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News Xbox closes Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and others.



Site is moving slow as molasses right now and I will update but the link is above. Jason Schreier confirms.

Pretty clear at this point a Microsoft acquisition is the kiss of death for your studio.
 
Tango paying for the sins of ZeniMax is a damn outrage and the biggest casualty so far of this big publisher trend to consolidate more money into ventures that are underperforming. You finally had a Japanese studio, one that made your first unique and critically successful first party IP in years. And you blew it all.
 
I know this sounds like fanboyism but...thank god Retro and Monolith Soft are owned by Nintendo

any other publisher would have shuttered them both at this point
 
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Guess Switch 2 aint getting that Hi-Fi Rush port...

But in general, fuck Microsoft. I hope people stop supporting these massive company buyouts with the false belief that it will benefit the workers.
 
Y’know that one specific copypasta? The “I just shouted fuck you at my screen” one?

That’s me right now. Like, actually.
 
I'm so fucking mad about this. I know Austin made Redfall but how the fuck are you going to close the studio that made Prey? How the fuck are you going to close the studio that made HI FI RUSH. Your only good game of 2023. HOW THE FUCK ARE PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO MAKE GOOD GAMES WHEN THEY CONSTANTLY HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT BEING FIRED.

Phil is the worst Xbox CEO. No excuses.
 
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What the fuck are you doing, Microsoft?

Oh yeah, you're being the corporate embodiment of the hellscape that is capitalism.
 
Hi-Fi Rush was the first game in a while that Microsoft published where I thought, "Oh, maybe they make games for me."

Welp, that's gone. I didn't really have positive or negative feelings about Xbox as a brand, but this definitely moved my opinion a few points towards the latter.

I hope everyone lands on their feet quickly.
 
First studio closure to legit piss me the fuck off. Hi-Fi Rush was the best, most exciting thing to come out of Microsoft for ages, was nominated for multiple game of the year awards, and this is how they treat the dev? Fuck right the hell off Microsoft. Didn’t even give a reason for this decision or a promise to merge the dev team into Zenimax. Just let them all go.

Not shocked they abandoned Redfall but shutting down Arcane Austin is also stupid a fuck.

I’ll buy HFR on PS5 and that’s probably the last time I touch anything from Xbox.
 
Copying what I said in the other thread in case it gets shut down:

I'm so fucking mad about this. I know Austin made Redfall but how the fuck are you going to close the studio that made Prey? How the fuck are you going to close the studio that made HI FI RUSH. Your only good game of 2023. HOW THE FUCK ARE PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO MAKE GOOD GAMES WHEN THEY CONSTANTLY HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT BEING FIRED.

Phil is the worst Xbox CEO. No excuses.
 
Had a thought yesterday of all the Microsoft companies that have announced games up to 5 years ago at this point and those games have been nowhere to be seen.

Like are studios already owned by Microsoft that aren't under the Zenimax/Activision umbrellas benefitting in any way from Microsoft's leadership, if there is any at all?

Rare with Everwild
The Initiative with Perfect Dark
Hellblade 2 was announced 5 years ago
Avowed was announced 4 years ago
Took Compulsion 6 years from We Happy Few to announce South of Midnight
State of Decay 3/Undead Labs should be forgiven, considering the situation
Fable was 4 years ago, last years trailer is clearly heavily scripted/not what the game will look like.

Truly I don't know what Xbox does from here on out.
 
wait for the heat to die down from the regulators for your corporate consolidation, continue with the shutdowns and layoffs you always planned to make.
Corporate 101.
 
I wonder if Shinji Mikami leaving had anything to do with Tango getting shutdown. Because by all accounts, they were doing pretty good.

But still though, getting acquired by Microsoft just seems to be a death trap now for any game studio.
 
Welp, went ahead and cancelled my game pass subscription. I just can't in good conscience support a company that does shit like this.
 
wait for the heat to die down from the regulators for your corporate consolidation, continue with the shutdowns and layoffs you always planned to make.
Corporate 101.
 
JFC. Was Arkane Austin the ones that did Dishonored too? Or was that a different Arkane studio?

AngryAlchemist said:
Phil is the worst Xbox CEO. No excuses.
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Honestly I’d lay this at Satya Nadella’s feet. This smells like trying to shrink Xbox in order to prop up some other part of the business (like their GenAI investments)
 
Wait, Arkane Austin made Prey? I thought it was from the same people that did Dishonored. That's a big L then :/

Also shame about Tango Gameworks, just after Mikami left, even.
 
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Losing Tango fucking sucks. HFR was great and Ghostwire was really unique.

Arkane Austin did Prey 2017, but it's a shame that all they'll be remembered for is Redfall.
 
if you wanna be extra cynical you can say they are doing this close to Hellblade 2 release date in order to bury the bad news
 
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KilgoreWolfe said:
Welp, went ahead and cancelled my game pass subscription. I just can't in good conscience support a company that does shit like this.
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I agree, this just killed any remaining hope I had for Xbox as a brand. These are not the actions of a company that wants to remain a big player in the console space.
 
Christo750 said:
Had a thought yesterday of all the Microsoft companies that have announced games up to 5 years ago at this point and those games have been nowhere to be seen.

Like are studios already owned by Microsoft that aren't under the Zenimax/Activision umbrellas benefitting in any way from Microsoft's leadership, if there is any at all?

Rare with Everwild
The Initiative with Perfect Dark
Hellblade 2 was announced 5 years ago
Avowed was announced 4 years ago
Took Compulsion 6 years from We Happy Few to announce South of Midnight
State of Decay 3/Undead Labs should be forgiven, considering the situation
Fable was 4 years ago, last years trailer is clearly heavily scripted/not what the game will look like.

Truly I don't know what Xbox does from here on out.
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Yeah, at least papa EA had the decency of publishing games before shooting their studios in the back of the head. Xbox is just a black hole that swallows people's labor for years without much to show for it.
 
Not just game studios. Microsoft also closed in late April Bethesda France, which always did a FANTASTIC translating job for all their games in french, but also handling the community aspects of their online spaces, and the team was well beloved by the french Bethesda fans. After a first wave of firing, Microsoft promised the team in January that they wouldn't close the studio...

I'm aware of this because I'm a french Bethesda fan, but I'm sure other Bethesda offices all over the world are planned to get closed as of right now.
 
God damn it. All they had to do was make Prey 2 and let the strong word of mouth from the original carry it. It wouldn't have been a huge hit but it would have been a good game and the studio would have survived. Instead they went trend chasing and made bloody Redfall. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Prey will go down in history as one of the most underappreciated games of all time.

Makes no sense closing Tango after Hi-Fi Rush, either. What on earth are they doing?
 
Phil Spencer and Matt Booty can go fuck themselves. At this point I'm convinced they have dirt on Nadella, there's no other way their incompetent asses would still have jobs otherwise
 
Does anyone else get the feeling that MS regrets the insane amount of money they have wasted in this gen? And if they had a time machine they would have jumped ship off gaming?
So much money, so much effort, so many acquisitions and for what? A distant third place.
I feel that MS slowly prepares to be a big third publisher in the future that mostly releases COD and Bethesda games. There's no way that a next gen Xbox will exist, right?
 
Enpsty said:
Does anyone else get the feeling that MS regrets the insane amount of money they have wasted in this gen? And if they had a time machine they would have jumped ship off gaming?
So much money, so much effort, so many acquisitions and for what? A distant third place.
I feel that MS slowly prepares to be a big third publisher in the future that mostly releases COD and Bethesda games. There's no way that a next gen Xbox will exist, right?
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They already confirmed they aren't stopping with Xbox consoles.
www.theverge.com

Microsoft teases next-gen Xbox with “largest technical leap” and new “unique” hardware

Microsoft might be teasing an Xbox handheld.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
 
Really fucking sucks, hope the people who are losing their jobs land on their feet.

Can't imagine people at Double Fine, Ninja Theory etc feel great right now either.

What an insanely toxic industry to work in.
 
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shoptroll said:
JFC. Was Arkane Austin the ones that did Dishonored too? Or was that a different Arkane studio?
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Dishonored and Deathloop were Arkane Lyons (French), although Wikipedia lumps them together as the same studio. Basically the founder of Arkane migrated to the US, with Arkane Austin being their company in the US.

Arkane Lyons is as far as I understand both untouched and the chief of Arkane Lyons is going off on Twitter about how awful Microsoft's cuts are. He's also telling gamers off that it's got nothing to do with the "imsim curse", but that it's entirely related to investor driven gold-fever demanding absurd results and then throwing employees to the wolves when impossible demands prove to impossible.
 
Microsoft is officially on the shit list for closing Tango Gameworks. It was your biggest hit last year, eclipsing Starfield in critical acclaim and cultural impact and yet you close the studio? I am baffled right now.

It hurts to lose Arkane Austin too. Prey and its DLC Mooncrash were a huge highlight from the last generation.
 
"We thank you for your amazing games, but we need to invest in the games you created, except without you, because it makes sense when we don't think about it".

- An asshole working for Microsoft.
 
Heron said:
Prey will go down in history as one of the most underappreciated games of all time.
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Decades of the industry hyping up Bioshock, choice-driven gameplay, rpg elements in FPS games, and Metroidvania level design and it's fucking PREY that the games industry decided to sleep on

honestly unbelievable how unfair it can be
 
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