Xbox is shutting down Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog Games. Roundhouse Studios absorbed by ZeniMax Online Studios.
- Thread starter Helix
- Start date
I wonder if he's going to hide until the summer show or be forced to scramble to make an appearance on the official Xbox podcast.
It always pisses me off when the people at the top hide for this bullshit. I guess it would also piss me off if he was out doing his lies, too, though.
Yes, studio sales happen. But if the studio doesn't come with the valuable IP, that is a severe limitation. Publishers generally don't like losing their IP, even if they have no plans to use it.
And if you're not getting the IP, you can just hire the devs after they've been laid off.
Plus, studios have dev attrition anyway. By all accounts Arkane Austin lost most of the people who worked on Prey. So I doubt anyone was lining up to buy that studio, sadly.
OP
OP
Def hasn't done anything better than Peter Moore.
Don Mattrick, I mean at least Phil Spencer didn't sink the brand within a day. Phil Spencer is doing it right, taking his time sinking the brand.
I'm convinced that some people will defend Phil no matter what. Yeah he closed that studio but think of all the free time he created for those people?! Also did you see that sweet Star Wars helmet he had?!?
Absolutely dumbfounded. Just... so profoundly stupid.
MS/Xbox hasn't been the company for me in terms of games for a long time.
Why?
Everything feels stale as hell, and I genuinely have no interest outside of the last surviving studios I find interesting. Otherwise it is endless sequels to franchises so tired, lame and banal.
I don't care about the money side of it specifically, but just the artistry, imagination, innovation, driving real interest and success. Where a game even on the lower scale of "AAA" or below that scaling down to indie, can be breakout hit. That's what they should be chasing. Then figure out how to iterate on that, along side these larger money sinks.
Sure you have you COD, fine. Does it really have to be at the sacrifice of all that drives gaming forward enough to actually grow - that thing you are actually worried about flat lining in the console industry?
Xbox/PS steered console players for so long on the big marketed tentpole titles with ever ballooned budgets that that is the thing they celebrate and look toward almost exclusively on mass. Of course the market research and analytics coming back reflects what you do there. So keep doing it and find it doesn't get the ever increasing success.
Now the only position is these big ass franchises, they'll hope to god they can also milk these with TV and Movies too... but is that really always going to be successful in perpetuity? Eventually not, and more so if that audience isn't growing.
Ingenuity and originality is far more interesting and engaging. Take the risks to do something new, rather than chase the trend.
Obsidian, Inxile, Double Fine, and previously Tango, Arkane. All capable of incredible things.
So many possibilities, and on rare occasions (maybe 2 or 3) they get through.
I don't know. These companies/entities deserve to unravel as the audience dwindles and creativity flops. One can only hope independent studies find the deserving success instead, and change is steered that way.
I guess this is my overall PC player view for so long as my excitement is buried in so many great titles, all of which a rarely on the budget scales of these massive blundering studios. The industry needs a real shock for change I guess.
MS/Xbox hasn't been the company for me in terms of games for a long time.
Why?
Everything feels stale as hell, and I genuinely have no interest outside of the last surviving studios I find interesting. Otherwise it is endless sequels to franchises so tired, lame and banal.
I don't care about the money side of it specifically, but just the artistry, imagination, innovation, driving real interest and success. Where a game even on the lower scale of "AAA" or below that scaling down to indie, can be breakout hit. That's what they should be chasing. Then figure out how to iterate on that, along side these larger money sinks.
Sure you have you COD, fine. Does it really have to be at the sacrifice of all that drives gaming forward enough to actually grow - that thing you are actually worried about flat lining in the console industry?
Xbox/PS steered console players for so long on the big marketed tentpole titles with ever ballooned budgets that that is the thing they celebrate and look toward almost exclusively on mass. Of course the market research and analytics coming back reflects what you do there. So keep doing it and find it doesn't get the ever increasing success.
Now the only position is these big ass franchises, they'll hope to god they can also milk these with TV and Movies too... but is that really always going to be successful in perpetuity? Eventually not, and more so if that audience isn't growing.
Ingenuity and originality is far more interesting and engaging. Take the risks to do something new, rather than chase the trend.
Obsidian, Inxile, Double Fine, and previously Tango, Arkane. All capable of incredible things.
So many possibilities, and on rare occasions (maybe 2 or 3) they get through.
I don't know. These companies/entities deserve to unravel as the audience dwindles and creativity flops. One can only hope independent studies find the deserving success instead, and change is steered that way.
I guess this is my overall PC player view for so long as my excitement is buried in so many great titles, all of which a rarely on the budget scales of these massive blundering studios. The industry needs a real shock for change I guess.
It's tactless for Microsoft to make everyone question the sustainability of their studios in the first place. Anyone inquiring about or voicing this kind of suspicion/worry is just being logical.
I'm not gonna lie I think MS might be looking to like... wind everything down at this point. There's been no good news for several years and many indicators that shit is going wrong. If it continues I feel like MS will have to pivot to being a third party that also sells a set top box.
But like also like historically MS's pushes haven't ever just been about games. OG Xbox through Xbox One was all about getting MS to be the center of the living room, while Spencer tried to turn the brand into a sub service Ala Netflix. None of these big initiatives succeeded to the extent that they wanted though, and I just don't see what the strategic vision going forward is.
But like also like historically MS's pushes haven't ever just been about games. OG Xbox through Xbox One was all about getting MS to be the center of the living room, while Spencer tried to turn the brand into a sub service Ala Netflix. None of these big initiatives succeeded to the extent that they wanted though, and I just don't see what the strategic vision going forward is.
This has all been an elaborate marketing strategy for that game
As someone who doesn't follow Xbox stuff closely/not familiar with these studios, is there a post other than the OP that outlines the gravity of this? I'm a doofus, but I'd like to try to understand.
2025 will be xbox's year!
at this point i think Phil Spencer is the only person that can kill CoD.
he's so bad at his job.
Ugh, Jez was such a dipshit over this, still can't believe he tweeted this. Almost forgot about it. His twitter emotional rollercoasters are wild, but this one was one of his stupidest takes.
for some reason I thought it was a month away, but it's literally two weeks away
oof
I would think the tactless thing is putting studios in these positions where they fear for their jobs.
Pointing it out is commenting on the industry, which, like, is the job. Not just "Phil Spencer celebrates birthday party" or whatever.
While earning 10 million dollars a year.
Everyone let's shed a tear for poor Phil.
He had more hours gaming than I did when I wasn't working for a bit during covid lockdowns ffs
Phil is an amazing PR spin doctor who was able to convince a large amount of gamers and gaming media that he was righting the ship at Xbox and making gaming a better place even when he did little to nothing over the course of a decade to actually solve any of Xbox's problems while making gaming actively worse with GamePass and the acquisition spree.
I'm not defending MS here. I don't think "the job" is throwing out thoughtless speculation on twitter about the likelihood of dozens/hundreds of people losing their jobs.
As someone who experienced layoffs at my work, I would rather know it's coming than to be lied to. The threat of those people losing their jobs is real. MS has already demonstrated that success will not help you avoid it.
Probably the most anticipated game of the last few years for me.
It shouldn't have had a big budget. Not because it doesn't deserve it but because this type of game is always going to be extremely niche. For reference, the first game took about a year to sell a million copies:
The Plague Tale games which are also narrative games with a heavy story and they cost 10 and 25 million euros for the first and second game respectively:
Avec le jeu « A Plague Tale: Requiem », Focus Entertainment poursuit sa montée en gamme
Mardi, l'éditeur tricolore a lancé ce jeu d'action-aventure développé par le studio bordelais Asobo. Une commercialisation illustrant la nouvelle stratégie de Focus Entertainment, qui investit dans des productions de plus en plus soignées. Ces deux dernières années, le groupe a aussi mis le cap...
www.lesechos.fr
Hellblade 2 looks like it'll be great but I don't see how it will make back a budget that is probably around $100 million. They fucked up by approving that much money.
Shame because I want nothing more than for MS to lose some damn IP. I know they'll keep their grubby hands on it and never need cash so...sigh
It's not thoughtless. It's public facing editorializing to try and make Microsoft look responsible for their past, current, and (potential) future victims.
Random journalists speculating about it, does not give the workers any more knowledge about their futures as they had before. Maybe just some additional worries added to the ones they already had.
Yeah I've heard this about subscription services in general, that they've lead to consumers devaluing media.
It's absolutely capitalism. Closing studios is basically those in power needing/wanting/being told to make one side of the balance sheet look better for the next FY. MS isnt incompetent at making money. They make and spend billions on one hand while upper management uses the other to find ways to cut a few million dollars in operating expenses.
They could have thrown all these developers into the CoD machine, or with Bethesda into the Fallout/Starfield content mill and had making money yesterday and still be around but that wasn't the goal here. That's not incompetence, that's just the usual riding the line between greed and making 'art' game executives everywhere are balancing on.
If Xbox is like Embracer, than that new Xbox is definitely not coming out.
xbox is not Spencers ship anymore...(not excusing him in the least btw)
Its become Satya Nadellas ship, and he wants immediate returns on its $68.7 billion investment
Nadella couldn't care less about game of the year, feelings, employees, goodwill... or gamers... he wants the cold hard cash ASAP
Its become Satya Nadellas ship, and he wants immediate returns on its $68.7 billion investment
Nadella couldn't care less about game of the year, feelings, employees, goodwill... or gamers... he wants the cold hard cash ASAP
User Banned (3 Days): Accusations of Journalistic Bias
Interesting that neither Polygon nor the Verge have any articles about this that I can see?
How… unsurprising.
I think it's something worth discussing (obviously as tastefully as possible) in a why would anyone at these studios feel even slightly secure when we are seeing studios that do well "not doing well enough" and super important to remember when these corps are all celebrating how much money they make every quarter.
I guess these is like a 0.1% chance that if the suits see that there's a lot of resentment building just over the thought of it that they might think twice about it too.
That's the thing, it is.
Microsoft just showed they are willing to destroy a studio that has had major successes in quality and hit milestones, by their own admission, in all their metrics. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together should be concerned about their other studios, especially the one releasing a game in a few weeks and has been in development for years. That's not thoughtless speculation, it is going "Oh wow, the rules they just laid out seem bad for everyone else too."
You can choose to not like seeing it, but it doesn't make it inappropriate.
Can't get cold hard cash ASAP if the studios aren't allowed to exist to make games...One year isn't even enough time to get a game through early dev. I doubt he cares about that or even understands the game development process.
Aw, I hope Phil has a sad day today. He still has a job.
All those talented people layed off after making the amazing Hifi Rush are sad too.
I really have no interest in whatever lip service Phil says about "amazing games coming" anymore.
All those talented people layed off after making the amazing Hifi Rush are sad too.
I really have no interest in whatever lip service Phil says about "amazing games coming" anymore.
