I had to triple check this to make sure I was seeing words the right way. MFer really said it.
Microsoft says it needs games like Hi-Fi Rush the day after killing its studio - The Verge
Microsoft says it needs games like Hi-Fi Rush the day after killing its studio
"I wanna date someone like you, but not you"
"I wish I had a different son like you, but not you"
"Wrong kid died!!"
"This was a particularly bad case of somebody being cut in half."
Speak English doc! We ain't scientists!
And you never paid for drugs! Not once!
Dewey, im cut in half pretty bad....
You know who's got hands? THE DEVIL! And he uses 'em for holding!
"This is a particularly bad case of somebody being cut in half"
Speak english to me doc! I aint no scientist!
It's not habit-forming!
<Bob Dylan voice> Rimjob fairy teapots something something mouse with the overbite…
That’s all I got… I love this sub.
Mah son’s gone smell blind!
Matt Booty is Denethor I guess
I like you, as a friend
" Exactly like you but hot and rich. "
User deleted comment
10d
I'm always reminded of the tweet from the girl saying "this is my dream boy" with a pic of some dude. Then said dude responds and she shoots him down.
Justin Gaethje, mma fighter. He's ripped in his pictures but in his display picture he wears glasses and looked a bit nerdy.
"You'd be such a good boyfriend!... For someone else."
Games like that one, except without those highly skilled and experienced developers who ask for all that money
This is the crazy part to me.
Let me preface this with the fact that I'm a game dev working in a Japanese company.
The yen is weak and game devs here get paid LITERALLY HALF of what our Western counterparts receive. Tango most likely didn't require the same budget scale as other similar sized studios/projects.
Honestly, from Microsoft's perspective what Gamepass needs is AI generated games and from what we've seen of gaming consumers this is what they want too.
Companies want to sell slop and consumers want to rent slop on gamepass
Yeah. People get mad about what's going on in gaming, but then they vote with their wallets to make it worse.
Remember when loot crates were bad and consumers responding by buying lootcrates in record numbers? Remember when day 1 patches were normalized by consumers? It goes on and on.
Gaming consumers are bad consumers.
The people who are mad are generally not the same people who are paying for said slop.
People are voting with their wallets and they're beating those of us who don't want that content to dominate.
People that spend have so much money invested it negates the rest of us. Voting with ur wallet was never a viable option.
The way I see it, it's proof that voting with your wallet is viable. It's just that the side you voted for turned out to be the minority.
Is it really the same individuals though? Or do you think maybe there is a spectrum ranging from engaged individuals who are likely to criticize, to low-information consumers.
No disagreement with the overall statement though.
That's not exactly how stuff like loot crates or horse armor or whatever work though.
It is instead something like: people like us discussing games on reddit have similar opinions about stuff, but we are the minority opinion. Sure like the top 5 or 10% gamers most into gamers may hate loot boxes, but 90% of the players are more casual, arent on reddit talking about games, and will just buy loot boxes without thinking much about the bigger picture, they just want that neon skin or whatever.
I think it might also be that those of us that are against these practices are older and actually remember a time when you bought a complete game with all of it's content and those who pay for loot boxes and 17 dlc's are younger folks for whom this is what gaming was always like. Basically the bar has been dropping for so long that most consumers never saw it above ground and don't know any better. A 20 year old today would have been exposed to this bull since they were 10 and 20 year olds have their own money. Most people drop gaming by 25 so we are dying off faster than getting wise to it.
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10d
AI generated games that sell lootboxes with AI generated skins and a 0.01% chance of an ULTRA RARE Jpg
“Now that everyone is stressed out and fearing for their jobs, and all the studios that were pitching ew games got killed, please pitch some good games for us that will win us awards.”
Seems like a trap.
"We want good games but we don't want to be responsible for fostering a community of creative, sometimes contentious individuals who need living wages and a non-toxic workplace that may include working from home at will. So please just work harder and longer and we'll take all the profits to divvy up amongst shareholders. Oh and here are some machine-generated ideas to get started. We only spent tens of billions of dollars on these and vetted them with focus groups already so just do what the bot says."
They said they just need the games. Not the studios.
Then why buy the studios 😵💫
IP.
Buy studio, get IP, develop it from other owned studios, cash in on name whether new product is good or not.
Matt Booty is officially the Morgan Elsbeth of gaming.
Studios: “But you promised us work and prosperity.”
Matt Booty: “Microsoft wants only your resources. Not your people.”
Studios: “You said Microsoft would help to change things. We trusted you. Put our lives in your hands. You promised us wealth and we let you control our lives. You lied, Matt.”
Matt: “Everything comes at a cost.”
Studios: “Including failure.”
Will we ever see a day when the executives are the ones being brought to bear and held accountable instead of the people who actually put the work in to make these games?
WHEN WILL WE COLLECTIVELY SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH TO CORPORATE GREED?? WE’VE LET THE CORPOS CONTROL OUR LIVES LONG ENOUGH, IT IS TIME TO RISE UP.
Zenimax started the unionization process last year. One of the studios involved was Arkane.
There is very little media about these workers trying to unionize. It's entirely speculative but, I wonder if the disconnect here is in fact a signal for an ulterior motive by Microsoft. Perhaps the studios listed in the shut down, including Arkane which has already been listed as a studio attempting to unionize, were joining the effort.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Microsoft is quietly trying to dismantle a union effort.
What they mean is they want games like that one right now. The studio pitched a sequel and Microsoft rejected it because it would take "too" long to make.
You’re everything I want in a man, I just don’t want you.
Microsoft - why can't I find a guy like this ugh
Hi-Fi Rush - hey
Microsoft - no
“But it’s literally me in the pic”
"This year I lost my good studios"
"We're here"
"Sometimes I can still hear their voices"
"Some of you may be fired, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make"
[APPLAUSE]
“It’s like he’s right there beside me”
gamezoned
Perfect vernacular, adherence to meme format, punctuation, capitalization. 10/10 comment.
Only lacking "I'm literally the game in the picture"
Sometimes it's clever to leave the punchline out as people feel more clever for recognizing it. This dude wins because everyone got it.
well reddited my good sir
Phil Spencer must be running out of "We apologize that (Xbox game here) didn't live up to expectations" prompts at this point
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11d
Replacing Spencer after this move will only prove Microsoft doesn't know what the fuck they are doing anymore and the Shareholders are really running that shit into the ground for a quick buck.
Their stock keeps going up. Xbox is like an unprofitable pet project to Microsoft, its stock and their shareholders at this point..and has been for decades. Nothing that department does moves the needle at all.
Azure and enterprise services are where the real money is at
And frankly that shit needs some FTC scrutiny too.
It is entirely too convenient how much Microsoft's definition of "modern" management and security basically means "Only use Microsoft products, and only put data into our cloud".
Not with those DoD contacts that they have.
They're pretty much untouchable at this point.
I honestly do not know how they remedy Azure and AWS
Aws and azure could be divested from their parent companies, but thats about it
Agreed, but woah that would be court battle,
I would cum fairy dust if the FTC actually started busting up these giga companies
It doesn't make any sense honestly. Xbox promotes these studios then shuts them down without warning. Like I said previously it just seems like they are making as much room for a bigger shareholder pay out.
Xbox is such a tiny portion of Microsoft's bottom line, relatively speaking, that dumping studios in the Xbox division is barely going to move the needle for the company. Within the division it is significant but once you go beyond the boundary of Phil Spencer, it is small.
It was before ABK came into the picture costing 70 billion and having much better profit margins than the Xbox business. I imagine a higher up at Microsoft has started getting actively involved with Xbox.
ABK at 100 billion is 5 percent of MS at 2 TRILLION.
We need to break these companies up.
Buying up IPs & immediately hacking the people who created them should be illegal — in the same way that sharing proprietary information or plagiarizing is illegal. There should be a timed protection clause for the creator in those contracts — where if they are indeed dismissed, within a specified window of time, the rights are dismissed with them.
You may legally own the IP if you purchase it, but it can never be your IP (intellectual property — you know, technically speaking). Why is this allowed to happen?
Seems we value the rights of corporate conglomerates more than we value the rights of people, or even small businesses.
Most frustrating part is that Capitalism needs the latter to maintain healthy/sustainable function.
And it isn’t just gaming. The more industries consolidate across the board, the more this becomes a problem. Been moving this direction since pretty much the 80s & feels like it really accelerated with internet/globalization + is all coming to a head.
Seems we value the rights of corporate conglomerates more than we value the rights of people, or even small businesses.
*checks notes on the last 40 years of western civilisation*
Yup.
There's nothing ethical about Modern Day Capitalism. This is something that is industry wide and isn't stopping any time soon.
That's not what remotely happened here...
Arkane Austin Not the larger Arkane Studio that made Dishonored that one is still around. Is and has been a troubled studio for a long time Zenimax was planning on closing them before the sale to Microsoft. After the disaster of a live service push Zenimax turned Redfall into the game was doomed. It sold poorly , and pretty much killed that studio . The Development teams at arkane are being absorbed into the greater Bethesda Studios. The IPS are still at Bethesda, and a lot of the devs nothing is stopping sequels.
Tango Game works lost it's head Director and studio founder Shinji Mikami, and his team of lead Devs. He was planning on leaving before the sale of ABK and decided to stay on til after Ghostwires launch. The game was mixed received and lost it's director , there would be no reason to keep a studio open without it's reason for existing.
Bethesda and Microsoft are moving these studio Devs to other larger , profitable projects. This isn't some evil move to kill creative games,or capitalism gone wild, Profit at any costs. This is the smartest move for the long term and nothing is stopping Bethesda from developing these IPS within Bethesda again. You don't keep open studios that are hemorrhaging money, putting other studios at risk.
Thanks for that explanation & I especially appreciate the level (non-insulting) delivery.
I generally feel like industry is consolidating & that it negatively affects the entire world economy — so I can admit when I’m wrong or jumping the gun based on a narrative I’m biased to eat up.
I actually feel better having this information.
This is also how this industry works. There are very few studios that don’t go through massive layoffs or closures. Look at Irrational games and its sister studios (Bioshock) and Visceral (Dead Space, BF: Hardline) there are many more, but I like these examples. They made genre defining titles. But closed either way due to one flop or other outside reasons.
I’d highly recommend reading Press Reset by Jason Schreir. It demonstrates how inconsistent a career in game development is
Tango Game works lost it's head Director and studio founder Shinji Mikami, and his team of lead Devs. He was planning on leaving before the sale of ABK and decided to stay on til after Ghostwires launch.
Mikami last directed Evil Within in 2014. Since then he has been stepping back into 'producer' roles and trying to turn Tango in a place for new talent to get a chance to lead and grow. It basically sounded like he was signing his name to get the funding.
Jon Johanas directed Evil Within 2/Hi Fi Rush and Mikami probably figured Tango was in good hands after they delivered a smash hit.
Ikumi Nakumura left Tango a while ago, like a year into Ghostwire development and that project was taken over by Kenji Kemura.
Hi Fi Rush was John Johanas' brainchild. Mikami just kept his name on there to get funding.
So how did Tango have no reason to exist when they had up an coming talent like that? Johanas directed 2 amazing games. They probably figured that'd be enough for Mikami to bounce out and leave them to stand on their own.
Tango Game works lost it's head Director and studio founder Shinji Mikami, and his team of lead Devs
Source on the bolded?
I only read about Mikami leaving, which was long time coming and delayed. Mikami had almost no input on the development of the excellent Hifi Rush, whose creator Johanas was still present in company at time of closure.
Yes, Mikami openly said he was stepping back into 'producer' roles (aka, signing his name on the line to keep funding rolling) and letting newer up and coming talent take the reigns.
Johanas was still at Tango. Who directed Evil Within 2 and Hi Fi Rush.
I have no idea what this dude is talking about. Possibly referencing Ikumi Nakumura who left a long time ago.
But Tango was still running fine as far as i'm aware...
This checks out because it was leaked they were pitching a sequel.
I still appreciate the reply’s even-keel in context of disagreement, but I thought about it & the fact that these small studios are agreeing to risky acquisitions could be easily attributed to the fact that, of course they need the resources, when market share is so consolidated to begin with.
Xbox has now surpassed Windows in share of their business. But the real money is all in the enterprise side of things with Azure
The shareholders probably give zero fucks about Xbox tbh
Any time I've bought msft stock I've never once thought "I'm buying Xbox stock"
Hasnt even crossed my mind when considering investing in msft.
Nobody is running a 3 trillion dollar company into the ground. The gaming division of Microsoft is a small part of the company as a whole.
You know of a place where I can get up to speed on those? Haven't heard much about it
I saw bits and pieces all over social media, so I don't know where anyone has collected it. Might have to google for them, if articles were written.
I saw a damning statement from Matt Booty where he wants to 'outspend Sony' out of business. Phil tried defending that by saying it was 'an old strategy'. There was another from Phil where he wanted to buy Nintendo, which was also a damning admission and revelation of their thought process.
When I seen them buying giants like blizzard and activision I literally said Microsoft is just waving a money dick around right now to pressure Sony, they just want to pressure Sony because Sony is pushing better games so they will buy out everything they can to try and starve Sony
And his admissions behind closed doors were exactly that pretty much
There's some satisfaction in seeing that even throwing money at everything has utterly failed for MS. They've mismanaged every studio they've bought and run their beloved IPs into the ground. Money can't make up for competency and MS is utterly incompetent compared to Sony.
As much as Sony has some shit practices they are competent with game design and production atleast
Microsoft just has money to throw around and it shocks me they don’t just fund their own companies like Sony does with all that money properly instead of buying and ruining
Those studios sucked so much ass way before MS bought them. It was stupid to buy them for that very reason. Bethesda nor Blizz has innovated or really tried in a long time.
Fresh face same strategy
Xbox management is becoming elite at rephrasing that sentence.
Doesn’t 343 Industries have a stack of headlines that go like “[Insert terrible game of theirs here] was a learning experience for us, next time it will be better”?
I mean, yes, they are shit but this makes it sound like they've made heaps of games and not just 3 mediocre Halos.
Was he rubbing his nipples when he said he was sorry
There are (hopefully) going to be some very uncomfortable interviews coming up in and around June. I hope that the media does their job and grills the fuck out of him.
Why are we even talking about Phil Spencer? Matt Booty is the one who sent the layoff notices, is in charge of the studios, and the one mentioned in this article.
Technically Phil Spencer is Booty’s boss.
He did relatively recently assign Booty to the job, and Booty just made the call.
In time, we’ll probably see that it was the right call. Just a bad PR move right this moment. Bleed some PR vs bleed some money…
Booty just made the call
Worst...Booty call...ever.
We're sorry.
We need games like Hi Fi Rush.
But more like Call of Duty
This guy gets it.
All games are equal but some games are more equal than others
The sad part is that's probably what they have in mind. More live-service sludge that they can use to fill up Game Pass.
This is what they mean. But they’ve also said this for almost the last ten years and are still failing lol
It's amazing that they fumbled that hard with Halo Infinite, the shitty TV show doesn't help the brand either. They could have easily made a game that covered multiple shooter sub-genres with lots of cosmetics for people to play for and pay for.
Hi Fi rush is a gamble, call of duty is not a gamble. Big corporations like Microsoft want games that will 100% make money not games that might make a lot of money or might lose a lot of money. They are looking for quarterly gains not long term success
Exactly!
And when you’re as big as Microsoft it eventually just becomes easier to buy out the people who are hitting those risky home runs, and just shut them down.
Gaming in the age of corporate consolidation is one of the clearest examples we have of being way too deep into late stage capitalism
Even those big games are a gamble, as evidenced by the fact that almost every new live service game has failed while costing their studios millions.
Almost as if consumers don't want to be squeezed for profits over half assed games
It's also just an increasingly crowded market that depends more on constant player time. Time is more valuable to live service games due to the need for players to fill matchmaking as much as possible, so they're all trying to increasingly take pieces from the shrinking pie that is a player's time.
Hi Fi rush is a gamble, call of duty is not a gamble. Big corporations like Microsoft want games that will 100% make money not games that might make a lot of money or might lose a lot of money.
This is exactly whats killing movie industry. The gaming has the advantage of indie development.
It’s ironic how game companies are so reliant on their mega brands. Like there’s an IP out there that WOULD be more successful than CoD. But it’s not CoD so it will never be greenlit.
Cue Xbox One reveal presentation minus TV TV TV
I assume in context, what they mean by this is cheaper and more quickly produced games.
That also have battle passes
And purchasable loot boxes.
And live service.
They already have halo infinite
Xbox is speed running the downfall of streaming. Have lots of great titles for one low monthly price? That’s great. Have nothing to replace those titles and no income because you aren’t selling your games? That’s uh, less great.
“I want a guy like you. Exactly like you. Just not you.”
Matt Booty is a fucking idiot.
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11d
Gamepass is the only thing keeping Microsoft from shutting down the Xbox division completely.
Which is ironic because I think 10 years from now we will identify Game Pass as the cause of their downfall.
Great for short term profits, but what do you do when the shareholders continue to demand double-digit growth while Game Pass cannibalizes day one releases forever? It’s not sustainable.
You're just not thinking long term enough. As a CEO or any executive... My career goal is not to develop a company. Absolutely fucking not. I am here to give investors a return right fucking now. Developing a reputation for pulling that off will bring us real money. Sales of games are a drop in the bucket comparatively.
That is why I go from company to company making decisions like this. Maximizing profit on the market while tanking the company.
What is the consequence for doing this? Nothing. You simply move to a new public company where the shareholders pick you for your ability to give them huge returns and tank the company. It's the grift economy. Welcome to being scammed everywhere you go; gaming edition.
what do you do when the shareholders continue to demand double-digit growth
Stock buyback.
It’s not sustainable.
Stock buyback.
The problem is that there’s not as much of a reason to own an Xbox anymore, besides game pass, but even PlayStation has their own version of game pass now.
The real problem with Xbox imo is the lack of killer exclusives. I can name a ton of highly acclaimed PlayStation 4/5 exclusives off the top of my head, but I can’t do the same for Xbox over the past decade. The only game I can think of for Xbox is Sunset Overdrive, which was apparently a massive financial flop despite good reviews. Hi-Fi Rush doesn’t count because it’s on PS5 now.
It's like Microsoft is cursed or something. Even the games they bet on (and that look good at least in the trailers like Starfield) fail after launch. Halo is the only thing they have and even that failed and I dunno how long can they milk that. None of the "exclusives" in their history (barrinf a few) have ever worked and brought in the profits.
FFS, like you mentioned, Sunset Overdrive failed and that was the only Xbox game by Insomniac, which is one of Sony's best studios and went on to create the best Spiderman game.
As a certain point, it becomes self inflicted.
"If you smell poo everywhere, look under your shoe". All those failures have the common denominator of being part of Xbox. 1 or 2 bad games in a year is cursed. 10 years of bad games is bad management.
Cursed would imply their incompetence didnt make it at least worse
I wouldn’t say Microsoft is cursed per se.
If they were, they wouldn’t have ever had any luck in the gaming industry ever. I think they just have been on a losing streak since 2013. The Xbox One gen was a mess, and at the same time, Microsoft just cannot seem to get a grip on its studios and IPs.
I’m a huge Halo Fan, and it’s so surprising that Microsoft would let 343 fumble the franchise for so long without actually stepping in to fix things. Halo 4 was fine, but Halo 5 was a mess, and Infinite was a development disaster. As a result, Halo is pretty much dead, and is no longer the FPS staple it once was.
And for me, once they killed Halo (their flagship IP), Xbox was pretty much dead to me.
Lol whats his last name for real
That’s it
Confidence is low with current Xbox leadership at this point. Phil Spencer’s strategy hasn’t panned out over a decade, Matt Booty seems like a smarmy car salesman, Sarah Bond has a non-existent leadership presence with their studios, and Aaron Greenberg is a non-stop gaffe machine. Tough to envision this group righting the Xbox ship.
We need a Red Foreman to break off foot in that Booty.
Hi Fi Rush was genius and if it never turns into a cartoon teaching kids about music and music genres, that's a fucking shame.
I had so much fun playing it that I bought some random person on Reddit a copy because they said they couldn't afford it but wanted to play it.
Microsoft sucks so bad at everything gaming.
I love a porche, but sadly can't afford one, i'd love to drive one though.
gets a copy of NFS: porsche unleashed (1999)
"Here you go buddy"
Is this guy taking the piss?
I kind of figured that Tango's closure was a casualty of Shinji Mikami leaving with several of Tango's developers to found another studio. The lead developer / producer was no longer under contract with Microsoft.
Someone in the article pointed out that both Hi-Fi Rush and TEW2 were directed by the same person, who was not Mikami
Yeah, John Johanas. Mikami has a history of coaching people up until he feels like they're ready to do their own thing and then leaving to found a new studio. Unless Microsoft/Xbox leadership are totally stupid, I'm sure they are negotiating with Johanas to get him placed in another role in another studio, although maybe not in Japan, where he has lived for a long time now. It really is kind of gross how transactional these studio closures are.
I worked for a small company that wasn't doing well. We ended up laying off about half of our engineers. I was lucky and stayed on. Well, when the CEO addressed the company later that day explaining what we were doing wrong and what we needed to focus on, one of the projects they wanted to focus on was one where they just laid off the only employee working on it. When that guy's boss told the CEO that, they brought that guy back in to "rip up the paperwork and pretend like it never happened." The guy asked for a raise. They initially said no, and he left and drove home. He got a call the next day and they gave him the raise to come back.
Phil Spencer is a con man. He’s a good PR guy and that’s it.
PR is in the gutter
Close to awful, only Gamepass (which I personally think is bad for smaller devs) has any positivity to it and they are about to start raising rates on it.
Gamepass is arguably one of the big causes of this problem
Like… Steam and Nintendo both don’t make subscription services and they’re both running fine
From a business standpoint, you should never let a customer think of a product as “totally free”. Give a limited super discount or make it a trial demo or have monetization or something, but never let them think it’s 100% free stuff. Always put some kinda charge on it.
A product being free naturally devalues it and discourages customers from wanting to spend money on it in future.
Is he? I was able to see he talked out of both sides of his mouth right from the get go. Idk why people liked him.
Because he's a gamerTM and Reddit users liked that because he was one of them
Same but gamers are idiots
Phil Spencer didnt say this. Matt Booty did.
Then why in blazes did they close down the studio in the first place?
Because the studio didn't just make Hi Fi Rush. That game was a small side project when they'd blown most of their time and money into Ghostwire Tokyo.
HiFi Rush also, while successful, wasn't enough to keep that full studio going. It's not some insane conspiracy.
Basically the real problem is first party devs can't technically go bankrupt even when they lose money like independent studios. If Larian went under everyone would just be upset about the circumstances and say "ah too bad they just didn't sell enough games to stay afloat". HiFi Rush was great, but sold so poorly that most people didn't hear about it til the game awards half a year after it's release.
Announcing and releasing the game on the same day plus putting it straight on to game pass basically smothered Hi-Fi Rush in the cradle. The fact that it’s been able to garner the popularity it (deservedly) has almost entirely through word of mouth is honestly incredible.
Also most of the devs that worked on it left. So... Yeah. An empty studio doesn't exactly produce games.
Actual quote is “We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards,”. The article also compares Balatro which was made by 1 guy and sold 1mill+. Similarly Manor Lords was 1 man and 1mill+. According to wikipedia in 2012 Tango had 65 employees, and HiFi has an estimated 2 million. I'd agree it is a "creatively unique, highly praised, award-winning game" but the effort put in definetely makes me categorise it as a more medium size game, and the sales figures unfortunately don't compare with some other games.
It was day 1 shadow dropped to game pass. How are you supposed to measure success of a game like that using units sold?
They probably use similar metrics to what streaming services use. They can still see the amount of downloads, playtime, completion rates ect. They know exactly how popular a game on Gamepass is.
Tango's also the ones who wanted it shadow dropped, Microsoft may not have been the happiest about it.
This is a sensible opinion and needs to be talked about more. Not to mention that Tango ALSO worked on Ghostwire, which was absolutely a big AAA game and kinda flopped.
It’s sad that Ghostwire Tokyo flopped. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I think any small dev team would be incredibly dumb to work with Microsoft after this incident
They are just the Eric Andre meme
Triple A gaming is a fucking comedy play lmao
Microsoft is such a cancer on the industry, their acquire-and-destroy bullshit has made them a net negative for the whole thing. We would literally be better off if they didn’t exist.
It’s almost like game development costs are not sustainable. We need to get back to smaller, less costly games. Nintendo seems to be the only company who understands this as they remain solidly profitable.
People are missing the context that both Austin Arkane and Tango had a lot of veterans leave after their latest projects dropped and were basically shells of their former selves prior to shuttering those studios. I actually think closing them was a good move.
Funny enough, I have not heard any source on this. Also, I’m pretty sure the director of Hi-fi rush was still in the studio. He even retweet this article, lol
Can you provide details/links?
I searched "leave tango gameworks" and only two came up. Ikumi, and Mikami. Mikami seemed like he helped others grew so they can take over, while Ikumi left 5 years ago.
Johanas is the director of HiFi RUSH, and I doubt Ikumi had much involvement.
Literally the 5 people who founded Tango left after Hi-Fi.
Shinji the founder, his baby studio that he built on for years through hard work... He didn't just leave ya know, he trained his young developers during the development of Hi-Fi Rush so that they can be independent once he leaves so he can work on other ambitions.
Both companies were looking to hire and expand their company and Microsoft saw that and cut them in unfortunate timing when Microsoft was doing their cutting session.
Also producing one bad game even though you've released some bangers and then gutting them is pretty disgusting. When there are other bigger studios they own that continuously release bad games yet they do nothing. Producing good games and gutting them is far worse.
Source: my ass. Austin Arkane had an insane turnover rate but the creative leads stayed consistent. And Tango was no shell of their former self either nobody left.
Source?
There is no source. It's just a fallacious argument people are using to downplay the importance of the devs. The Exodus everyone is mentioning didn't happen, at least not at a large enough scale to warrant media coverage (hence, no source).
Shinji Mikami did leave, but he was very hands off for the last two games of Tango, he didn't even direct them. You can even hear him state this directly during his interview in the Hifi Rush trailer.
Corporations want to have control over entertainment content. They want to limit our access to existing content while scheduling new content in a way that maximizes profit while the least effort.
This is the exact same shit Disney did with Star Wars. They retconned the entire expanded universe, then cried foul when people slammed the sequel trilogy, claiming “they (Disney) didn’t have a wealth of source material to work from like Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings”. It’s like they think we won’t remember that they’re the ones who fucked these good IPs in the first place.
Didn't a good chunk of the staff at Tango Gameworks leave to make a different company? Like what were they actively working on without Shinji?
John Johanas the director of hi-fi rush is still there no?
they've also tried to pitch a sequel to hi-fi rush according to reports.
This is made up, there is no source for this. Shinji himself said he hadn't had a big role at the studio in years.
Why are people repeating this misinfo throughout the thread?
I think it's the same case with Arkane Austin where 70% of the staff including the vets left during Redfall production. Another thing worth pointing out is that most of Tango's games didn't manage to get a huge sell.
Stop saying this shit, it's completely false in Tangos case
Matt Booty has no idea what he's talking about. XBOX leadership has been failing them since the latter part of the XBOX360 era. They have the studios, they have the IP, they have the creative people they need, they've even had insane financial backing from Microsoft - in no universe could Nintendo or Sony make a 70 billion game publisher acquisition for example. It's simply the leadership that is letting them down at this point. They've failed to build a better mouse trap.
Gotta buy the competition and dismantle them. Classic monopoly play.
I don't see that qoute anywhere in the article. Could anyone help me out ??
I keep seeing this topic posted without proof just "LOOK AT WHAT THEY SAID"
I keep reading the article and am even using the "find" feature
Copilot: make video game.
And now theyre gonna run an $8 bil. AI Software development lab outta my home state.
We reached out to Microsoft for comment.
"Are you dumb? Care to comment on that?"
This just seems to validate that there's probably a lot more information that we dont have on why these studios were closed.
Gamepass is turning gaming as a business model into Netflix.
If gamepass is the primary release model then there are very few actual sales on the game. So what metric then distinguishes product value?
How viral it goes on release. Prepare yourself gamers, lots of studios are gonna go under just like streaming shows getting canceled after one season. Word of mouth and sleeper hits will cease to exist. It's go big on day one or get canned.
There is no 'long tail' of sales over time anymore if you're an owner subsidiary of a large platform holder when you release day one as part of a subscription service. Your game is just a jpeg in a sea of content that's as difficult to parse it is overwhelming in volume.
On Gamepass, games are just 'content' now, and that content either gets a crazy response and drives new subs/retains customers, or it doesn't, and therefore has no value to the platform owner.
The enshitiffication of game development has begun, and it's gonna ruin the industry. It's already happening...
"Games like that one, but not that one specifically."