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News Xbox isn't done closing studios or cuts

OctoSplattack said:
If you can't handle running a ton of different studios, why the hell did you buy a ton of different studios? Did Microsoft seriously spend this long trying to buy all these studios, but never think about the actual logistics of how they were going to manage them and foster the expansion and growth of them all? Did they seriously not think about this and put themselves in a corner where one of the easiest options ended up being to panic kill two of their most acclaimed studios, because the mere thought of having more teams to supervise if those studios grew scared the shit out of them? What the hell are they even doing over there?
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The thing is, Xbox never wanted to actually manage studios or cultivate talent, its just wanted to eat massive chunks of the industry with daddy's credit card so people would have no other option than to pay attention. Halo is a perfect microcosm of this: the golden era of the franchise was specifically by outside talent they acquired - that chose to leave because they hated their parent company that much - and after Xbox brought Halo internally to one of the rare organically-made studios, they mismanaged it so hard they obliterated the brand. Due to being an extension of B2B tech company, Xbox fundamentally misunderstands game development nor will they ever learn. So instead of knuckling down and doing the hard work of actually cultivating talented studios, they fall into a cycle: have no games because you managed your studios into the dirt -> buy existing studios with a pedigree attached -> eventually insert yourself into their managerial processes -> see step 1. Xbox cannot see 5 feet in front of its own face and everyone else is reaping the consequences of a nepo baby corporation finally being asked to show receipts.
 
AngryAlchemist said:
I actually find it offensive how little effort they put into their Hellblade II tweet ad today.



Ninja theory fans are scared shitless they're going to get shut down and this is what you post? I've always thought the trailer drops on Twitter from Nintendo were a little lame but holy shit they're actually trailers compared to whatever this shit is.


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The upsetting part is that Hellblade 2 is that the game has huge potential when it comes to sales, heck people love story driven games, just look at the last of us.

It’s also probably the biggest contender for game of the year, since it’s been a year of remakes and smaller scales titles.

Like the lack of marketing is unbelievably upsetting, especially since the game is releasing in 2 weeks, like what the hell, I would have expected way more.
 
Sadist said:
So Tango is probably in the dark on why they were closed.

But oof, that’s rough. More staff let go. If a studio understaffed, I can understand that you won’t hire like crazy. But if you bought these studios, you were already aware of that fact, right?

Yeah I know, it’s about controlling the IP and getting that value, not so much the staff that comes with it. Still… sigh.
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Nailed it nailer.

The last paragraph is so true it's sickening. Value that stems directly from the creativity that birthed it. When any property becomes an extended glove for a faceless, soulless co it loses what made it intrinsically interesting to begin with. Then it dies because of that, and the suits don't learn a thing.

The people trying to save face are even incapable of doing so because their sole reason for existence within the co is to deflect and sell any loss.
 
Steve said:
The upsetting part is that Hellblade 2 is that the game has huge potential when it comes to sales, heck people love story driven games, just look at the last of us.

It’s also probably the biggest contender for game of the year, since it’s been a year of remakes and smaller scales titles.

Like the lack of marketing is unbelievably upsetting, especially since the game is releasing in 2 weeks, like what the hell, I would have expected way more.
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Given Microsoft are being this quiet about it and Tameem left Ninja Theory some time ago, I'm not holding my breath that it's good. It might not be catastrophic, but it probably won't be anywhere close to a GOTY contender outside of Xbox first party categories that are going to have minimal competition this year.
 
Seven said:
One can hope, but you know those people will still salivate over rumors of Sony buying Square Enix or Microsoft acquiring Sega.
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people rarely learn

but yeah this was a built in slaughterfest. there has never been such a thing as infinite growth. you buy a studio and then suddenly it's yours. you fuck yourself up, then cut away the parts you don't want, and you're left with a few "profitable" chess pieces without all of the supporting staff who made their effectiveness possible

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Hailinel said:
Given Microsoft are being this quiet about it and Tameem left Ninja Theory some time ago, I'm not holding my breath that it's good. It might not be catastrophic, but it probably won't be anywhere close to a GOTY contender outside of Xbox first party categories that are going to have minimal competition this year.
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I'm looking forward to it, but it never was going to be their The Last of Us. It's unfortunate so much is riding on it, because while the first game was very good I can't see that format appealing to the wider audience. It's been advertised more as an action game than what made the first so special, and if it's going in a different direction (based on sales of the first) I can't fathom it meeting expectations. I hope I'm completely wrong but it always seemed like a bizarre title to bank so much on.

I guarantee you talks of a Hellblade tv adaptation have happened in the past and not so much lately. *Based on pure inference and in no way from facts
 
wait holy fuck Hellblade II is finally this month?

oh god

they haven't said shit about it

that does NOT bode well for the studio
 
Genuine possibility that buying ABK is what actually ends up killing the Xbox brand/platform. Like, I'm not saying MS was great steward of its developers before that, but it feels like they swallowed Activision up and immediately adopted all the horrible tendencies that put Acti-Blizz in a position where they needed to sell (gut everything creative, the only thing that matters is the CoD machine)

Like some kind of messed-up Kirby

Also just can't imagine what it must feel like to work at Ninja Theory, Machine Games, Obsidian, and watch this all happening
 
BlackthornOrion said:
Genuine possibility that buying ABK is what actually ends up killing the Xbox brand/platform. Like, I'm not saying MS was great steward of its developers before that, but it feels like they swallowed Activision up and immediately adopted all the horrible tendencies that put Acti-Blizz in a position where they needed to sell (gut everything creative, the only thing that matters is the CoD machine)

Like some kind of messed-up Kirby

Also just can't imagine what it must feel like to work at Ninja Theory, Machine Games, Obsidian, and watch this all happening
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Those tendencies have ALWAYS been a part of the MS ethos.

But I totally see what you mean. It's like they bought their likeness into a Charlie Brown cartoon except Lucy is just MS pulling the football out from under their own team.
 
Microsoft is well on their way to being the next Embracer. Fuck them. On a personal level it breaks my heart to hear Arkane Austin was going back to doing an immersive sim. I absolutely love Dishonored and Prey.
 
Forever thankful that we keep getting Halo novels, because if all Halo was was Halo 5 in 2015, Halo Wars 2 in 2017, and then Halo Infinite in 2021 and nothing since then, that franchise would have left my mind already.
 
What the hell? It’s never been clearer that Xbox is a sinking ship. I feel terrible for the passionate devs and team members who put their all into their work every day, only to have their jobs snatched away at the hands of terrible management.

By the way, how’s that $10 million/year salary treating you, Phil? Buy yourself anything nice lately?
 
I imagine every single one of Xbox’s remaining studios is absolutely terrified right now
 
So they said they would focus on Gamepass only for that to blow up in their face because surprise, basing your subscription service that offers 60 dollar games on a service that offers 5 dollar movies isn’t a great idea. They went and bought tons of companies only to shut them down when they weren’t making insane amounts of money when they A.) forced them to make kinds of games they didn’t specialize in B.) shadowdropped many of the games, and C.) limited many of the games to the failure that is game pass. They talk about wanting to increasingly support other consoles, but also talk about supporting their own consoles more, sending a mixed signal even to the people within Xbox. They talk in private about how only PlayStation could possibly compete with them and how it’s only a matter of time before Nintendo gets bought out, yet publicly admit defeat to both Nintendo and PlayStation as a developer and console maker. They have consistently sunk their most popular series into failure and mediocrity yet somehow seem unable to fix the problems everyone else has realized how to fix literal years ago. They act “in touch” with the current gaming atmosphere, yet also privately talk about how Nintendo is failing while they do leaps and bounds better then Xbox in every regard for seven years. I think Xbox needs some serious time to consider what their doing, because I genuinely don’t think they even know anymore
 
Hope the devs affected manage to land on their feet and find a way to pursue their craft free of the corporate yoke.

A vain hope I imagine, but I'll hope for it anyway.
 
Poof, hopefully the consoles manage to get through this ordeal, though it's starting to look improbable. The pressure to recoup the 70B and create a huge video game division is too intense, and Xbox, the line of consoles at least, isn't up to the task anymore.
 
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It was absurd for people to think that Activision wouldn't have a dominating influence on Microsoft. Yeah, Microsoft overall was the bigger company but in terms of gaming, Activision dwarfed Xbox

Who was running the most successful business? Activision
Who had the more popular titles? Activision
Who was getting multi-million sellers out the door faster? Activision

Activision basically cut out their historic portfolio of titles to focus on COD, Blizzard, and Candy Crush studio to squeeze out every last dollar from those franchises. It doesn't matter if other franchises could bring in money. They weren't bringing in the most money so those devs had to hit the COD grinder. Microsoft was fortunate that as scandal ridden worm of a CEO was looking to get out before he was forced out so he comes desperate Xbox looking to buy their way to success. But when the Microsoft higher ups saw how much more successful they were than Xbox's own internal studios, they gave Phil his orders to start being more like Activision. There was no way Phil was going to revive that Activision IP you loved as a kid. His job is to make Microsoft more money and that is all.
 
If they can't put Call of Duty on Gamepass day 1 then it just goes to show putting literally anything on there day one is also a bad idea

This isn't that hard. Don't raise the price, cut the price of game pass a little and just put old shit on there. No more day one releases. That was never going to work out.
 
Pillydillsy said:
So they said they would focus on Gamepass only for that to blow up in their face because surprise, basing your subscription service that offers 60 dollar games on a service that offers 5 dollar movies isn’t a great idea. They went and bought tons of companies only to shut them down when they weren’t making insane amounts of money when they A.) forced them to make kinds of games they didn’t specialize in B.) shadowdropped many of the games, and C.) limited many of the games to the failure that is game pass. They talk about wanting to increasingly support other consoles, but also talk about supporting their own consoles more, sending a mixed signal even to the people within Xbox. They talk in private about how only PlayStation could possibly compete with them and how it’s only a matter of time before Nintendo gets bought out, yet publicly admit defeat to both Nintendo and PlayStation as a developer and console maker. They have consistently sunk their most popular series into failure and mediocrity yet somehow seem unable to fix the problems everyone else has realized how to fix literal years ago. They act “in touch” with the current gaming atmosphere, yet also privately talk about how Nintendo is failing while they do leaps and bounds better then Xbox in every regard for seven years. I think Xbox needs some serious time to consider what their doing, because I genuinely don’t think they even know anymore
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Yeah like

How was Hi-Fi Rush supposed to make money given Game Pass.
 
OctoSplattack said:
If you can't handle running a ton of different studios, why the hell did you buy a ton of different studios? Did Microsoft seriously spend this long trying to buy all these studios, but never think about the actual logistics of how they were going to manage them and foster the expansion and growth of them all? Did they seriously not think about this and put themselves in a corner where one of the easiest options ended up being to panic kill two of their most acclaimed studios, because the mere thought of having more teams to supervise if those studios grew scared the shit out of them, on top of the whole GamePass mess? What the hell are they even doing over there?
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If only Xbox had some sort of resource that has experience running dozens of international offices from the same US location with much more staff…but guess they couldn’t find that to help with logistics and planning.
 
Earthbounder said:
Someone save Rare and Double Fine.
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Time for Nintendo to do the funniest of things. (mostly kidding, not that it's gonna happen anyway)
(also I feel like Rare is save for now, given they have Sea of Thieves, suits love live service games)
 
Lugia667 said:
Tim Schafer needs to look at trying to pull his own Toys for Bob ASAP
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I wonder if the optics might be too bad for that from Xbox’s side. Can’t imagine they’d wanna be the publisher that bought a studio, had to release their game on all platforms, and then let that studio go.

I sure as hell would like for that to happen, though.
 
They'll shut down Mojang next because Legends didn't do as well as hoped or something
 
It's ironic, because I am done with supporting Xbox hardware past this generation.
 
Lugia667 said:


I....don't see how Jason thinks this is any better. Approve something if you want them to stop pitching
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He's not saying it's better. Just explaining the method to the madness.

1. Zenimax had to consolidate.
2. Some studios are in the middle of active development on projects, some aren't and are in the pitch preparation phase for their next games.
3. Zenimax chose to cut the studios in the second group.

It's shit regardless.
 
Lugia667 said:


I....don't see how Jason thinks this is any better. Approve something if you want them to stop pitching
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I don't think he thinks it's better per say - though I do think they are basically saying the same thing so I'm not sure why he's saying it "is inaccurate" - bc apart from Zenimax were forced to consolidate by MS as context for why the decision was taken, they're both saying Zeni/MS chose to shutter studios who were not in active development on greenlit games rather than cancel active projects (at this time) - but yes, obv Tango weren't shut down because they had made a successful game I suppose
 
www.theverge.com

Microsoft says it needs games like Hi-Fi Rush the day after killing its studio

There seems to be some confusion here.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

"Today, one day after Microsoft announced that it would shut down four of its games studios, Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, held a town hall to discuss the division’s future goals. “We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards,” Booty told employees, according to internal remarks shared with The Verge."
 
HockeyBird said:
www.theverge.com

Microsoft says it needs games like Hi-Fi Rush the day after killing its studio

There seems to be some confusion here.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

"Today, one day after Microsoft announced that it would shut down four of its games studios, Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, held a town hall to discuss the division’s future goals. “We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards,” Booty told employees, according to internal remarks shared with The Verge."
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3f2.jpg
 
HockeyBird said:
www.theverge.com

Microsoft says it needs games like Hi-Fi Rush the day after killing its studio

There seems to be some confusion here.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

"Today, one day after Microsoft announced that it would shut down four of its games studios, Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, held a town hall to discuss the division’s future goals. “We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards,” Booty told employees, according to internal remarks shared with The Verge."
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This would be extremely funny if there weren't thousands of families being harmed by the incompetence and greed of these assholes.
 
HockeyBird said:
www.theverge.com

Microsoft says it needs games like Hi-Fi Rush the day after killing its studio

There seems to be some confusion here.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

"Today, one day after Microsoft announced that it would shut down four of its games studios, Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, held a town hall to discuss the division’s future goals. “We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards,” Booty told employees, according to internal remarks shared with The Verge."
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It’s magical how incompetent that statement is. Comedians can only dream of crafting irony this impeccable.
 
HockeyBird said:
Everyone, please rise for the Xbox National Anthem sung by Matt Booty

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Let’s do the appropriate version please



Yes this is real.

Yes I’m posting this because I’m too angry/sad/annoyed/negative right now and need something joyful in the face of this.

OT: Fuck Microsoft.
 
Rare is going to get fked so hard. Like what have they been doing for Microsoft for Microsoft to not look at them for layoffs? Everwild never coming out. They haven’t done anything else except hold on to Sea of Thieves forever.
 
Dark Cloud said:
Rare is going to get fked so hard. Like what have they been doing for Microsoft for Microsoft to not look at them for layoffs? Everwild never coming out. They haven’t done anything else except hold on to Sea of Thieves forever.
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That’s a pretty massive “except”. Sea of Thieves is huge. Rare isn’t going anywhere due to that alone.
 
Shamelessly stolen from the other site but…

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Dark Cloud said:
Rare is going to get fked so hard. Like what have they been doing for Microsoft for Microsoft to not look at them for layoffs? Everwild never coming out. They haven’t done anything else except hold on to Sea of Thieves forever.
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Eh, to be fair, Live Service games tend to make these executives salivate so they’re probably good for a little while longer.

…though Nintendo has the opportunity to do the funniest shit in awhile.
 
HockeyBird said:
www.theverge.com

Microsoft says it needs games like Hi-Fi Rush the day after killing its studio

There seems to be some confusion here.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

"Today, one day after Microsoft announced that it would shut down four of its games studios, Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, held a town hall to discuss the division’s future goals. “We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards,” Booty told employees, according to internal remarks shared with The Verge."
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Un-fucking-believable
 
HockeyBird said:
www.theverge.com

Microsoft says it needs games like Hi-Fi Rush the day after killing its studio

There seems to be some confusion here.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

"Today, one day after Microsoft announced that it would shut down four of its games studios, Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, held a town hall to discuss the division’s future goals. “We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards,” Booty told employees, according to internal remarks shared with The Verge."
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I wish I could suck at my job this bad and get paid.
 
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