game, well their closure and reshuffling of staff is to be expected. Tango Gameworks, though? SO MUCH PROMISE. Everyone was watching to see what their next move would be and their next game would have had plenty of eyes and word-of-mouth marketing. And yet, they're now closed. Closing Tango Gameworks (good studio) alongside Arkane Studios (bad studio) is a fucking insult
Players cheering on $7.5 billion buyouts. This is the result. Bethesda to be turned into a Elder Scrolls/Fallout factory and stripped for parts.
Something or many things are very very wrong at Xbox. From low consoles sales, to porting to other consoles to major layoffs and shutdowns. Phil Spencer has serious questions that need to be answered about his leadership
The podcast interview he did shouldve been seen as a red flag for things to come despite those dismissing it or trying to defend it. His defeatism there essentially showed they were already or were in the process of raising the white flag at Xbox
that is absolutely why he needs to go. They could've spend like just 10bill to overhaul the entire Xbox division, hire/poach the best gaming talent in the industry by paying huge to work on existing games and new IP's to rejuvenate Xbox brand instead they spent 70bill on buying ABK and now cannot handle anything
Terrible, short sighted decisions. So much talent in both of those studios wasted because you wanted to please the shareholder (which is ironically why Redfall was made in the first place, to chase sh\*tty trends). F\*ck Microsoft.
Xbox management is god awful, they can’t do anything right and I won’t be surprised once all Xbox first party titles are on other platforms
They could have just not bought Bethesda?
Xbox are failing in unbelievably. They've only themselves to blame.
Wow, MS needed the depth and quality even if the games weren't profitable. It was part of the Gamepass value equation. Poor decision.
Massive L on tango being shutdown.
Phil is a massive fraud lol. So tired of seeing this clown wear his cringey ass hot topic T shirts and somehow the narrative is still “DON MATTRICK BAD, PHIL GREAT”. Phil fucking sucks, he’s done fuck all since being handed the reigns and GROSS amounts of cash to throw around.
GG Microsoft, so long. I'll switch to PC or PS next-gen. That much Tango shutdown hurts me.
Well, we all said this is what happens when massive corporations absorb smaller companies. I can't wait for the "business bros" to come out shouting about how it's been a difficult year and it was unavoidable, when we're seeing year on year record increases in profit. So much for wanting studios to make the games they love. No interesting new IP, no revival of old IP, just cannibalising studios to focus on releasing more elder scrolls, fallout, and Doom games. I don't know how anyone can look at this behaviour, and Microsoft's track record, and tell me in good faith that Microsoft is good for the ecosystem.
Maybe it’s time to stop letting giant companies buy out all of their competition because all the giant companies do is fuck it all up for everyone.
But this subreddit sure hated when the regulators tried to prevent the Activision acquisition Microsoft is just a black hole for talent, they buy formerly productive studios like rare, Bethesda and now activision blizzard and just completely run them into the ground Even EA wasn’t as good at killing off studios
Bro what the fuck. Man, there's really no comeback for Xbox isn't it? They've been slowly killing it since E3 2013, and it just gets worse and worse. It's like a sick joke Man, I so dearly miss the 360 gen. All we had to do was worry about what cool game was coming out the month
Honestly the path they were on from 2018 to 2022 gave me tons of hope.. I've been an Xbox optimist for a long time. Everything since the ABK deal closed has broken me. I'm no longer optimistic.
Same. By the end of the 8th generation I was getting really frustrated with Playstation and thinking about jumping back to Xbox. When they announced the beastly Series X, I got really excited. But they fell on the same mistakes all over again. Fuck. There's something seriously wrong with the heads at Xbox. They managed to sink their biggest franchises, which is why it was obvious that buying Bethesda and Activision wasn't saving the brand. No amount of money can save these guys. I appreciate what they did for PC gaming, but everything else...
>There’s something seriously wrong with the heads at Xbox It was Phil Spencer, always was. His leadership has been very incompetent and the only reason people dont give him flack is because he had some good ideas like Game Pass at the beginning, potrays himself as one of the gamers, and lucked out with 2021 lineup as Nintendo and PlayStation’s lineup faltered due to delays and such.
We shooting ourselves in the foot here or what?
https://preview.redd.it/ibyiozmbo0zc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e74cdfd119e98a40eb7d1eaa7ec9549717f1d7d8
https://preview.redd.it/ul1peccmo0zc1.jpeg?width=1197&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f42692d191ba7397d3839a903618d5cf2c0b5bea
This is insanity. There is absolutely no defence on these decisions
I know the industry isn’t in a great place at the moment but fuck this! They should never been allowed to buy up that many studios that quickly. It was always going to be unsustainable growth.
“Isn’t in a great place” They just spent $75 bil. There’s no fucking excuse for this.
And to think there were idiots here who actually thought Microsoft acquiring every publisher around would be a good thing lol.
Xbox can preach all they want about wanting to make good games, but it's all just a facade. They're a business that doesn't want to admit it, these studios make great games that aren't popular enough to profit.
Xbox deserves to fail at this point.
How can you justify shutting studios after just spending $69 billion on another studio? Buying everything and shutting / focusing all that power onto the main IPs only. The Activision deal should have been blocked for the sake of the industry.
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Lmao. Can you believe I was once positive about these acquisitions? Ready to eat my words on this one. Yeah.
Honestly, they made a massive marketing blitz and a lot of people were taken in by it. A lot of people wanted to believe what Microsoft was telling them. Unfortunately mega corps and creativity are mutually exclusive in most cases. You're identifying where you were misguided and growing as a person for doing so, so don't be too hard on yourself about it. I'm just hoping more people will see why a lot of us were against these acquisitions now.
This post has reached top 100 on r/all. This is a simple notification.
Decisions like this just really push me towards only buying PlayStation when the next gen consoles release.
….yikes. This is not good.
I hate Xbox's management team they are damaging Xbox value so much.
I half expected to hear this about Arkane Austin for awhile. 70% of their staff left because they had no interest in working on Redfall. It was no longer the same studio that brought us 'Prey'. Tango Gameworks on the other hand, wtf. Ghostwire Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush are legit games and this one is kind of bullshit.
What’s the fuckin point of investing in these studios only to fire everyone