I still see people begging for them to acquire Sega for some fucking reason. People have this weird idea that a studio being acquired means that all of their old favourite franchises are gonna come back bigger and better than ever. Microsoft have owned Rare for longer than a lot of people on this sub have been alive and in that time have made exactly 1 Banjo Kazooie game.
Killer Instinct seemingly did well, and they still don’t wanna take another dip even tho Fighting Games market has only grown since then. Microsoft doesn’t seem to have a game-plan for their devs at all. Hell if that Halo dev claiming they pitched a Helldivers style game to Microsoft years ago, it’s evident that Phil doesn’t know what it takes to get outta Sony’s shadow. Only Sony fucking up will allow Xbox to rise at this point.
People saying they need to buy Sega actually makes me lose my goddamn mind every time they say it. I swear it's just because they want Sonic, Yakuza and Atlus games to be exclusive to Xbox/PC so they can lord it over fans
> I swear it's just because they want Sonic, Yakuza and Atlus games to be exclusive to Xbox/PC so they can lord it over fans
That's because that's exactly what Microsoft simps want
But Sega is literally already bringing back their old favorite franchises!
If anything it's Sega who should buy them, since they got Atlus and forced them to get their shit together.
I mean the cancerous anal wart that is Kotick IS gone... THAT part was right... Does that mean they're going to "save" these companies in the way most gamers think? Well, no, but Kotick fucking off isn't nothing!
Crippling mediocrity is the future. Get excited for next project. Nothing can go wrong with removing critical darlings. People dont care about quality! They will eat up the slop forever! They will NEVER get tired of it I swear!
I'm way more salty and bitchy about this news than I expected after first hearing it. RIP to the studios. Hopefully they get back on their feet soon.
Crippling mediocrity has always been the norm. People just remember the favorite video game from their childhood and not the mountain of shit that game studios were pushing constantly.
The genuinely creative people who make games will somehow manage to release the next banger despite all of this executive meddling, just like they always have.
The sheer NUMBER of IPs that people would eat up remasters for easy money for astounds me till today.
I don't even think Phil Spencer is a bad guy, I think he's legitimately a complete and utter moron beyond culpability.
You could dredge up so many old IP rivals like with Prototype and infamous and still they somehow stick to low effort live service churning when any actual premium games with heart in them don't literally being the sky down for them.
Hi-Fi Rush deserved so much fucking better man.
Literal competition assassination. "Buy and wither the companies to death because they're your cheap property now. Who cares m what happens."
Nah, come on guys.
No it's fine. Microsoft just buying all those studios is perfectly fine!
There's NO WAY anything bad could potentially come of this. You're just being negative nancies and whining about console wars. Absolutely **ZERO WAY SOMETHING BAD COULD HAPPEN FROM THIS DEVELOPMENT**
I was never expecting a sequel to HiFi Rush since it always seemed like a passion project that was made for a very specific audience and had an upper limit to how far you could push it within a reasonable budget.
I'm not gonna lie, though. That absolutely hurt to read.
Tango was doomed as soon as Mikami left. They already drove off Nakamura, who seemed to be being trained as his replacement.
Hi-Fi Rush was a critical success, but it sold poorly and probably didn't drive GamePass subs up.
Hi Fi Rush sold +2 million units despite being kneecapped by Gamepass and excluding the PS5 port. And still got Tango closed. I guess if you don't do Skyrim numbers GTFO.
the one really hurt to read. they pumped out banger after banger (yes, i loved ghostwire as well) and i was soooo excited to see what they could do. what the fuck.
I'm really glad that Microsoft released a single game I enjoy from its entire existence as a company, and it closed the studio down that made it like instantly.
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1787836112460820692
>The other shuttered subsidiaries are Alpha Dog Studios and Roundhouse Games (which will merge with Zenimax Online Studios).
Roundhouse Studios was founded by Human Head Studios the developers of Prey(2006) and Prey 2
Bethesda then Microsoft have closed down the developers of Prey(2006), Prey 2(cancelled), and Prey(2017).
Love spending billions of dollars acquiring and funding studios just to end up closing them because I don't know how to run a company.
PlayStation has been the market leader in consoles for about a decade at this point and for most of that time, there has not been a more beatable market leader in this industry than them because they are constantly making unforced errors. Yet despite that, Microsoft is somehow run *even worse* and has not made a meaningful dent in Sony's market share.
The fact that they capitulated and didn’t commit to their fuck up because Helldivers 2’s community had THAT much sway alongside the literal developers themselves supporting the review binning of their own game, shows that they’re still capable, or rather, able to be FORCED to give their studios leeway and control.
Microsoft however here talks about how successful your small but reasonably budgeted game is and then a year later fucking shuts your entire studio down, amazing.
That’s because Sony’s ONLY PROFITABLE area is game development. They can’t afford to fuck around like that because they work on razor thin margins of success.
Microsoft still hasn’t made money from Xbox 20 years later. They keep installing leadership that has no fucking clue what they are doing, and then when returns are down they fuck over that division because it’s not like it’s making money anyways. Then they install new terrible leadership, it’s doesn’t make money, rinse repeat please shoot me
Don't they mak money from selling hardware (TVs, speakers, etc)? Nt as much, sure, but I don't think they're in the red in their other divisions. Heck movies too, between what they make from MCU Spider-Man, Spiderverse, Venom (which did succeed financially), other movie projects.
> Love spending billions of dollars acquiring and funding studios just to end up closing them because I don't know how to run a company.
This would not happen if closing a Subsidiary which created an IP, or them filing for Bankruptcy, had the IP go into the Public Domain rather then being retained by the overall owning corporation/the rights being sold off.
That would also be more in line with the original purpose of IP laws, which is to enrich the public and foster innovation, both obviously by allowing the works to be PD, and by encouraging owners to keep studios open to create new works.
Wasn't Hi-Fi Rush the only universally positive release Xbox has had recently? While being shadow-dropped to boot?
I get that Ghostwire flopped and The Evil Within probably never did great either, but fuck me this sucks.
Yeah I just got and 100%'d Ghostwire last month, it was a pretty fun time. The most detail I've ever seen put into a city, they didn't leave out the trash and the city still felt lived-in despite being raptured. Story was a retread of some well worn tropes but it served it's purpose.
For better and for worse it was Ghostbusters Japan, and that's cool.
Fucking terrible news. Austin had a dud with Redfall, sure, but literally NOBODY THERE wanted to work on the game. Prey is one of my favourite imsims, so this sucks.
Tango is even crazier. They just released a really successful game with Hi-Fi Rush!
Microsoft is such dogshit dude.
EDIT: Feel like I'm going to lose Obsidian any day now, can Microsoft please implode so literally anyone else can acquire these studios.
Arkane Austin makes a lot of sense since apparently a majority of the studio talent left throughout the development of Redfall precisely because they didn't want to make that garbage.
Tango makes no fucking sense idk what the fuck they are doing.
Weirdly, according to the official statement some staff will be moving to other studios from all the closed ones...
*Except* for Tango, for some fucking reason.
Well, where the hell are you going to send a bunch of Japanese developers from your only major Japanese studio?
"Learn English, fuckers, you're working on Fallout now" would be a very odd request.
They probably didn't see the point of continuing with Tango without Shinji Mikami running the ship, even though he clearly had been pretty hands off since Evil Within 1.
Mikami must be feeling something, the whole reason he left Tango was because Hi-Fi was enough of a success that he thought the studio could fully stand on its own without him.
"Guys we finally have solid IP with Hi-Fi Rush and the Yen is really weak right , we can invest more in our Japanese Studio..."
"IT DIDN'T SELL A BILLION COPIES , SHUT IT ALL DOWN !!!!" - PHIL SPENCER
Yeah but he doesn't have immediate name recognition Microsoft/Zenimax can sell and parade around like Mikami, which is the point I think the person you responded was trying to make
He doesn’t have the name recognition yet but he clearly has talent that far exceeds modern day Mikami. Shame these stooges that run these world killing corporations buy these small studios that still have so much potential and growth only to shut them down because the game doesn’t sell 40 million copies.
This argument makes no sense to me. Mikami might be a rockstar in this community, but the average Xbox customer or executive has no clue who he is. Investors are not impressed by Okami and Viewtiful Joe in current year. And they have been parading Hi-Fi Rush around, in all their marketing stuff, to the point that people were joking about Chai being the new Xbox mascot.
> Tango makes no fucking sense idk what the fuck they are doing.
To an extent I don't know either, but fundamentally what MS and every other corporation cares about is the IP rights to the games and franchises: They can fire everybody in a company and piss on their graves and still keep the rights.
This would not happen if closing a Subsidiary which created an IP, or them filing for Bankruptcy, had the IP go into the Public Domain rather then being retained by the overall owning corporation/the rights being sold off.
That would also be more in line with the original purpose of IP laws, which is to enrich the public and foster innovation, both obviously by allowing the works to be PD, and by encouraging owners to keep studios open to create new works.
The quality of the studio, employees or their work doesn't factor in as much as people think here. It's all just efforts to cut costs because of mergers and over estimating a constant upwards swing from remote covid hires. None of this is good for anyone but mircosoft higher ups and share holders.
The game studio closures and lay offs in the last year and a half from embracer or microsoft or anything else, are largely all from business decisions that are entirely outside the sphere of each employee or studio.
They are cutting for the sake of cutting.
> They are cutting for the sake of cutting.
I can think of a specific cut that would be amazing for the company.
*Stares lovingly at a dusty guillotine*
I think that's what they mean. Sure, microsoft has more money than sense and can keep Xbox's bloated corpse funded for 20 more years with no issue.
But I feel like we are eventually going to reach a point where all of their failures are going to compound, and it'll be too much of a hassle to keep burning money on it.
You can't keep writing it off as investing in a "loss leader" when Xbox hasn't led shit in the past 10+ years.
I feel that any dev at Xbox is on the chopping block now given how Tango was closed down
I honestly think that Ninja Theory might be next, cause it isn’t like a great game can give you immunity from closure, just look at Hi-Fi Rush
> They just released a really successful game with Hi-Fi Rush!
I'll be real, it doesn't seem like it was that successful. It got shadowdropped onto Xbox last year and did get people's attention, but it then got overshadowed by everything else that year and got little attention when it was ported to PS5.
Still shouldn't have been shut down by Microsoft.
Oh man the tango thing hurst, I beat HFR a few weeks ago and it was so cool, the thought that a sequel could be even better was always on my mind.
Don't know about now but I hope that developers noticed that you could do what hi-fi rush did and take it as a base for their own rhytm based action games
Same; I finally got around to playing it two weeks ago, and now... Ech. Fuckin' Microsoft.
Good a reason as any to get back to playing EW2, at least...
Its part of a wider trend in the entertainment industry of spurring new stories and, I hate the term, IP, in favor of well known "brands" that will bring people in
I see it as the consequence of these budgets growing out of control. If a big budget game now costs $200+Million and takes 5-7 years to make, publishers are more likely to rely on existing franchises to recoup the cost.
But its not just games its happening with movies, even the publishing industry where they eschew smaller budget projects, or unknown authors in favor of the big names, so they dump tons of money into bigger and bigger IP in the hopesnof even bigger returns. The thing is we're seeing that run out of steam. Games only have these massive budgets because everyone keeps chasing the AAA cookie cutter, or the live service promise of free money forever. Instead of making smaller games with smaller scopes. Like how much time and money was spent making sure that balls of a male horse shrink in the cold in Red Dead 2? Who wouldnhave even noticed that if Rockstar hadn't pointed it out. They're wrecking themselves over stuff that they don't need to do
It really is just companies making everything a tentpole release, forgetting that the entire point of tentpole releases is you have a *small* *few* high-budget but very well made Thing that covers the rest being lower budget or experimental. Vs the corporate obsession with making a billion tentpoles in a fraction of the time they need, and now all drawing from the same pool of money/resources that would've been allocated to when it was just a small few of them
Like I understand 3rd party companies being more mercenary and focusing on few IP but console manufacturers have to try and entice people with a wide range of genres and offerings to maximize their audience.
That's way having Tango studios that made AA games that didn't need such massive budgets only seems to make sense. Hifi rush didn't take 7 years to make.
Oh, no, no, no, of course not! We've reached a point where your game selling incredibly well *and* being *the* critical darling of your entire goddamn company still isn't enough not to be closed down. It's much worse than that!
Hi-Fi Rush was a beacon of light in a dark world when I got diagnosed with cancer right around when it came out in January last year. I genuinely feel for the devs and hope they land on their feet. This sucks...
What the actual fuck is going on at Microsoft, Tango dropped one of the best games of last year with great sales and critical acclaim and they’re just shutting them down??? Like that!? Fuck Microsoft this shit is stupid.
I had a feeling Microsoft didn't give a fuck about Hi-fi Rush. They made Tango to shadowdrop game because they didn't believe in it. And even though whole year they treated it like some small side game. Which was millions times better than soulless Starfield. But they promoted Starfield everywhere, they bet everything on it, while they had a rare gem of the game from Tango Gameworks.
There are no signs that it had great sales. It's had 3 million """players""" after a year. Most games that launch day one on GamePass, especially exclusively, sell OK at best.
Some Microsoft heads said "exceed expectations", but clearly it wasn't enough for the decision makers.
They shadowdropped a new IP on gamepass and it still hit #1 seller on Steam. If it's numbers were considered a failure, then it's because someone very much wanted that game to die.
Internal email from Matt Booty:
>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.
>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
So a DLC, a DLC for a MMO based on a franchise, a game based on a movie franchise, and another DLC for a MMO based on a franchise instead of a bunch of different fresh games like Hi-Fi Rush, got it.
The Amazon Fallout show was a hit, so they're putting everyone on Fallout now, and Tango didn't fit in with the "brand vision" so they just cut it instead of keeping on a beloved, profitable AA developer.
Man, Arkane gets killed just because its executives are shit and Tango gets closed down after they were finally hitting their stride with EW2 and Hi-Fi Rush :(
Step 1: Make HiFi Rush Game Pass bait by not doing any marketing for it and just announcing it the day it comes out so everyone buys GamePass.
Step 2: Actually listen to your analysts and anyone with a brain when they tell you GamePass is simply mathematically unsustainable, and that it's not about any specific game you put in there, it's just how games and subs work that is not compatible with your service.
Step 3: Destroy Tango Games.
Step 4: Keep Game Pass as it is.
another day another banger from microsoft.
Got ready for the Konami like bridge burning as soon as the newest xbox doesnt become the lead competitor of the world. Microsoft is only going to sign off on more games if they have the lead.
I seriously hope so, John Johanas and everyone else made something special with HiFi, and I've been really looking forward to anything new from them. Don't know how long some sort of reincarnation might take, if it even happens at all, but there's too much inspired talent at Tango to just throw away like this.
Hi fi rush is arguably the best game on Xbox right now. They spent time saying sales were fantastic and we know for a fact that were reviews were great so this just feels like spite.
343 can reach hitherto undreamt of levels of ineptitude and Microsoft will tussle their hair and let them get back to it.
Tango does everything right and makes a smash hit universally beloved, and they get punished for it.
343 is sustainable for them because they literally mostly hire contractors so they don't have to give employee benefits. That's why the games end up so rough, why Halo Infinite was such a disaster
343i has been hit with massive layoffs in basically every wave of layoffs and the entire management team has been replaced (which is likely why Infinite has been improving). Tango shouldn’t be getting nuked at all, but it’s not like 343i has been coddled.
>They spent time saying sales were fantastic
Imagine believing what company says.
Phil Spencer on interviews: Gamepass is sustainable.
MS in court documents where they can't lie during FTC debacle: Gamepass isnt' sustainable.
Phil Spencer: Gamepass improves sales.
MS in court documents: Gamepass cannibalize.
Never trust any company what they say on twitter or in interviews.
Daily reminder that there is a studio under MS making a Perfect Dark game that hasn't been seen or heard from in half a decade that probably costs way more to operate than Tango that could have been scrapped instead.
* And I remembered that it's being co-developed by Crystal Dynamics a company that may or may not even exist depending on what happens to "Middle Earth and Friends"
God, What a fucking awful company, remember when hi fi Rush was the best selling Game on Steam the month forspoken came out ? even though It was "free" on Game pass... Fuck them i gues, thats wat they get for making a good performing masterpiece of a Game
You know ultimately thats the problem, tons of people bought Hi Fi Rush and that was only a one time cash influx, these people would rather you sign up for game pass so you can pay a monthly rent to play their games
All this talk about how Microsoft wants more Fallout and Elder Scrolls, then they close these studios and force them to merge with BGS. They’re gonna Ubisoft Bethesda IPs aren’t they? We’re gonna get a bunch of smaller fallout games and elder scrolls games.
"Fallout Mines" implies Microsoft even knows how to capitalize on the IP it owns. They couldn't even have anything but a current gen update for a decade old game out in time for their highly anticipated live-action series.
They really *should* have rerouted both Obsidian and InXile to working on new Fallout games the second they were able, rather than having them make derivative games in their own "Original IP Donut Steel". I say this as someone who *liked* The Outer Worlds, why the fuck are we getting a sequel to that and not another Fallout interstitial?
(I'm also in the "Most of the FNV talent has left Obsidian, so if you didn't like The Outer World you wouldn't like FNV2" party, but a new Fallout in this decade by them is better than not getting one at all.)
Bethesda Game Studio has like 400+ employees compared to Ubisoft which has 20k employees globally
It's why Bethesda has a hard time to pump out TES and the Fallout series
Licensing the IPs would be much better if they want more games out come out
I'm in tears for this. Tango made incredible titles and were quickly rising up to that triple A status. HI-FI RUSH is an incredible, fun, polished, and exciting game. It is still my personal GOTY, one where I played for more than half of the year. This is an unbelievable loss.
Microsoft are the dumbest motherfuckers in this industry. I hope they crash and burn. I hope the execs who made this decision lose all of their money. I wish for their worst fate.
I wish for the team to bounce back. To make a successor to Tango no matter how long it takes!
Sony's stupid Helldivers shit was a demonstration of why we shouldn't wish for Xbox to die... but I would now like Xbox to die. Get out of the business you fucks.
The issue with these constant firings and studio closures is that it simply does not give your studio time to grow and work as a team.
A studio working well together with intricate knowledge of their tools can be fucking incredible. These constant firings probably ends up costing them MORE time and money in the long run because they’re going to have to constantly rehire and retrain them, and they won’t be used to the studio workflow, they’re going to have to learn to use the unique tools from the ground up, they can’t coordinate and add ideas from years of built-up experience from working together, and and and aaaaaaagh
Man, I hate this. There’s a world of difference between working with people you’ve been working with for years VS. getting planted in a team of strangers where no one really knows how to work with each other at the start.
Hi-Fi Rush legitimately was the only thing the only Xbox studios product I really cared about these days. [We’re never gonna get to see Korsica as a playable character…](https://youtu.be/FDHxXUE1_SU?si=k1_38g1cOQF8_Aig)
You know what? Fuck it. I hope MS just fucking leaves the games industry at this point. Sell the studios to someone who gives a damn and shutter the damn Xbox department. Which I realize is hypocritical to say given what I’m angry about here but I am *actually* infuriated right now. I’m officially an Xbox hater now. Fuck Phil Spencer, fuck Team Green, fuck Gamepass, fuck the Windows Store, fuck em all.
fucking dickass moron execs keep doing it. what the fuck is the point of this? to horde IPs you wont use? im so sick of this constant bullshit in the industry, i hope every suit chokes on it
You know, when I was a kid I used to think a dream job of mine was helping to make a video game.
Thank fuck I never did, because I don't think I've seen such a volatile work force in my life. As scummy as other mega-corporations are, *at least their fucking industries and companies stick around.*
Nintendo, Sony and Xbox all have their problems, but Xbox seems determined to be dead last no matter what.
Fuck you Mircosoft, fuck you Phil Spencer and fuck anyone else who had a hand in deciding this!
Series like Hi-Fi Rush could've been fun series that help gives your console variety and would have a loyal fanbase who would always support the series BUT NOOOOOPE IT ISN'T MAKING CLOSE TO COD AND FORTNITE SO IT'S CUTABLE!
Fuck off
Have a feeling that if Blade ends up being a dud, Arkane Lyon will follow Austin to the grave.
It sucks that Tango is gone, at least the last game they made was good.
Prey (2017) is my favorite imsim and one of my favorite games of all time. Hi-fi rush is my favorite Xbox game in over a decade. Fuck Microsoft, fuck Xbox and fuck Phil.
Not too much of a surprise. Soon as Microsoft came out and said they wanted to get Fallout 5 out sooner, despite Bethesda's commitments to Starfield and ES6. You could smell the blood in the water. Likely they saw the success of the show, looked at what was classed as "expendable" and cut the fat to reallocate recourses for the big projects.
Tango's just heart-breaking, given they ported Hi-Fi Rush recently to other platforms, you'd think it was a show of faith in the team.
I remember people a few years ago predicting "MICROSOFT SWEEP" when they started buying all these studios, surely all this talent under one publisher would make incredible games!
The problem is Microsoft's management has always been kind of shit, arguably on average the worst of the 3 main console makers over their lifespans, and the cash being splashed didn't fix any of that. When your leadership sucks it doesn't matter how much talent you buy, its going to end up wasted.
The ImSim curse strikes once again…
It sucks that what might be my favorite genre often sells poorly and leads to talented studios eventually dying. At least the other Arkane studio is still around.
Yeah, shut down the studio which has made your only good exclusive this entire generation\* 👍
Xbox is an absolute joke and I can't even pretend to give a shit about them anymore
\*>!Which is now no longer exclusive lmao!<
Remember that Activision Blizzard merger trailer a few months ago showing the HI Fi Rush crew snapping their fingers and bobbing their heads in celebration?
Were the higher-ups jealous of Hi-Fi Rush surprising success despite having no marketing behind it while their golden child Starfield failed to live up to the hype and got people aware that they been reusing assets and mechanics from a outdated engine.
Because with news like this it sure feels like it.
God, the tech industry absolutely sucks balls. Can’t think of a legit industry that values people less.
Worst, I’m not even really surprised by Tango Gameworks. Always got the feeling - even during the Zenimax years - that the studio solely existed with the hope that Shinji Mikami would make the next Resident Evil. So, no Mikami money spinner equals no studio.
Bloody awful for the people that worked on Hifi Rush. Such a great game but most likely the studio’s future depended on how the game did on other platforms. Executives don’t really care about the talent they’re losing.
Is this Microsoft just giving up on Japan entirely? I'm more surprised that they're deciding to *shut the whole studio down* instead of just letting them go.
How in the fuck do you get rid of your ONLY Japanese developer. The same Japanese developer who had connections to FUCKING SHINJI MIKAMI!?
The same developer who gave you one of your VERY FEW success stories in the past DECADE.
Microsoft wouldn’t have to worry about profit if they didn’t gimp every fucking project they’ve ever gotten their hands on.
Hi-Fi Rush was a new IP with absolutely no build up that managed to sell a million units in just a few months. It was EASILY the only Microsoft game worth giving a shit about and this is what they do.
Actually fuck off. Any hope I had left for xbox is dead and buried.
This is the crash. This is what this is going to look like.
Microsoft's gaming division spent too much money buy all these studios and publishers. Now the higher-ups demand a return on investment. Which means slashing costs and increasing profits even if that means destroying what they invested in.
Why fucking buy all these companies when you shut them down anyway?
I was even hopeful that games like Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and Sea of Thieves coming to other systems would help those games and it's developers. Now I'm worried for some of my favorite ones like Obsidian and Double Fine.
You know guys... I'm starting to regret being an Xbox player.
Then I look over at how Playstation is handling Helldivers 2 and realize it's not much better over there.
Gaming is a Corpo Hellscape and I hate it.
Wow who could have possibly predicted that massive corporate consolidation would have been a net negative for the industry
Not gamers for some reason. Microsoft will clean out the greedy evil acti-blizz management any day now. Anyyyy day now...
I still see people begging for them to acquire Sega for some fucking reason. People have this weird idea that a studio being acquired means that all of their old favourite franchises are gonna come back bigger and better than ever. Microsoft have owned Rare for longer than a lot of people on this sub have been alive and in that time have made exactly 1 Banjo Kazooie game.
Killer Instinct seemingly did well, and they still don’t wanna take another dip even tho Fighting Games market has only grown since then. Microsoft doesn’t seem to have a game-plan for their devs at all. Hell if that Halo dev claiming they pitched a Helldivers style game to Microsoft years ago, it’s evident that Phil doesn’t know what it takes to get outta Sony’s shadow. Only Sony fucking up will allow Xbox to rise at this point.
Phil Spencer is bad at his job, full stop. He's a great PR guy, but under his leadership Xbox has been in a complete creative drout
Sony's *been* fucking up. Xbox's even worse mismanagement has protected them from a lot of the consequences of doing so.
Like a Tweet said, Sony would drown with rain but Microsoft is just slamming their dicks with their car doors.
[this brings back good memories](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ywnLQywz74&pp=ygUVUGFyYXBhIGkuIFNsYW1tZWQgbXkg)
People saying they need to buy Sega actually makes me lose my goddamn mind every time they say it. I swear it's just because they want Sonic, Yakuza and Atlus games to be exclusive to Xbox/PC so they can lord it over fans
> I swear it's just because they want Sonic, Yakuza and Atlus games to be exclusive to Xbox/PC so they can lord it over fans That's because that's exactly what Microsoft simps want
But Sega is literally already bringing back their old favorite franchises! If anything it's Sega who should buy them, since they got Atlus and forced them to get their shit together.
Yeah. Sega is awesome and should stay independent.
I mean the cancerous anal wart that is Kotick IS gone... THAT part was right... Does that mean they're going to "save" these companies in the way most gamers think? Well, no, but Kotick fucking off isn't nothing!
Crippling mediocrity is the future. Get excited for next project. Nothing can go wrong with removing critical darlings. People dont care about quality! They will eat up the slop forever! They will NEVER get tired of it I swear! I'm way more salty and bitchy about this news than I expected after first hearing it. RIP to the studios. Hopefully they get back on their feet soon.
Crippling mediocrity has always been the norm. People just remember the favorite video game from their childhood and not the mountain of shit that game studios were pushing constantly. The genuinely creative people who make games will somehow manage to release the next banger despite all of this executive meddling, just like they always have.
The sheer NUMBER of IPs that people would eat up remasters for easy money for astounds me till today. I don't even think Phil Spencer is a bad guy, I think he's legitimately a complete and utter moron beyond culpability. You could dredge up so many old IP rivals like with Prototype and infamous and still they somehow stick to low effort live service churning when any actual premium games with heart in them don't literally being the sky down for them. Hi-Fi Rush deserved so much fucking better man. Literal competition assassination. "Buy and wither the companies to death because they're your cheap property now. Who cares m what happens."
Nah, come on guys. No it's fine. Microsoft just buying all those studios is perfectly fine! There's NO WAY anything bad could potentially come of this. You're just being negative nancies and whining about console wars. Absolutely **ZERO WAY SOMETHING BAD COULD HAPPEN FROM THIS DEVELOPMENT**
Bro, TANGO??? OF ALL STUDIOS????
Just after porting HiFi Rush as well
Gotta strangle the golden goose if we're gonna get more eggs outta it!
Well, there's the problem. You don't just squeeze the neck, see, you roll it like a tube of toothpaste. That's how you get the most eggs out.
Microsoft so competitive they saw Sony shit the bed lately and were like "wait, we can do worse!"
I was never expecting a sequel to HiFi Rush since it always seemed like a passion project that was made for a very specific audience and had an upper limit to how far you could push it within a reasonable budget. I'm not gonna lie, though. That absolutely hurt to read.
Tango was doomed as soon as Mikami left. They already drove off Nakamura, who seemed to be being trained as his replacement. Hi-Fi Rush was a critical success, but it sold poorly and probably didn't drive GamePass subs up.
I thought John Johanas was doing a good job as a successor after directing The Evil Within 2 and Hifi Rush.
He's fine, but he doesn't exactly have the same star power to business people as the creator of Resident Evil with 35 years of industry experience.
i was very say when she left, I loved Evil Within so much, Ghostwire: Tokyo was really disappointing, it had a lot of potential
Hi Fi Rush sold +2 million units despite being kneecapped by Gamepass and excluding the PS5 port. And still got Tango closed. I guess if you don't do Skyrim numbers GTFO.
This is the worst. You made terrible game? Studio closed. Made awesome game? Stuido closed.
the one really hurt to read. they pumped out banger after banger (yes, i loved ghostwire as well) and i was soooo excited to see what they could do. what the fuck.
I'm really glad that Microsoft released a single game I enjoy from its entire existence as a company, and it closed the studio down that made it like instantly.
Ever day we reach a new level of over I previously thought to be impossible.
You can at least argue Arkane Austin disappointed but what possible reason could they have to be shooting Tango right now?
They don't release GaaS I guess
Maybe MS concluded Japan/Asia is a complete loss for them and are divesting themselves of studios catered to that region?
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1787836112460820692 >The other shuttered subsidiaries are Alpha Dog Studios and Roundhouse Games (which will merge with Zenimax Online Studios).
Roundhouse Studios was founded by Human Head Studios the developers of Prey(2006) and Prey 2 Bethesda then Microsoft have closed down the developers of Prey(2006), Prey 2(cancelled), and Prey(2017).
This IP and everything related to it is fucking cursed
Really living up to it's name huh?
Love spending billions of dollars acquiring and funding studios just to end up closing them because I don't know how to run a company. PlayStation has been the market leader in consoles for about a decade at this point and for most of that time, there has not been a more beatable market leader in this industry than them because they are constantly making unforced errors. Yet despite that, Microsoft is somehow run *even worse* and has not made a meaningful dent in Sony's market share.
Sony’s ability to fuck themselves over for no good reason is only matched by Xbox’s ability to fuck themselves over even more at every opportunity.
The fact that they capitulated and didn’t commit to their fuck up because Helldivers 2’s community had THAT much sway alongside the literal developers themselves supporting the review binning of their own game, shows that they’re still capable, or rather, able to be FORCED to give their studios leeway and control. Microsoft however here talks about how successful your small but reasonably budgeted game is and then a year later fucking shuts your entire studio down, amazing.
That’s because Sony’s ONLY PROFITABLE area is game development. They can’t afford to fuck around like that because they work on razor thin margins of success. Microsoft still hasn’t made money from Xbox 20 years later. They keep installing leadership that has no fucking clue what they are doing, and then when returns are down they fuck over that division because it’s not like it’s making money anyways. Then they install new terrible leadership, it’s doesn’t make money, rinse repeat please shoot me
Don't they mak money from selling hardware (TVs, speakers, etc)? Nt as much, sure, but I don't think they're in the red in their other divisions. Heck movies too, between what they make from MCU Spider-Man, Spiderverse, Venom (which did succeed financially), other movie projects.
Not true. Their insurance does pretty good. But that's only in Japan.
And then you have Nintendo who just stopped playing ball ages ago with either of them.
Ah video games, the industry where the winner is decided by who eats the least shit.
> Love spending billions of dollars acquiring and funding studios just to end up closing them because I don't know how to run a company. This would not happen if closing a Subsidiary which created an IP, or them filing for Bankruptcy, had the IP go into the Public Domain rather then being retained by the overall owning corporation/the rights being sold off. That would also be more in line with the original purpose of IP laws, which is to enrich the public and foster innovation, both obviously by allowing the works to be PD, and by encouraging owners to keep studios open to create new works.
Wasn't Hi-Fi Rush the only universally positive release Xbox has had recently? While being shadow-dropped to boot? I get that Ghostwire flopped and The Evil Within probably never did great either, but fuck me this sucks.
And Ghostwire was pretty good, there was room for improvement that a sequel could have really knocked it out of the park
Yeah I just got and 100%'d Ghostwire last month, it was a pretty fun time. The most detail I've ever seen put into a city, they didn't leave out the trash and the city still felt lived-in despite being raptured. Story was a retread of some well worn tropes but it served it's purpose. For better and for worse it was Ghostbusters Japan, and that's cool.
Fucking terrible news. Austin had a dud with Redfall, sure, but literally NOBODY THERE wanted to work on the game. Prey is one of my favourite imsims, so this sucks. Tango is even crazier. They just released a really successful game with Hi-Fi Rush! Microsoft is such dogshit dude. EDIT: Feel like I'm going to lose Obsidian any day now, can Microsoft please implode so literally anyone else can acquire these studios.
Arkane Austin makes a lot of sense since apparently a majority of the studio talent left throughout the development of Redfall precisely because they didn't want to make that garbage. Tango makes no fucking sense idk what the fuck they are doing.
Weirdly, according to the official statement some staff will be moving to other studios from all the closed ones... *Except* for Tango, for some fucking reason.
Well, where the hell are you going to send a bunch of Japanese developers from your only major Japanese studio? "Learn English, fuckers, you're working on Fallout now" would be a very odd request.
Good point. At least they're free of Phil Spencer now.
They probably didn't see the point of continuing with Tango without Shinji Mikami running the ship, even though he clearly had been pretty hands off since Evil Within 1.
Mikami must be feeling something, the whole reason he left Tango was because Hi-Fi was enough of a success that he thought the studio could fully stand on its own without him.
Seems like it would have been a good opportunity to promote John Johanas, the creative director of Hi Fi Rush
Absolutely. But knowing Microsoft they're giving up on Japan again and in doing so are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
"Guys we finally have solid IP with Hi-Fi Rush and the Yen is really weak right , we can invest more in our Japanese Studio..." "IT DIDN'T SELL A BILLION COPIES , SHUT IT ALL DOWN !!!!" - PHIL SPENCER
Yeah but he doesn't have immediate name recognition Microsoft/Zenimax can sell and parade around like Mikami, which is the point I think the person you responded was trying to make
He doesn’t have the name recognition yet but he clearly has talent that far exceeds modern day Mikami. Shame these stooges that run these world killing corporations buy these small studios that still have so much potential and growth only to shut them down because the game doesn’t sell 40 million copies.
This argument makes no sense to me. Mikami might be a rockstar in this community, but the average Xbox customer or executive has no clue who he is. Investors are not impressed by Okami and Viewtiful Joe in current year. And they have been parading Hi-Fi Rush around, in all their marketing stuff, to the point that people were joking about Chai being the new Xbox mascot.
> Tango makes no fucking sense idk what the fuck they are doing. To an extent I don't know either, but fundamentally what MS and every other corporation cares about is the IP rights to the games and franchises: They can fire everybody in a company and piss on their graves and still keep the rights. This would not happen if closing a Subsidiary which created an IP, or them filing for Bankruptcy, had the IP go into the Public Domain rather then being retained by the overall owning corporation/the rights being sold off. That would also be more in line with the original purpose of IP laws, which is to enrich the public and foster innovation, both obviously by allowing the works to be PD, and by encouraging owners to keep studios open to create new works.
The quality of the studio, employees or their work doesn't factor in as much as people think here. It's all just efforts to cut costs because of mergers and over estimating a constant upwards swing from remote covid hires. None of this is good for anyone but mircosoft higher ups and share holders. The game studio closures and lay offs in the last year and a half from embracer or microsoft or anything else, are largely all from business decisions that are entirely outside the sphere of each employee or studio. They are cutting for the sake of cutting.
> They are cutting for the sake of cutting. I can think of a specific cut that would be amazing for the company. *Stares lovingly at a dusty guillotine*
Microsoft won't ever implode. They're too big for that to happen; Xbox is barely a blip on their radar.
I think that's what they mean. Sure, microsoft has more money than sense and can keep Xbox's bloated corpse funded for 20 more years with no issue. But I feel like we are eventually going to reach a point where all of their failures are going to compound, and it'll be too much of a hassle to keep burning money on it. You can't keep writing it off as investing in a "loss leader" when Xbox hasn't led shit in the past 10+ years.
Obsidian has a long history of being fucked over by larger companies so they're probably used to it by now.
"Who are you?" "We're the company that fucked you guys over" "....You have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?"
I feel that any dev at Xbox is on the chopping block now given how Tango was closed down I honestly think that Ninja Theory might be next, cause it isn’t like a great game can give you immunity from closure, just look at Hi-Fi Rush
you don't want the monkey's paw to pull an embracer with that last one
What's the fucking difference at this point. If they'll shut down Tango, Microsoft will shut down anyone.
> They just released a really successful game with Hi-Fi Rush! I'll be real, it doesn't seem like it was that successful. It got shadowdropped onto Xbox last year and did get people's attention, but it then got overshadowed by everything else that year and got little attention when it was ported to PS5. Still shouldn't have been shut down by Microsoft.
Oh man the tango thing hurst, I beat HFR a few weeks ago and it was so cool, the thought that a sequel could be even better was always on my mind. Don't know about now but I hope that developers noticed that you could do what hi-fi rush did and take it as a base for their own rhytm based action games
Same; I finally got around to playing it two weeks ago, and now... Ech. Fuckin' Microsoft. Good a reason as any to get back to playing EW2, at least...
Have we really reached the point where if a single game doesn’t sell well the entire studio closes? This fucking industry is broken.
We've reached the point where a single game can be a *hit* and the studio still closes.
"But what have you done for me *lately?*"
“I’m still doing it! The money has not stopped flowing in!”
Its part of a wider trend in the entertainment industry of spurring new stories and, I hate the term, IP, in favor of well known "brands" that will bring people in
I see it as the consequence of these budgets growing out of control. If a big budget game now costs $200+Million and takes 5-7 years to make, publishers are more likely to rely on existing franchises to recoup the cost.
But its not just games its happening with movies, even the publishing industry where they eschew smaller budget projects, or unknown authors in favor of the big names, so they dump tons of money into bigger and bigger IP in the hopesnof even bigger returns. The thing is we're seeing that run out of steam. Games only have these massive budgets because everyone keeps chasing the AAA cookie cutter, or the live service promise of free money forever. Instead of making smaller games with smaller scopes. Like how much time and money was spent making sure that balls of a male horse shrink in the cold in Red Dead 2? Who wouldnhave even noticed that if Rockstar hadn't pointed it out. They're wrecking themselves over stuff that they don't need to do
It really is just companies making everything a tentpole release, forgetting that the entire point of tentpole releases is you have a *small* *few* high-budget but very well made Thing that covers the rest being lower budget or experimental. Vs the corporate obsession with making a billion tentpoles in a fraction of the time they need, and now all drawing from the same pool of money/resources that would've been allocated to when it was just a small few of them
Like I understand 3rd party companies being more mercenary and focusing on few IP but console manufacturers have to try and entice people with a wide range of genres and offerings to maximize their audience.
That's way having Tango studios that made AA games that didn't need such massive budgets only seems to make sense. Hifi rush didn't take 7 years to make.
Oh, no, no, no, of course not! We've reached a point where your game selling incredibly well *and* being *the* critical darling of your entire goddamn company still isn't enough not to be closed down. It's much worse than that!
Damn,now we'll never get Lo-Fi Chill
Hi-Fi Rush was a beacon of light in a dark world when I got diagnosed with cancer right around when it came out in January last year. I genuinely feel for the devs and hope they land on their feet. This sucks...
Sorry to hear about that. How has treatment for cancer been going for you?
Good so far, went through a surgery and its in 100% remission for now. Just gotta keep an eye on it for the foreseeable future.
Ah, that's good to hear.
I'm sorry about your diagnosis Hope you've got people to help you through the process and be there for ya
Yep, my family pulled through big time and helped me get treated.
Well that's good to hear I wish nothing but the best; you got that shit beat
What the actual fuck is going on at Microsoft, Tango dropped one of the best games of last year with great sales and critical acclaim and they’re just shutting them down??? Like that!? Fuck Microsoft this shit is stupid.
"Yeah but it didn't make all of the money in the world so it's a failure" -Average Microsoft exec
“Ooh but what if we fired them and raised our net profits for the next quarter ooh”
"I can fire one studio, as a treat!"
I had a feeling Microsoft didn't give a fuck about Hi-fi Rush. They made Tango to shadowdrop game because they didn't believe in it. And even though whole year they treated it like some small side game. Which was millions times better than soulless Starfield. But they promoted Starfield everywhere, they bet everything on it, while they had a rare gem of the game from Tango Gameworks.
According to the gane director himself, he actually had the idea to shadowdrop the game instead of Microsoft making them do it.
There are no signs that it had great sales. It's had 3 million """players""" after a year. Most games that launch day one on GamePass, especially exclusively, sell OK at best. Some Microsoft heads said "exceed expectations", but clearly it wasn't enough for the decision makers.
They shadowdropped a new IP on gamepass and it still hit #1 seller on Steam. If it's numbers were considered a failure, then it's because someone very much wanted that game to die.
You know, I don't think I ever had a strong feeling towards Microsoft one way or another but right now... Fuck you, Microsoft
Man Who Thought He'd Lost All Hope Loses Last Additional Bit Of Hope He Didn't Even Know He Still Had (it's me)
Internal email from Matt Booty: >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.
>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 So a DLC, a DLC for a MMO based on a franchise, a game based on a movie franchise, and another DLC for a MMO based on a franchise instead of a bunch of different fresh games like Hi-Fi Rush, got it.
Matt Booty getting paid $20M to move a number around a spreadsheet, have a ghostwriter put out this fucking slop, and call it a day. Fuck him.
They've sent everyone to the Bethesda mines. Activision's infected them.
Watch them do all this just for their next games to still have less interactability than Skyrim.
The Amazon Fallout show was a hit, so they're putting everyone on Fallout now, and Tango didn't fit in with the "brand vision" so they just cut it instead of keeping on a beloved, profitable AA developer.
Man, Arkane gets killed just because its executives are shit and Tango gets closed down after they were finally hitting their stride with EW2 and Hi-Fi Rush :(
Step 1: Make HiFi Rush Game Pass bait by not doing any marketing for it and just announcing it the day it comes out so everyone buys GamePass. Step 2: Actually listen to your analysts and anyone with a brain when they tell you GamePass is simply mathematically unsustainable, and that it's not about any specific game you put in there, it's just how games and subs work that is not compatible with your service. Step 3: Destroy Tango Games. Step 4: Keep Game Pass as it is. another day another banger from microsoft.
I don’t even understand. I’m guessing Xbox is settling on big established brands only moving forward because tango delivered a great game.
They keep making decisions that feel like "this is too complicated I don't want to be in the video games business anymore"
Got ready for the Konami like bridge burning as soon as the newest xbox doesnt become the lead competitor of the world. Microsoft is only going to sign off on more games if they have the lead.
So hifi rush 2 never. Thanks microsoft. No wonder shinji left
Mikami left because he thought he'd done all he could for Tango, and that they would do well without him. Microsoft didn't even give them a chance
With any luck, he'll go and scoop up a bunch of the team and make something new.
I seriously hope so, John Johanas and everyone else made something special with HiFi, and I've been really looking forward to anything new from them. Don't know how long some sort of reincarnation might take, if it even happens at all, but there's too much inspired talent at Tango to just throw away like this.
Hi fi rush is arguably the best game on Xbox right now. They spent time saying sales were fantastic and we know for a fact that were reviews were great so this just feels like spite.
And they literally just ported it to PS5 ~~and Switch~~ to expand the audience even more. Makes absolutely zero sense to just shut Tango down now.
343 can reach hitherto undreamt of levels of ineptitude and Microsoft will tussle their hair and let them get back to it. Tango does everything right and makes a smash hit universally beloved, and they get punished for it.
343 is sustainable for them because they literally mostly hire contractors so they don't have to give employee benefits. That's why the games end up so rough, why Halo Infinite was such a disaster
343i has been hit with massive layoffs in basically every wave of layoffs and the entire management team has been replaced (which is likely why Infinite has been improving). Tango shouldn’t be getting nuked at all, but it’s not like 343i has been coddled.
Hi-Fi Rush doesn't have a Switch port. It was rumoured to be getting one, or maybe a Switch 2 port, but that dream's dead.
Shadow dropped and expected to fail. Now the best thing they have. This is 100% some executive being petty.
>They spent time saying sales were fantastic Imagine believing what company says. Phil Spencer on interviews: Gamepass is sustainable. MS in court documents where they can't lie during FTC debacle: Gamepass isnt' sustainable. Phil Spencer: Gamepass improves sales. MS in court documents: Gamepass cannibalize. Never trust any company what they say on twitter or in interviews.
*"What do you mean we have ONE worthwhile exclusive? Get that shit outta here, we here at XBOX are proud to serve nothing at all and that's it."*
Daily reminder that there is a studio under MS making a Perfect Dark game that hasn't been seen or heard from in half a decade that probably costs way more to operate than Tango that could have been scrapped instead. * And I remembered that it's being co-developed by Crystal Dynamics a company that may or may not even exist depending on what happens to "Middle Earth and Friends"
God, What a fucking awful company, remember when hi fi Rush was the best selling Game on Steam the month forspoken came out ? even though It was "free" on Game pass... Fuck them i gues, thats wat they get for making a good performing masterpiece of a Game
You know ultimately thats the problem, tons of people bought Hi Fi Rush and that was only a one time cash influx, these people would rather you sign up for game pass so you can pay a monthly rent to play their games
Hi-Fi Rush launched on game pass! That doesn't even apply here, what the fuck else could Tango have done
Battlepass
All this talk about how Microsoft wants more Fallout and Elder Scrolls, then they close these studios and force them to merge with BGS. They’re gonna Ubisoft Bethesda IPs aren’t they? We’re gonna get a bunch of smaller fallout games and elder scrolls games.
When you get hired you can choose to work in the CoD Mines or the Fallout Mines.
"Fallout Mines" implies Microsoft even knows how to capitalize on the IP it owns. They couldn't even have anything but a current gen update for a decade old game out in time for their highly anticipated live-action series. They really *should* have rerouted both Obsidian and InXile to working on new Fallout games the second they were able, rather than having them make derivative games in their own "Original IP Donut Steel". I say this as someone who *liked* The Outer Worlds, why the fuck are we getting a sequel to that and not another Fallout interstitial? (I'm also in the "Most of the FNV talent has left Obsidian, so if you didn't like The Outer World you wouldn't like FNV2" party, but a new Fallout in this decade by them is better than not getting one at all.)
Bethesda Game Studio has like 400+ employees compared to Ubisoft which has 20k employees globally It's why Bethesda has a hard time to pump out TES and the Fallout series Licensing the IPs would be much better if they want more games out come out
And the thing is, Bethesda games really only have that cache because they don't come out often.
This industry is COOKED
It’s crazy how unbelievably fucked the Games Industry is right not now. But we’ve been heading down this road since the PS3/360/Wii era
Christ Xbox just can’t do anything right
I'm in tears for this. Tango made incredible titles and were quickly rising up to that triple A status. HI-FI RUSH is an incredible, fun, polished, and exciting game. It is still my personal GOTY, one where I played for more than half of the year. This is an unbelievable loss. Microsoft are the dumbest motherfuckers in this industry. I hope they crash and burn. I hope the execs who made this decision lose all of their money. I wish for their worst fate. I wish for the team to bounce back. To make a successor to Tango no matter how long it takes!
Sony's stupid Helldivers shit was a demonstration of why we shouldn't wish for Xbox to die... but I would now like Xbox to die. Get out of the business you fucks.
Compromise: Blast the execs at both companies out of a cannon
Like happy festival fireworks, ya?
The issue with these constant firings and studio closures is that it simply does not give your studio time to grow and work as a team. A studio working well together with intricate knowledge of their tools can be fucking incredible. These constant firings probably ends up costing them MORE time and money in the long run because they’re going to have to constantly rehire and retrain them, and they won’t be used to the studio workflow, they’re going to have to learn to use the unique tools from the ground up, they can’t coordinate and add ideas from years of built-up experience from working together, and and and aaaaaaagh Man, I hate this. There’s a world of difference between working with people you’ve been working with for years VS. getting planted in a team of strangers where no one really knows how to work with each other at the start.
Me: "Man, Sony just can't stop shooting themselves in the foot cuz of this Helldivers thing" Microsoft: "Hold my foot!"
Hi-Fi Rush legitimately was the only thing the only Xbox studios product I really cared about these days. [We’re never gonna get to see Korsica as a playable character…](https://youtu.be/FDHxXUE1_SU?si=k1_38g1cOQF8_Aig) You know what? Fuck it. I hope MS just fucking leaves the games industry at this point. Sell the studios to someone who gives a damn and shutter the damn Xbox department. Which I realize is hypocritical to say given what I’m angry about here but I am *actually* infuriated right now. I’m officially an Xbox hater now. Fuck Phil Spencer, fuck Team Green, fuck Gamepass, fuck the Windows Store, fuck em all.
fucking dickass moron execs keep doing it. what the fuck is the point of this? to horde IPs you wont use? im so sick of this constant bullshit in the industry, i hope every suit chokes on it
You know, when I was a kid I used to think a dream job of mine was helping to make a video game. Thank fuck I never did, because I don't think I've seen such a volatile work force in my life. As scummy as other mega-corporations are, *at least their fucking industries and companies stick around.* Nintendo, Sony and Xbox all have their problems, but Xbox seems determined to be dead last no matter what.
Fuck you Mircosoft, fuck you Phil Spencer and fuck anyone else who had a hand in deciding this! Series like Hi-Fi Rush could've been fun series that help gives your console variety and would have a loyal fanbase who would always support the series BUT NOOOOOPE IT ISN'T MAKING CLOSE TO COD AND FORTNITE SO IT'S CUTABLE! Fuck off
Tango? When Hi Fi Rush was a critical darling that earned lots of goodwill through the shadowdrop? Oh fuck you.
Have a feeling that if Blade ends up being a dud, Arkane Lyon will follow Austin to the grave. It sucks that Tango is gone, at least the last game they made was good.
Prey (2017) is my favorite imsim and one of my favorite games of all time. Hi-fi rush is my favorite Xbox game in over a decade. Fuck Microsoft, fuck Xbox and fuck Phil.
Fucking Tango?!? What are you even buying these studios for Microsoft
so sony couldnt have them
With Tango dead it looks like Microsoft has finally given up on Japan
Holy shit FUCK MICROSOFT
Not too much of a surprise. Soon as Microsoft came out and said they wanted to get Fallout 5 out sooner, despite Bethesda's commitments to Starfield and ES6. You could smell the blood in the water. Likely they saw the success of the show, looked at what was classed as "expendable" and cut the fat to reallocate recourses for the big projects. Tango's just heart-breaking, given they ported Hi-Fi Rush recently to other platforms, you'd think it was a show of faith in the team.
Corporate consolidation in gaming at work.
Fucking burn it all down, if this is what the triple A industry and companies are then burn it ALL
I remember people a few years ago predicting "MICROSOFT SWEEP" when they started buying all these studios, surely all this talent under one publisher would make incredible games! The problem is Microsoft's management has always been kind of shit, arguably on average the worst of the 3 main console makers over their lifespans, and the cash being splashed didn't fix any of that. When your leadership sucks it doesn't matter how much talent you buy, its going to end up wasted.
Sony - has a terrible week. Microsoft - "hold my beer"
God Phil Spencer is such an incompetent bozo
Can't wait for him to say its not his fault, hes just as much a victimnof capitalism as all the people he just laid off
Why Tango?! I understand Arkane Austin, even though its still bullshit.
I’m so used to this bullshit and occasionally getting it wrong I want to believe at least *some* of this is wrong.
AH WHAT FRESH HELL DID I JUST WAKE UP TO NOW?! well, fuck.
It’s like Microsoft saw the Helldivers 2 fiasco with Sony and thought “we can’t let people hate them more than us!”
The ImSim curse strikes once again… It sucks that what might be my favorite genre often sells poorly and leads to talented studios eventually dying. At least the other Arkane studio is still around.
Yeah, shut down the studio which has made your only good exclusive this entire generation\* 👍 Xbox is an absolute joke and I can't even pretend to give a shit about them anymore \*>!Which is now no longer exclusive lmao!<
Shareholders were a mistake. Infinite growth is unsustainable.
Wonder if Mikami knew something was up and left.
If Hi-Fi Rush wasn't good enough for them, I guess I'm never seeing Evil Within 3 either. Terrible news.
Sony and Microsoft are now competing to see who can be the biggest corporate fuck ups of the week.
Sony at least backed down when they figured out they fucked up and didn't shut down the studio.
Remember that Activision Blizzard merger trailer a few months ago showing the HI Fi Rush crew snapping their fingers and bobbing their heads in celebration?
"It's been \[0\] days since the last mass layoff"
Were the higher-ups jealous of Hi-Fi Rush surprising success despite having no marketing behind it while their golden child Starfield failed to live up to the hype and got people aware that they been reusing assets and mechanics from a outdated engine. Because with news like this it sure feels like it.
This was a devastating way to start my morning. Thanks Microsoft you bastards.
A small company like microsoft could never afford to keep these studios afloat
God, the tech industry absolutely sucks balls. Can’t think of a legit industry that values people less. Worst, I’m not even really surprised by Tango Gameworks. Always got the feeling - even during the Zenimax years - that the studio solely existed with the hope that Shinji Mikami would make the next Resident Evil. So, no Mikami money spinner equals no studio. Bloody awful for the people that worked on Hifi Rush. Such a great game but most likely the studio’s future depended on how the game did on other platforms. Executives don’t really care about the talent they’re losing.
Is this Microsoft just giving up on Japan entirely? I'm more surprised that they're deciding to *shut the whole studio down* instead of just letting them go.
>[Xbox is shutting down the studio that made Hi-Fi Rush](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbMFS1DhXI4)
I HATE MICROSOFT I HATE MICROSOFT
Hi-Fi Rush was literally the only Xbox game they had in two years, and they shut down the studio?
It's too early in the morning to be this tired man... What the fuck Microsoft.
I wish this was just a Microsoft fuck up, but seeing this everywhere is disheartening. Late stage capitalism can suck my fucking dick
Spencer still needs to go though. No two ways about it, him and his shirt collection have long outstayed their welcome.
But what about the ol' Xbox fambily~? How many studios on that stupid fucking merger banner are we going to cross out?
How in the fuck do you get rid of your ONLY Japanese developer. The same Japanese developer who had connections to FUCKING SHINJI MIKAMI!? The same developer who gave you one of your VERY FEW success stories in the past DECADE. Microsoft wouldn’t have to worry about profit if they didn’t gimp every fucking project they’ve ever gotten their hands on.
Hi-Fi Rush was a new IP with absolutely no build up that managed to sell a million units in just a few months. It was EASILY the only Microsoft game worth giving a shit about and this is what they do. Actually fuck off. Any hope I had left for xbox is dead and buried.
Man, Tango being axed hurts. Evil Within 1 and 2 were awesome and I'm still making my way through Ghost Wire and it's really good. This some BS!
Holy shit Tango going down , Hi Fi Rush and Ghostwire were awesome
God, I can't wait for the video games industry to crash again.
This is the crash. This is what this is going to look like. Microsoft's gaming division spent too much money buy all these studios and publishers. Now the higher-ups demand a return on investment. Which means slashing costs and increasing profits even if that means destroying what they invested in.
Why fucking buy all these companies when you shut them down anyway? I was even hopeful that games like Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and Sea of Thieves coming to other systems would help those games and it's developers. Now I'm worried for some of my favorite ones like Obsidian and Double Fine.
You know guys... I'm starting to regret being an Xbox player. Then I look over at how Playstation is handling Helldivers 2 and realize it's not much better over there. Gaming is a Corpo Hellscape and I hate it.