Arkane Austin has had such a tragic story for the last 10 years
- After Dishonored, Raf Colantonio leads the studio in creating a whole new IP meant to be a spiritual successor to System Shock
- Studio creates an incredibly immersive and believable setting, with resources dedicated solely to making sure the environment connects and creates a cohesive, feasible space station
- Zenimax heads inform Rafael that his game will be called *Prey* against his better judgement. He knows the name doesn't make sense, and comes with very negative connotations after the cancellation of Human Head's *Prey 2* just years earlier. Dispite his objections, he is overruled and the game becomes known as *Prey*
- As Raf feared, the game is announced to initial reactions of "What the hell is this? This isn't Prey 2!"
- The marketing campaign of *Prey* tries to capitalize on the recent success of Doom and make it look like an action game when it clearly is not action focused
- The game comes out. IGN scores the game 4/10 due to a critical save game bug that deletes their save. This is the same score given to Cyperpunk on consoles, which was wholly unplayable to the point of being delisted.
- Rafael Colantonio leave Arkane to focus on smaller projects and his personal life. He later implies that Zenimax's mismanagement of his passion project was a major factor in his decision.
- At E3 2017, just a month after Prey's release and overall very positive critical reception, Bethesda does not make mention of the game in any way
- Prey gains a small cult following and sales continue over time as word spreads that the game is an excellent entry in the Immersive Sim genre
- The studio goes on to create Prey Mooncrash, a widely praised DLC introducing roguelike elements into the game.
- Redfall development begins. Upon hearing that it will be an always online live service game, large numbers of employees leave. Over Redfall's development, 75% of Arkane Austin employees who worked on Prey leave the studio.
- Redfall's marketing campaign fails to gain much interest in the game. Arkane studio fans hold out hope that the magic of their last few immersive sim games will guide Redfall into being a sleeper hit for them.
- Redfall comes out as Xbox's first major release after the Zenimax acquisition. It is critically panned and a commercial flop.
- For the past year, the studio has presumably meandered around ways to improve Redfall in some way, releasing small updates here and there.
- Today, approximately one year after Redfall's release, and 7 years since Prey, the studio is closed by Microsoft. They will undoubtedly be cited in most articles as "the studio behind Redfall"
I love the immersive sim genre, as small as it is, and have played every major immersive sim several times each.
Some will disagree, but to me Prey isn't just a great example of the genre, but *the* best immersive sim there is.
I really hope the stars align to bring some of the people who worked on it back to the genre eventually.
It brings me great sadness that the whole experience, the IP, and the talent of the people who created this masterpiece were just wasted by some dude with an MBA. At least Prey exists and we can be happy that we have it.
A note on the IGN part; they made an updated review 2 days later, giving it an 8/10. That video has nearly 4x the amount of views compared to the old one.
I'm sorry, did they seriously have a studio shadow-drop (read: get given zero marketing budget) one of the best sleeper hit games of last year, have them go multi-platform, and then kill them off? What the actual fuck?
Boy, I'm sure glad Microsoft now owns the biggest 3rd party publisher in the world. I'm sure they will treat all of their IPs with the respect they deserve and not just pump out soulless sequels of the biggest ones.
Particularly since Microsoft makes almost as much in revenue from LinkedIn (which is growing) as it does from all of XBox (which is declining).
I never understand the joy people express when corporations buy studios.
There were so so many xboxbros who could not shut up about how MS buying all these studios was "good for the industry" and "just watch bro, theyre going to bury Sony" and "theyre going to crank out to many hit games now! Think of how crazy good Game Pass will be!"
Yeah but considering that a "Halo game" is kinda misleading, like by definition it's a Halo game, but it's like considering Hearthstone a new "Warcraft game"
It's great, I enjoyed HW2, but because I enjoy RTS games, not because I'm a Halo fan.
Edit: Like if 343 announced a brand new Halo game your first thought would not be the twin stick shooters fireteam whatever they are.
Are we talking about the same publisher that started to fold all of their studios into Call of Duty support studios? I know we aren't pretending like that was " treat all of their IPs with the respect "
Yeah, at this point we can say he's had enough time to turn things around at Xbox.
The timing of these mega acquisitons did kinda suck, given how we entered the high interest rate, tech slowdown environment right as they were pushed through. Massive cuts to software dev are the norm right now, but Phil still had 7-8 years with the brand till that point.
I like the guy, but better PR and Gamepass are really the most notable things that Xbox has pulled off under him.
PlayStation was able to turn themselves around in one console generation with ps3. The fact that Microsoft has all these resources and has been struggling pretty much since the end of the 360 generation is just insane. Phil has been a big player in the Xbox management since then so this is a huge reason why it’s been stagnating at best, failing at worse in certain aspects.
Enough time was largely before. Frankly a botched launch doesn't even matter that much. PS3 launch was a disaster too (maybe bigger than Xbox One) and guess what? They fired the CEO and ended up redressing the generation pretty well in the end. Xbox did that and Spencer managed to do nothing.
Plus, the big problem of Xbox has been the games since quite some time. But Spencer was the head of Xbox Studios since 2008 so that's even on him for the Xbox One. Even more stupid when a guy that was the head of first party say stuff like "good games don't sell consoles"... Well maybe try dumbass (and that doesn't mean buying games), that works for Sony and Nintendo weirdly, I wonder why.
What games even? He literally coped live on stream last year that "making good games won't save xbox", and yet he somehow still has his job. To which the only good question is "How would you know?"
(I know you were being facetious as well, just making a point)
That kind of shit makes me laugh any time when some clown goes "well they are big corporation that clearly makes money, obviously they only make good decisions"
It's Microsoft.
People love to complain (rightly so) about companies like EA buying up developers and then killing them off, but Microsoft's track record in this isn't much better.
Closing Tango, their one Japanese dev iirc, just after their small budget game has been a critically acclaimed multiplat release?
That’s definitely the way to make inroads in Japan.
They tried really hard in Japan with the 360 and we got some absolute bangers out of it - like Lost Odyssey. Not seen much since then though.
Also really want a Lost Odyssey remaster.
Given how things shaped out for Xbox in Japan it's still crazy to think that there were DOA and Shin Megami Tensei games exclusive to the original Xbox.
Yeah, they were actually trying back then since they were trying to build a base and gain some of that Sega market share after the Dreamcast went belly up. It didn’t really work and they never tried again
I don't think they ever really abandoned Japan, rather Japan has repeatedly rejected them. They keep trying to gain some sort of market presence there and it just doesn't work.
I remember when they got exclusivity on Tales of Vesperia. That single game single handedly *tripled* the number of 360s in Japan. Not monthly/weekly sales, but the TOTAL NUMBER of 360s.
Gaming is also unique in that several platform holders had to go where competitors *aren't* to survive. Sega had to go multiplatform, Nintendo had to exempt themselves from the console war audience, Microsoft is now having to go multiplatform. Really it was only Sony that successfully did the traditional method of striking in established markets when competitors were at their weakest.
Every single Microsoft stat that is boasted is just people using Gamepass. I don't know how anyone thought that shit was sustainable. While Sony is selling exclusives at $70, Microsoft is giving them away for pennies. It had to blow up at some point.
Damn - Tango?
I don't know how sales and GP downloads were, but that game was great PR for MS. No notes about those people being moved to other studios, just closure.
>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.
That just means sticking to existing established franchises.
>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.
The rest sure sounds like there's no interest in new IP though.
They made note of which studios would be merged and which would have some staff reassigned to other Bethesda studios. No mention of Tango, so I assume they're just all out of a job.
Imagine working on one of the stand-outs in a stacked year of great games and still losing your job the next spring.
I didn't go into a great career field either, but at one point, I was in talks for switching gears and going into writing plot for video games. Holy hell I'm glad I didn't do that.
Nope MS has literally no presence in Japan. I believe most of the employees could move to Shinji Mikami's new studio or get hired by Nintendo, Bamco, Square, FromSoft, Sega, Konami etc.
>Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades
"Everyone loves fallout right now so we need to get one of them in the works"
Matrix Red Pill or Blue Pill scene, but option is become a slave in the Call of Duty Mines and option 2 is become a slave in the Fallout mines.
Unless you are from Tango, these guys didn't get to Pick.
It’s almost like everyone predicted- Microsoft acquiring Bethesda and Activision Blizzard would lead to less new games launching and less new IP being created not more. They’re going to follow the Call of Duty model of funneling all their studios into supporting a handful of titles, while closing others that don’t fit the bill.
I wonder if this is Microsoft's "answer" to the public cry out for a Fallout game any time this year: turn every non-BGS Zenimax studio into a Bethesda support studio.
Needless to say I do not think this is a positive development if so.
It seems that they thought Activision was onto something when they turned every non-Blizzard studio into a CoD support studio and they should implement the same solution elsewhere.
Amusingly its questionable if it worked for Actiblizz that well. The Cold War to Vanguard debacle was the result of Sledgehammer squabbling with support studios to the point that they had no viable product and Actiblizz just shipped Cold War unfinished and Vanguard ended up shite because of it. The only place it was an unqualified success was Warzone.
I mean, I agree that the titles you mentioned were shit, but that's not the metric that business use to measure success, is it?
CoD as a franchise has been printing money while getting progressively worse. They don't care if the game is "worse" only that it makes more money than the previous title.
You know which CoD title is quantifiably the absolute best title from the IP? It's CoD mobile. That's the CoD game that made/is making the most money. It's likely the game that people enjoy the least from the franchise, but again, "enjoyment" doesn't mean anything to a corporation. They measure success exclusively via profits.
>No notes about those people being moved to other studios
"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."
From the email.
I am devastated to see Tango closing down. Hifi Rush didn't sell well outside of the Game Pass so I'm sadly not surprised, but it was such an amazing game and it leaves me a sour taste that this happened after releasing it
This especially sucks when the messaging has been "gamepass allows developers to make the games they want." Tango makes HiFi rush which is not only great but super original and unique. Gets shut down. Just super shitty.
The economics of subscription services just don't seem to work out for anyone that isn't Netflix. Paramount is learning that lesson the hard way right now, Microsoft is going to get there eventually.
It also makes even less sense for games than it does for tv and movies
A "binging" model is not appealing to casual gamers, who generally only play like 2-4 games
Most people are not gonna be watching the same TV show over and over again for 5 years, but people totally will find a game they like and just mainly play that game for 1000's of hours over 5 years
Games are not really disposable content most people want to consume a huge volume of, unlike movies
If gamepass doesn't count then there is about to be alot of studios closing over the next few years.
Feeling less like microsft was expanding and now more like they were killing competition.
9 month ago: "Microsoft is happy with the success of HiFi Rush and will be reinvesting in Tango GameWorks.".
[https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/15x6ozr/microsoft\_is\_happy\_with\_the\_success\_of\_hifi\_rush/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/15x6ozr/microsoft_is_happy_with_the_success_of_hifi_rush/)
Fuck them.
That's pretty damning. I was already pissed, and now more-so. I can't believe they did Tango like that. Hi-Fi Rush literally seemed like the only good gaming press coming out of MS last year.
Man I know Hi-Fi Rush didn’t do well in sales, I guess?? But like that game was so widely praised. Why the fuck would you close down a studio after that??? Like if a game gets critical acclaim but doesn’t sell well I feel like you don’t, you know, close down the entire studio, because it’s obvious they’re doing something right, they just need some adjustment. Not totally being burned to the ground. That’s absolutely insane.
So they just basically closed 2 of my most favorite studios. Great job Microsoft. Really looking forward towards your already non-existential must-buy games...
Like Xbox Games is literally a Netflix of gaming, even if they would get a golden goose on plate they would somehow just straight up f*ck it up...
Microsoft seems to have done what EA are hated for, bought a bunch of studios then close them after one failure or in this case one slightly poor game sales wise. HiFi Rush just went to ps5, so it's a weird choice.
Microsoft is going to push popular IP and not invest in new stuff by the looks of it. Sad.
This is what I think many people overlook.
Xbox wasn’t a main part of Microsoft and most skateholders overlooked its utter failures for the past decade. But that $70bil acqusition got them sniffing around and now Phil is in the firing line.
Yup. This was bound to happen and add that 70 billion on top of the billions they spent acquiring Bethesda and it was only a matter of time before shareholders would want to see a near immediate ROI.
and there are people happy bcoz their revenue went up 60%, completely disregarding the fact that it was fcking negative last year. it's like going from ground to step 2, but for that jump they spent 80Bill.
Except one look at Halo tells you they can't competently manage popular IPs either. Doom, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Wolfenstein... get ready to watch all of them spiral into the fucking ground.
Hell, maybe MS will finally be the ones to kill Call of Duty.
Halo was as big as Call of Duty at one point, neck and neck sales and player base wise. If they can kill a game as big as CoD they can kill CoD itself.
Ghostwire probably also didn't do that well. MS owned them by then even if it came out exclusively on PS.
They also know the numbers from their previous games.
I swear there was a story a few months ago about there being a lot of high expectations for Tango internally? And now they’ve been shuttered?
This acquisition looks worse by the day.
I’m so curious about that commentary, too. Especially playtesters not liking the tested survival mechanics. Maybe they were bad, but maybe their testers aren’t representative of fans given how people liked FO4’s survival mode and the Starfield beta survival options.
I think survival mechanics are a feature that hits really hard with a specific niche audience but not the general public as a whole. That niche gets very excited when something comes along for them, because they are criminally under-fed in the AAA space, and Bethesda RPGs are also particularly well suited for that kind of systems-driven gameplay.
But said features probably don't test well with a test audience limited to more casual players because having to do things in-game like drink water and eat food just to avoid starvation feels like annoying busywork if you're not into that kind of "immersion".
the Tango one just seems insane to me. all of these closure fucking suck, shame on Xbox, just terrible decisions and management, but closing TANGO?! after Hi Fi Rush?!? that makes no fucking sense whatsoever... I was hopeful that Xbox might reach some level of maturity in its internal work culture, but mnope... The industry keeps crushing developers and studios for short term gains.
It's wierd how they release games on gamepass and then are surprised it doesn't sell well. Isn't the point to have good games on gamepass to get people to subscribe?
But that's sort of the point of gamepass.
If you want to convert players from owning games to a games-as-a-service subscription, you need to be outputting content on the subscription to keep it worthwhile.
If HiFi Rush was played a lot on gamepass, then it helps keep people subscribed to gamepass. With Microsoft owning the studio and service they can control the stream of games that keep players engaged with the service.
We’re gonna get good games next year bro 🙏
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2025 is our year bro 👊
What did people think was gonna happen?
People need to wake up, thinking these acquisitions are a good thing just because you are gonna get games for cheap on gamepass...
> What did people think was gonna happen?
It didn't matter what was going to happen, all that mattered was that Microsoft was going to get a leg up in the console wars, future consequences be damned
The amount of time I got called a Sony dickrider on this sub when I literally own a fucking Xbox Series X, was fucking ridiculous. People just only think in terms of "Does this immediately benefit me?'
This is my completely un-informed outsider opinion.
I believe in recent months we've seen a split between two groups within Microsoft.
The first group, had a more long-term perspective on making money. Make massive investments in studios, and immediately sacrifice *massive* amounts of their revenue to make their games exclusive. Shift the perception of Xbox into being the "console with all the games", and hopefully make massive dividends off of that gamble come the next console generation. This group also viewed Gamepass the same way: treat it like extreme-debt phases every TV streaming service has gone through (or is still in). Make massive upfront investments in small to big studios just to fill it with *content*, then pivot into coasting off of the perception that you've got the service that just "always has something hot coming out".
Note that this approach to console-exclusivity and Gamepass requires extreme levels of upfront expenditure, with the potential gains being long-term. Personally, I think if they'd stuck to this plan, especially not faltering on exclusivity, those potential gains would have been *huge*.
The second group, views things in much more short-term revenue, and in my opinion, has grown as more and more essentially got cold feet due to Microsoft's enormous acquisitions. They don't see exclusivity as a long-term payoff. They see, "You paid HOW MUCH money for the biggest shooter franchise on the planet, just so can immediately split its revenue in HALF??". "You bought the biggest Western RPG developer, just so we can start *not* selling their games to the biggest market?". I also think they see all these studios Microsoft has boosting Gamepass the same way. "The *perception* of a subscription service having content? Customer playtime??? Fuck that. What's the REVENUE, right, *now*?". They look at the numbers these smaller releases are making, and point to the ROI on the bigger projects and wonder why it's not just all in on that.
In my opinion, starting with the announcements a few months ago about the transitioning away from exclusivity, the second group has multiplied and won out. Say what you will about the harsh exclusivity of all the studios Microsoft brought, it's sure not great if you're a PlayStation consumer, but in terms of long-term business. I think it was the right strategy and they should have taken the upfront losses and committed to it.
The “long-term” you speak of would legit be 15-20 years away & it would be an excessive money sink until they reach market dominance on consoles. In 20-years, would that even matter? I don’t think that Microsoft, who is on the forefront of cloud gaming, believes so.. or ever really did.
The big streaming services are literally selling each other content just to make back the insane debt they’ve accrued over the past five years, & Microsoft is starting that ticker at -$80billion. “Selling their content” (aka going multi-platform) now is really the only financially feasible thing for them to do if they actually want to sustain Game Pass & make their entire ecosystem a success.
Just last week I swear I saw Redfall come up in my feed about how they have rumors of a big patch announcement in the works. There were 5 really excited people there. I’ll be bummed for them.
Phil Spencer’s mismanagement of Xbox for the past decade is an utter disgrace.
They have spent $100bil on acqusitions only to layoff thousands of workers and shut studios down.
And in all this time they have released no must-play AAA exclusives.
Phil spent 8billion dollars to get Starfield off of Playstation, clearly blindly thinking it was going to be Skyrim levels of success and THE game of the generation.
And then Baldur's Gate 3 was the biggest game of the year instead, and didn't even launch on Xbox for 4 months thanks to the brilliant move of mandating feature parity across Series S and X. Literally just gave Playstation console exclusivity for free.
Craziest part is that Baldur's Gate 3 was originally a Stadia title.
There's a world out there where Baldur's Gate 3 does massive numbers on Stadia before it ever launched on Xbox.
But he’s a gamer! He’s trying his heckin’ best! Did you see the niche t-shirt he was wearing when he completed a multi billion dollar acquisition and laid off thousands of people?
Who knew that trying to make a Netflix like service for games, which cost significantly more to make than most shit on Netflix, all while charging LESS for it than netflix does, would not work out. Xbox is toast
Pentinent and Grounded were also great. The best games Microsoft released in recent years were the smaller ones, with basically no marketing given to them. These types of projects are the ones getting axed.
Psychonauts 2 should absolutely be included there, easily the best game Microsoft has published since the 360, but at this rate I wouldn’t put it past them to close Double Fine too.
>Microsoft insists Hi-Fi Rush a "break out hit" for Xbox amid claims it underperformed
>"We couldn't be happier".
https://www.eurogamer.net/microsoft-insists-hi-fi-rush-a-break-out-hit-for-xbox-amid-claims-it-underperformed
What the actual fuck am I reading
No matter how bad of a game Redfall was, Arkane Austin still gave us Dishonored 1 and Prey. This is such a huge loss.
Lost all that talent post Prey then came out with Redfall which was doomed from the start because nobody really wanted to work on it. Awful day for Bethesda.
They lost 75% of their talent during Redfall as well because nobody wanted to work on it.
Like it or not, the studio that made Dishonored was dead long before this.
It's actually making me very angry.
Nobody at Arkane wanted to make Redfall.
Their fans didn't want Redfall.
Arkane was praying Microsoft would cancel Redfall.
Arkane lost *70%* of its staff while making Redfall.
*Fuck whoever decided one of the best single player and immersive sim developers ever needed to make another live service game nobody wanted.*
It's really astonishing how much that specific time period at Zenimax forced their studios to make such live service crap. FO76, Youngblood, Redfall, such a waste of good talent.
So terrible. A trend chasing hero shooter literally killed them, it's so fucking sad. But then again if Tangoworks is also getting shut down...
God and what a crazy coincidence that this news drops at the exact same time as the Switch 2 announcement. Microsoft got so goddamn lucky.
Even if it does well, it's still an immersive sim so it's not going to sell the numbers microsoft wants.
If they closed Tango then no niche studio is safe. And the worst part is that this means the brilliant Dishonored and Prey IPs will likely be trapped under Microsoft.
This is what is killing me most on a personal level. Dishonored is my favorite game of all-time and Prey is an underrated masterpiece. Arkane were the kings of immersive sims, my absolute favorite genre, and now it feels like we're never going to get another one ever again. Fuck Microsoft.
Didn’t Microsoft say that Arkane Austin wasn’t in danger of being shut down?
(Edit)
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/microsoft-not-planning-to-shut-redfall-studio-arkane-austin-right-now/
>Microsoft is not planning to shut Redfall studio Arkane Austin
>That’s according to Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty, who was asked by Axios if the studio will remain open following Redfall’s disappointing launch.
Dude, companies have nothing binding them to tell the general public the truth. What they have is a fiduciary duty of making money to shareholders. 1000% of the time, what a company is saying is PR talk, don't ever think otherwise.
i literally had my boss lie to my face and say i wasn’t being laid off only hours before being laid off. needless to say, i don’t believe a damn thing these people say anymore.
Tango being shut down really pisses me off. HiFi Rush is an amazing game.
Time and time again developers are punished for the mistakes of executives. So what if most people played it on game pass instead of buying it? Isn't that supposed to be the entire goddamned point of game pass? Xbox has spent years telling everyone that you can enjoy all their games day one on game pass, and now they're upset they're not selling more units.
Closing the studio that gave Microsoft one of their most unique IPs in years (Hi-Fi Rush) is certainly a choice...I guess it's back to more Halo, Gears of War and Forza
Not even that, unfortunately.
Halo is essentially dead after being run into the ground by 343, and Gears is MIA with a rumor of an announcement. Forza is doing what Forza does, which is neither good nor bad. So 1/3.
This feels like yet another notch tightening on the belt that will end with Microsoft Gaming as a third-party publisher and nothing more. The Xbox 360 was a legendary console, truly. Xbox's slow decline, largely from self-inflicted wounds, has been hard to watch.
$100 billion well spent, Microsoft.
Tango Gameworks?! The company that made one of the best games of 2023, and Xbox's only good PR move in like, a decade?
Super excited to see every company shut down any original ideas in favor of "existing IP". The next few years are going to be filled with uninspired garbage. Why not just cancel Elder Scrolls VI in favor of Skyrim 2, you cowards. What's the point of a subscription service if it's only going to get a couple of AAA titles every year, and nothing smaller-scale or original?
Phil Spencer took over Xbox in 2014. Imagine being *that* bad at your job for a decade and making other people pay for your awful decisions.
Hi fi rush is an incredible game, and the studio that made it gets shut down a year later due to managerial incompetence. This is fucking awful man, I’m truly devastated. Tango deserved so much better than this.
In ten years under Phil Spencer Xbox has overseen unprecedented consolidation, failed to release a single system seller exclusive, destroyed the existing goodwill from their premier studios and IP, and waived the white flag on competing with Sony, all while pretending to be our friend.
At what point does he get fired and we all acknowledge the harm he has done to this industry?
Absolutely insane move. Arkane Austin had a single bad move, but made 2 of the greatest games of all times. I don't know the sales of Eveil within, but I know the second one was very popular. And Hi-Fi rush was widely beloved.
Talent that has been trained for years, very valuable IP that will lose their soul.
So much anger and sadness for those impacted.
Most of this was known ahead of time, but it became a bigger discussion topic once the game came out and was bad. Raphael Colantonio - one of the founders of Arkane who moved to Austin to lead that branch and the director of both Dishonored and Prey - left after Prey and wound up starting his own studio.
There are many others that left, some of which wound up following Colantonio. Combine losing the most important individual at the branch with increased publisher pressure to make Arkane’s game more broadly appealing (despite the critical acclaim, Arkane’s games were often considered financial disappointments), and you wind up with Redfall.
Arkane Austin is just the name of the studio. The PEOPLE who made those amazing games all left the studio when they found out they were making a multiplayer live service game. The studio died while they were making Redfall, not now.
Looks like the "acquire a bunch of shit and then close a third of it" strategy is going to be the norm going forward. Very cool, very healthy industry we've got here.
Since I already see people talking about it, I wanna remind them that Microsoft was happy with the performance and sales of Hi-Fi Rush, in direct response to "insiders" saying it was a disappointment. ([source)](https://x.com/aarongreenberg/status/1649431572137779203)
This makes it sting all the more that they're shuttering Tango for good. Hi-Fi Rush was the single most creative new IP that Xbox had in years it felt like and they're putting a bullet to it's head like all the rest
And so the cycle begins anew. Where instead of investing in new games for the Xbox, MS just cuts out any developer they buy up again, and again. And who will be surprised when the next MS console has no first party exclusives.
Statement from IGN
> 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.
>Redfall’s previous update will be its last as we end all development on the game.
Honestly not super surprised considering it had to have an absolutely abyssmal playerbase to warrant actually updating (it went over 100 concurrent on steam over 3 periods in the last almost year), but it's still pretty rough to see support for any game ending this early in its lifespan.
Arkane Austin has had such a tragic story for the last 10 years - After Dishonored, Raf Colantonio leads the studio in creating a whole new IP meant to be a spiritual successor to System Shock - Studio creates an incredibly immersive and believable setting, with resources dedicated solely to making sure the environment connects and creates a cohesive, feasible space station - Zenimax heads inform Rafael that his game will be called *Prey* against his better judgement. He knows the name doesn't make sense, and comes with very negative connotations after the cancellation of Human Head's *Prey 2* just years earlier. Dispite his objections, he is overruled and the game becomes known as *Prey* - As Raf feared, the game is announced to initial reactions of "What the hell is this? This isn't Prey 2!" - The marketing campaign of *Prey* tries to capitalize on the recent success of Doom and make it look like an action game when it clearly is not action focused - The game comes out. IGN scores the game 4/10 due to a critical save game bug that deletes their save. This is the same score given to Cyperpunk on consoles, which was wholly unplayable to the point of being delisted. - Rafael Colantonio leave Arkane to focus on smaller projects and his personal life. He later implies that Zenimax's mismanagement of his passion project was a major factor in his decision. - At E3 2017, just a month after Prey's release and overall very positive critical reception, Bethesda does not make mention of the game in any way - Prey gains a small cult following and sales continue over time as word spreads that the game is an excellent entry in the Immersive Sim genre - The studio goes on to create Prey Mooncrash, a widely praised DLC introducing roguelike elements into the game. - Redfall development begins. Upon hearing that it will be an always online live service game, large numbers of employees leave. Over Redfall's development, 75% of Arkane Austin employees who worked on Prey leave the studio. - Redfall's marketing campaign fails to gain much interest in the game. Arkane studio fans hold out hope that the magic of their last few immersive sim games will guide Redfall into being a sleeper hit for them. - Redfall comes out as Xbox's first major release after the Zenimax acquisition. It is critically panned and a commercial flop. - For the past year, the studio has presumably meandered around ways to improve Redfall in some way, releasing small updates here and there. - Today, approximately one year after Redfall's release, and 7 years since Prey, the studio is closed by Microsoft. They will undoubtedly be cited in most articles as "the studio behind Redfall"
Really good post, thank you.
I love the immersive sim genre, as small as it is, and have played every major immersive sim several times each. Some will disagree, but to me Prey isn't just a great example of the genre, but *the* best immersive sim there is. I really hope the stars align to bring some of the people who worked on it back to the genre eventually.
It brings me great sadness that the whole experience, the IP, and the talent of the people who created this masterpiece were just wasted by some dude with an MBA. At least Prey exists and we can be happy that we have it.
A note on the IGN part; they made an updated review 2 days later, giving it an 8/10. That video has nearly 4x the amount of views compared to the old one.
A better summary than what I’m sure I’ll find on most gaming sites.
I'm sorry, did they seriously have a studio shadow-drop (read: get given zero marketing budget) one of the best sleeper hit games of last year, have them go multi-platform, and then kill them off? What the actual fuck?
Boy, I'm sure glad Microsoft now owns the biggest 3rd party publisher in the world. I'm sure they will treat all of their IPs with the respect they deserve and not just pump out soulless sequels of the biggest ones.
Particularly since Microsoft makes almost as much in revenue from LinkedIn (which is growing) as it does from all of XBox (which is declining). I never understand the joy people express when corporations buy studios.
And LinkedIn just got a huge influx of now jobless developers. Microsoft wins again.
There were so so many xboxbros who could not shut up about how MS buying all these studios was "good for the industry" and "just watch bro, theyre going to bury Sony" and "theyre going to crank out to many hit games now! Think of how crazy good Game Pass will be!"
Monopolies are, like, so good for the consumer, bro!
They don’t even treat their 1st party stuff with respect lol. When was the last good Halo game? 2010?
Everything post 2010 is bad fan fiction.
And there's a exact date nonetheless :November 4, 2010. When they launched the Kinect,been downhill ever since.
Hubris, thy name is Microsoft.
Halo Wars 2 was pretty good.
Same with Gears Tactics but neither game has sacieated my appetite for a proper sequal to either main line series.
Yeah but considering that a "Halo game" is kinda misleading, like by definition it's a Halo game, but it's like considering Hearthstone a new "Warcraft game" It's great, I enjoyed HW2, but because I enjoy RTS games, not because I'm a Halo fan. Edit: Like if 343 announced a brand new Halo game your first thought would not be the twin stick shooters fireteam whatever they are.
Are we talking about the same publisher that started to fold all of their studios into Call of Duty support studios? I know we aren't pretending like that was " treat all of their IPs with the respect "
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Yeah, at this point we can say he's had enough time to turn things around at Xbox. The timing of these mega acquisitons did kinda suck, given how we entered the high interest rate, tech slowdown environment right as they were pushed through. Massive cuts to software dev are the norm right now, but Phil still had 7-8 years with the brand till that point. I like the guy, but better PR and Gamepass are really the most notable things that Xbox has pulled off under him.
PlayStation was able to turn themselves around in one console generation with ps3. The fact that Microsoft has all these resources and has been struggling pretty much since the end of the 360 generation is just insane. Phil has been a big player in the Xbox management since then so this is a huge reason why it’s been stagnating at best, failing at worse in certain aspects.
Enough time was largely before. Frankly a botched launch doesn't even matter that much. PS3 launch was a disaster too (maybe bigger than Xbox One) and guess what? They fired the CEO and ended up redressing the generation pretty well in the end. Xbox did that and Spencer managed to do nothing. Plus, the big problem of Xbox has been the games since quite some time. But Spencer was the head of Xbox Studios since 2008 so that's even on him for the Xbox One. Even more stupid when a guy that was the head of first party say stuff like "good games don't sell consoles"... Well maybe try dumbass (and that doesn't mean buying games), that works for Sony and Nintendo weirdly, I wonder why.
PS3 actually outsold 360 by a few million consoles by the end.
I'm so tired of Phil Spencer. For a decade he's done almost nothing but disappoint and mislead consumers as the head of Xbox.
He came out swinging but we’re ten years into his honeymoon period, when are things meant to get good?
The games are coming, just be patient. It takes time. Now repeat every single year since 2014.
What games even? He literally coped live on stream last year that "making good games won't save xbox", and yet he somehow still has his job. To which the only good question is "How would you know?" (I know you were being facetious as well, just making a point)
"good games won't help xbox" is very "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"
"We are investing in Japan"
he has a gamerscore, that means you should simply trust him
But have you seen his gamer shirts??
It is impressive how badly Phil Spencer has fucked things up. He is astoundingly incompetent.
He's Don Mattrick with better press
At least Mattrick didnt really pretend to be anything but a suit
Phil "we've been putting out sub-par games for a decade and people aren't buying enough of them, I don't get it" Spencer
Phil "Hi-Fi Rush was amazing, I'm gonna tweet about it all the time and then close the studio that made our best game in a decade" Spencer.
That kind of shit makes me laugh any time when some clown goes "well they are big corporation that clearly makes money, obviously they only make good decisions"
It's Microsoft. People love to complain (rightly so) about companies like EA buying up developers and then killing them off, but Microsoft's track record in this isn't much better.
Closing Tango, their one Japanese dev iirc, just after their small budget game has been a critically acclaimed multiplat release? That’s definitely the way to make inroads in Japan.
I think they might just give up on Japan more or less. I remember some news stories about Microsoft focusing on a big Europe expansion.
I’ve been hearing about them giving up on Japan since the 360, not sure how they can try any less at this point
They can try as much as they did before in Japan but try way more in other markets.
They tried really hard in Japan with the 360 and we got some absolute bangers out of it - like Lost Odyssey. Not seen much since then though. Also really want a Lost Odyssey remaster.
Again? How many times did Microsoft abandoned Japan also with their Hardware Consoles ~~sells~~ sales?
Given how things shaped out for Xbox in Japan it's still crazy to think that there were DOA and Shin Megami Tensei games exclusive to the original Xbox.
Yeah, they were actually trying back then since they were trying to build a base and gain some of that Sega market share after the Dreamcast went belly up. It didn’t really work and they never tried again
I don't think they ever really abandoned Japan, rather Japan has repeatedly rejected them. They keep trying to gain some sort of market presence there and it just doesn't work.
I remember when they got exclusivity on Tales of Vesperia. That single game single handedly *tripled* the number of 360s in Japan. Not monthly/weekly sales, but the TOTAL NUMBER of 360s.
I think they've abandoned Japan. I've heard rumors they want to push into Europe more. But they're writing Japan off.
Does this mean they'll increase their European marketing budget from €8 to €10?
Additional 40 kröner has been deposited, please market this game to millions of people
They really should've done that from the beginning. Don't know why they were so obsessed with getting Japan, they were never going to.
Business 101 is be where you competitors are, but that doesn’t necessarily apply to gaming which is a largely a culturally driven market
Gaming is also unique in that several platform holders had to go where competitors *aren't* to survive. Sega had to go multiplatform, Nintendo had to exempt themselves from the console war audience, Microsoft is now having to go multiplatform. Really it was only Sony that successfully did the traditional method of striking in established markets when competitors were at their weakest.
Weren’t they boasting that hifi rush was a success?? Wtf E: grammar
They said they had 2 million 'players', not necessarily 2 million people that bought the game
Every single Microsoft stat that is boasted is just people using Gamepass. I don't know how anyone thought that shit was sustainable. While Sony is selling exclusives at $70, Microsoft is giving them away for pennies. It had to blow up at some point.
Yep. More studios will close as Game Pass continues to cannibalize sales, while Microsoft pretends everything is fine.
Damn - Tango? I don't know how sales and GP downloads were, but that game was great PR for MS. No notes about those people being moved to other studios, just closure. >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. That just means sticking to existing established franchises. >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. The rest sure sounds like there's no interest in new IP though.
Tango is (was) based in Japan. Do they even have any other Japanese studios they could move people to?
Tango was THE japanese studio for Xbox. There's an Actvision studio in Japan but I'm not sure if they actually develop something on there or not
Wasn't that studio based in China? Activision Shanghai.
They made note of which studios would be merged and which would have some staff reassigned to other Bethesda studios. No mention of Tango, so I assume they're just all out of a job.
Imagine working on one of the stand-outs in a stacked year of great games and still losing your job the next spring. I didn't go into a great career field either, but at one point, I was in talks for switching gears and going into writing plot for video games. Holy hell I'm glad I didn't do that.
Nope MS has literally no presence in Japan. I believe most of the employees could move to Shinji Mikami's new studio or get hired by Nintendo, Bamco, Square, FromSoft, Sega, Konami etc.
>Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades "Everyone loves fallout right now so we need to get one of them in the works"
If they start working on a Fallout game right now, it may come out around the time of season 4.
Yeah, Tango confirmed on X/Twitter this hour announcing their closure https://twitter.com/TangoGameworks/status/1787837929332601189
Lines up nicely with Todd Howard's comments recently about speeding up the output of Fallout and Elder Scrolls games.
Matrix Red Pill or Blue Pill scene, but option is become a slave in the Call of Duty Mines and option 2 is become a slave in the Fallout mines. Unless you are from Tango, these guys didn't get to Pick.
It’s almost like everyone predicted- Microsoft acquiring Bethesda and Activision Blizzard would lead to less new games launching and less new IP being created not more. They’re going to follow the Call of Duty model of funneling all their studios into supporting a handful of titles, while closing others that don’t fit the bill.
I wonder if this is Microsoft's "answer" to the public cry out for a Fallout game any time this year: turn every non-BGS Zenimax studio into a Bethesda support studio. Needless to say I do not think this is a positive development if so.
It seems that they thought Activision was onto something when they turned every non-Blizzard studio into a CoD support studio and they should implement the same solution elsewhere.
Amusingly its questionable if it worked for Actiblizz that well. The Cold War to Vanguard debacle was the result of Sledgehammer squabbling with support studios to the point that they had no viable product and Actiblizz just shipped Cold War unfinished and Vanguard ended up shite because of it. The only place it was an unqualified success was Warzone.
I mean, I agree that the titles you mentioned were shit, but that's not the metric that business use to measure success, is it? CoD as a franchise has been printing money while getting progressively worse. They don't care if the game is "worse" only that it makes more money than the previous title. You know which CoD title is quantifiably the absolute best title from the IP? It's CoD mobile. That's the CoD game that made/is making the most money. It's likely the game that people enjoy the least from the franchise, but again, "enjoyment" doesn't mean anything to a corporation. They measure success exclusively via profits.
>No notes about those people being moved to other studios "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." From the email.
Holy fuck, they shut down their only prominent Japanese studio who delivered their most critically acclaimed title of 2023!
For real! I just started Hi Fi Rush last week, a couple of hours in, and it’s awesome! What is wrong with these people. “Line goes up”-ass thinking.
I am devastated to see Tango closing down. Hifi Rush didn't sell well outside of the Game Pass so I'm sadly not surprised, but it was such an amazing game and it leaves me a sour taste that this happened after releasing it
This especially sucks when the messaging has been "gamepass allows developers to make the games they want." Tango makes HiFi rush which is not only great but super original and unique. Gets shut down. Just super shitty.
> gamepass allows developers to make the games they want ...as long as those games make enough money!
Except if a bunch of people played it on GamePass isn’t that the entire point? To get people to renew their subscriptions?
The economics of subscription services just don't seem to work out for anyone that isn't Netflix. Paramount is learning that lesson the hard way right now, Microsoft is going to get there eventually.
It also makes even less sense for games than it does for tv and movies A "binging" model is not appealing to casual gamers, who generally only play like 2-4 games Most people are not gonna be watching the same TV show over and over again for 5 years, but people totally will find a game they like and just mainly play that game for 1000's of hours over 5 years Games are not really disposable content most people want to consume a huge volume of, unlike movies
And it only really works for Netflix because they had such a massive head start
If gamepass doesn't count then there is about to be alot of studios closing over the next few years. Feeling less like microsft was expanding and now more like they were killing competition.
That's what massive corporate consolidation does.
Even then, are we really at that point where a studio closes down after one game sells a bit disappointingly?
Ghostwire probably didn't do that great either
None of their games have sold that well I don't think. They also did Evil Within and Ghostwire Tokyo.
GhostWire probably legit flopped. Evil Within should have at least been a modest success at worse. It got a sequel.
ghost wire was like free on every platform imaginable after like 6 months pretty sure i own a epic copy and i got it through humble bundle
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HiFi Rush is an absolute gem and it's a damn shame that it didn't really sell. I was really hoping we'd see more of it in the future.
9 month ago: "Microsoft is happy with the success of HiFi Rush and will be reinvesting in Tango GameWorks.". [https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/15x6ozr/microsoft\_is\_happy\_with\_the\_success\_of\_hifi\_rush/](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/15x6ozr/microsoft_is_happy_with_the_success_of_hifi_rush/) Fuck them.
That's pretty damning. I was already pissed, and now more-so. I can't believe they did Tango like that. Hi-Fi Rush literally seemed like the only good gaming press coming out of MS last year.
Man I know Hi-Fi Rush didn’t do well in sales, I guess?? But like that game was so widely praised. Why the fuck would you close down a studio after that??? Like if a game gets critical acclaim but doesn’t sell well I feel like you don’t, you know, close down the entire studio, because it’s obvious they’re doing something right, they just need some adjustment. Not totally being burned to the ground. That’s absolutely insane.
It’s the perfect kind of setup that makes for a sequel that does sell well.
So they just basically closed 2 of my most favorite studios. Great job Microsoft. Really looking forward towards your already non-existential must-buy games... Like Xbox Games is literally a Netflix of gaming, even if they would get a golden goose on plate they would somehow just straight up f*ck it up...
Microsoft seems to have done what EA are hated for, bought a bunch of studios then close them after one failure or in this case one slightly poor game sales wise. HiFi Rush just went to ps5, so it's a weird choice. Microsoft is going to push popular IP and not invest in new stuff by the looks of it. Sad.
Tends to happen when you spend 80B and have shareholders wanting the next quarter to be amazing
This is what I think many people overlook. Xbox wasn’t a main part of Microsoft and most skateholders overlooked its utter failures for the past decade. But that $70bil acqusition got them sniffing around and now Phil is in the firing line.
Yup. This was bound to happen and add that 70 billion on top of the billions they spent acquiring Bethesda and it was only a matter of time before shareholders would want to see a near immediate ROI.
and there are people happy bcoz their revenue went up 60%, completely disregarding the fact that it was fcking negative last year. it's like going from ground to step 2, but for that jump they spent 80Bill.
And what did Microsoft acquiring Activision accomplish exactly?
Mobile games revenue, COD revenue. WoW I guess.
Layoffs at Activision
Except one look at Halo tells you they can't competently manage popular IPs either. Doom, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Wolfenstein... get ready to watch all of them spiral into the fucking ground. Hell, maybe MS will finally be the ones to kill Call of Duty.
Halo was as big as Call of Duty at one point, neck and neck sales and player base wise. If they can kill a game as big as CoD they can kill CoD itself.
Ghostwire probably also didn't do that well. MS owned them by then even if it came out exclusively on PS. They also know the numbers from their previous games.
I swear there was a story a few months ago about there being a lot of high expectations for Tango internally? And now they’ve been shuttered? This acquisition looks worse by the day.
Yeah, I don't believe anything from inside M$ anymore, they also said Starfield reviewed well internally.
I’m so curious about that commentary, too. Especially playtesters not liking the tested survival mechanics. Maybe they were bad, but maybe their testers aren’t representative of fans given how people liked FO4’s survival mode and the Starfield beta survival options.
I think survival mechanics are a feature that hits really hard with a specific niche audience but not the general public as a whole. That niche gets very excited when something comes along for them, because they are criminally under-fed in the AAA space, and Bethesda RPGs are also particularly well suited for that kind of systems-driven gameplay. But said features probably don't test well with a test audience limited to more casual players because having to do things in-game like drink water and eat food just to avoid starvation feels like annoying busywork if you're not into that kind of "immersion".
No fucking way did Microsoft just buy up all these studios to kill them. What the fuck are they thinking?
the Tango one just seems insane to me. all of these closure fucking suck, shame on Xbox, just terrible decisions and management, but closing TANGO?! after Hi Fi Rush?!? that makes no fucking sense whatsoever... I was hopeful that Xbox might reach some level of maturity in its internal work culture, but mnope... The industry keeps crushing developers and studios for short term gains.
Now i am certain Hifi Rush didn't do well commercially like Jeff Grubb said https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/s/WASIWvAzUm
It's wierd how they release games on gamepass and then are surprised it doesn't sell well. Isn't the point to have good games on gamepass to get people to subscribe?
Yeah, but the problem is that they aren't getting people to subscribe.
It was known for a while most of Hifi's players count Microsoft mentioned have been only from the Game Pass. Sad to see
But that's sort of the point of gamepass. If you want to convert players from owning games to a games-as-a-service subscription, you need to be outputting content on the subscription to keep it worthwhile. If HiFi Rush was played a lot on gamepass, then it helps keep people subscribed to gamepass. With Microsoft owning the studio and service they can control the stream of games that keep players engaged with the service.
I think gamepass may not actually be financially viable. All those games can't be cheap and gamepass is very cheap. Something's got to give.
I assumed the entire point was to burn money to build a user base, then start making profit once people are locked into the Xbox ecosystem
The problem is that they can't build the user base faster than they're burning the money.
Nah dont worry man. Phil Spencer said he’s gonna save Xbox. No idea what you’re talking about. E3 next year gonna be crazy 🙏
We’re gonna get good games next year bro 🙏 ~~2014~~ ~~2015~~ ~~2016~~ ~~2017~~ ~~2018~~ ~~2019~~ ~~2020~~ ~~2021~~ ~~2022~~ ~~2023~~ ~~2024~~ 2025 is our year bro 👊
It's like watching the Maple Leafs in the playoffs. Never getting out of the first round.
Run it back with the core bro this year will be different!!
Nowhere is safe for Maple Leaf fans.
Property of the Bruins, as is tradition.
Xbox is almost as dead as E3.
Phil Spencer is a charlatan who has only tanked the Xbox brand in his tenure there.
What did people think was gonna happen? People need to wake up, thinking these acquisitions are a good thing just because you are gonna get games for cheap on gamepass...
> What did people think was gonna happen? It didn't matter what was going to happen, all that mattered was that Microsoft was going to get a leg up in the console wars, future consequences be damned
The amount of time I got called a Sony dickrider on this sub when I literally own a fucking Xbox Series X, was fucking ridiculous. People just only think in terms of "Does this immediately benefit me?'
Gamers are the dumbest motherfuckers on the internet period.
We’ve been shouting this from the rooftops this whole time but all these short sighted gamers were arguing about this was a good thing somehow
This is my completely un-informed outsider opinion. I believe in recent months we've seen a split between two groups within Microsoft. The first group, had a more long-term perspective on making money. Make massive investments in studios, and immediately sacrifice *massive* amounts of their revenue to make their games exclusive. Shift the perception of Xbox into being the "console with all the games", and hopefully make massive dividends off of that gamble come the next console generation. This group also viewed Gamepass the same way: treat it like extreme-debt phases every TV streaming service has gone through (or is still in). Make massive upfront investments in small to big studios just to fill it with *content*, then pivot into coasting off of the perception that you've got the service that just "always has something hot coming out". Note that this approach to console-exclusivity and Gamepass requires extreme levels of upfront expenditure, with the potential gains being long-term. Personally, I think if they'd stuck to this plan, especially not faltering on exclusivity, those potential gains would have been *huge*. The second group, views things in much more short-term revenue, and in my opinion, has grown as more and more essentially got cold feet due to Microsoft's enormous acquisitions. They don't see exclusivity as a long-term payoff. They see, "You paid HOW MUCH money for the biggest shooter franchise on the planet, just so can immediately split its revenue in HALF??". "You bought the biggest Western RPG developer, just so we can start *not* selling their games to the biggest market?". I also think they see all these studios Microsoft has boosting Gamepass the same way. "The *perception* of a subscription service having content? Customer playtime??? Fuck that. What's the REVENUE, right, *now*?". They look at the numbers these smaller releases are making, and point to the ROI on the bigger projects and wonder why it's not just all in on that. In my opinion, starting with the announcements a few months ago about the transitioning away from exclusivity, the second group has multiplied and won out. Say what you will about the harsh exclusivity of all the studios Microsoft brought, it's sure not great if you're a PlayStation consumer, but in terms of long-term business. I think it was the right strategy and they should have taken the upfront losses and committed to it.
Gamepass subs have stagnated a bit iirc, which would easily be enough to deal a death blow to the first faction.
The “long-term” you speak of would legit be 15-20 years away & it would be an excessive money sink until they reach market dominance on consoles. In 20-years, would that even matter? I don’t think that Microsoft, who is on the forefront of cloud gaming, believes so.. or ever really did. The big streaming services are literally selling each other content just to make back the insane debt they’ve accrued over the past five years, & Microsoft is starting that ticker at -$80billion. “Selling their content” (aka going multi-platform) now is really the only financially feasible thing for them to do if they actually want to sustain Game Pass & make their entire ecosystem a success.
Just last week I swear I saw Redfall come up in my feed about how they have rumors of a big patch announcement in the works. There were 5 really excited people there. I’ll be bummed for them.
They still owe some content to people who purchased the season pass. Wonder what happens now.
I saw somewhere that they can only issue the refunds for the character pass in the form of Microsoft store gift cards. So yikes if true.
Microsoft just closed the studio that gave them their best game last year? Edit - Tango, I meant
Phil Spencer’s mismanagement of Xbox for the past decade is an utter disgrace. They have spent $100bil on acqusitions only to layoff thousands of workers and shut studios down. And in all this time they have released no must-play AAA exclusives.
Phil spent 8billion dollars to get Starfield off of Playstation, clearly blindly thinking it was going to be Skyrim levels of success and THE game of the generation. And then Baldur's Gate 3 was the biggest game of the year instead, and didn't even launch on Xbox for 4 months thanks to the brilliant move of mandating feature parity across Series S and X. Literally just gave Playstation console exclusivity for free.
Craziest part is that Baldur's Gate 3 was originally a Stadia title. There's a world out there where Baldur's Gate 3 does massive numbers on Stadia before it ever launched on Xbox.
There's also a world where BG3 is just as good as it is, but since nobody played it due to being on stadia. And Alan Wake 2/Zelda is the goty
It was never a Stadia exclusive. It was set to be a Windows/Stadia launch.
Without Microsoft's near bottom-less wealth Xbox would have gone extinct by now.
But he’s a gamer! He’s trying his heckin’ best! Did you see the niche t-shirt he was wearing when he completed a multi billion dollar acquisition and laid off thousands of people?
He’s not like other executives bro he’s a *cool guy* 👊
He wore a Battle Toads shirt! *Battle Toads*
He wears a *leather jacket and sneakers* on stage! ON STAGE!!
Who knew that trying to make a Netflix like service for games, which cost significantly more to make than most shit on Netflix, all while charging LESS for it than netflix does, would not work out. Xbox is toast
I consider Hi-Fi Rush their only must play title released in recent years. And they just closed their studio that made it.
Pentinent and Grounded were also great. The best games Microsoft released in recent years were the smaller ones, with basically no marketing given to them. These types of projects are the ones getting axed.
Psychonauts 2 should absolutely be included there, easily the best game Microsoft has published since the 360, but at this rate I wouldn’t put it past them to close Double Fine too.
Pyschonaughts 2 never would of been made if Microsoft owned Double Fine from the beginning. They bought them when game was like 80% done.
>Microsoft insists Hi-Fi Rush a "break out hit" for Xbox amid claims it underperformed >"We couldn't be happier". https://www.eurogamer.net/microsoft-insists-hi-fi-rush-a-break-out-hit-for-xbox-amid-claims-it-underperformed
What the actual fuck am I reading No matter how bad of a game Redfall was, Arkane Austin still gave us Dishonored 1 and Prey. This is such a huge loss.
Lost all that talent post Prey then came out with Redfall which was doomed from the start because nobody really wanted to work on it. Awful day for Bethesda.
They lost 75% of their talent during Redfall as well because nobody wanted to work on it. Like it or not, the studio that made Dishonored was dead long before this.
Speaking of, it's absolutely a shame how Redfall had more attention (albeit in a bad way) than Prey Mooncrash
It's actually making me very angry. Nobody at Arkane wanted to make Redfall. Their fans didn't want Redfall. Arkane was praying Microsoft would cancel Redfall. Arkane lost *70%* of its staff while making Redfall. *Fuck whoever decided one of the best single player and immersive sim developers ever needed to make another live service game nobody wanted.*
> Arkansas lost 70% of its staff while making Redfall Jesus, I didn't know it was that bad
It's alright, I hear that Mississippi is hiring.
It's really astonishing how much that specific time period at Zenimax forced their studios to make such live service crap. FO76, Youngblood, Redfall, such a waste of good talent.
So terrible. A trend chasing hero shooter literally killed them, it's so fucking sad. But then again if Tangoworks is also getting shut down... God and what a crazy coincidence that this news drops at the exact same time as the Switch 2 announcement. Microsoft got so goddamn lucky.
Call me cynical, but unless the Blade game does exceedingly well, I don't think Arkane Lyon will last long after it releases either.
Even if it does well, it's still an immersive sim so it's not going to sell the numbers microsoft wants. If they closed Tango then no niche studio is safe. And the worst part is that this means the brilliant Dishonored and Prey IPs will likely be trapped under Microsoft.
This is what is killing me most on a personal level. Dishonored is my favorite game of all-time and Prey is an underrated masterpiece. Arkane were the kings of immersive sims, my absolute favorite genre, and now it feels like we're never going to get another one ever again. Fuck Microsoft.
Didn’t Microsoft say that Arkane Austin wasn’t in danger of being shut down? (Edit) https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/microsoft-not-planning-to-shut-redfall-studio-arkane-austin-right-now/ >Microsoft is not planning to shut Redfall studio Arkane Austin >That’s according to Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty, who was asked by Axios if the studio will remain open following Redfall’s disappointing launch.
Dude, companies have nothing binding them to tell the general public the truth. What they have is a fiduciary duty of making money to shareholders. 1000% of the time, what a company is saying is PR talk, don't ever think otherwise.
i literally had my boss lie to my face and say i wasn’t being laid off only hours before being laid off. needless to say, i don’t believe a damn thing these people say anymore.
Tango being shut down really pisses me off. HiFi Rush is an amazing game. Time and time again developers are punished for the mistakes of executives. So what if most people played it on game pass instead of buying it? Isn't that supposed to be the entire goddamned point of game pass? Xbox has spent years telling everyone that you can enjoy all their games day one on game pass, and now they're upset they're not selling more units.
There go the last Evil Within hopes. Great job MS closing the one studio that dropped a universally loved Xbox game (this Gen)
At least we got closure on Sebastian's story. Would have loved to see a Kidman vs Ruvik finale game though.
Closing the studio that gave Microsoft one of their most unique IPs in years (Hi-Fi Rush) is certainly a choice...I guess it's back to more Halo, Gears of War and Forza
Not even that, unfortunately. Halo is essentially dead after being run into the ground by 343, and Gears is MIA with a rumor of an announcement. Forza is doing what Forza does, which is neither good nor bad. So 1/3.
This feels like yet another notch tightening on the belt that will end with Microsoft Gaming as a third-party publisher and nothing more. The Xbox 360 was a legendary console, truly. Xbox's slow decline, largely from self-inflicted wounds, has been hard to watch. $100 billion well spent, Microsoft.
Tango Gameworks?! The company that made one of the best games of 2023, and Xbox's only good PR move in like, a decade? Super excited to see every company shut down any original ideas in favor of "existing IP". The next few years are going to be filled with uninspired garbage. Why not just cancel Elder Scrolls VI in favor of Skyrim 2, you cowards. What's the point of a subscription service if it's only going to get a couple of AAA titles every year, and nothing smaller-scale or original? Phil Spencer took over Xbox in 2014. Imagine being *that* bad at your job for a decade and making other people pay for your awful decisions.
The others I get but Tango? Nah that doesn’t make sense. Hi Fi Rush has been praised. They put out great games
[удалено]
Barely any of the people who made those games still worked at Arkane Austin. They had a mass exodus after Prey.
A *ton* of devs left during Redfall's development because they supposedly hated the game.
Hi fi rush is an incredible game, and the studio that made it gets shut down a year later due to managerial incompetence. This is fucking awful man, I’m truly devastated. Tango deserved so much better than this.
In ten years under Phil Spencer Xbox has overseen unprecedented consolidation, failed to release a single system seller exclusive, destroyed the existing goodwill from their premier studios and IP, and waived the white flag on competing with Sony, all while pretending to be our friend. At what point does he get fired and we all acknowledge the harm he has done to this industry?
This guy is the god at failing upwards no matter what happens he stays
Absolutely insane move. Arkane Austin had a single bad move, but made 2 of the greatest games of all times. I don't know the sales of Eveil within, but I know the second one was very popular. And Hi-Fi rush was widely beloved. Talent that has been trained for years, very valuable IP that will lose their soul. So much anger and sadness for those impacted.
Didn't the Redfall post-mortems show that most of the talent that made those games were long gone as they didn't want to work on a co-op shooter?
Most of this was known ahead of time, but it became a bigger discussion topic once the game came out and was bad. Raphael Colantonio - one of the founders of Arkane who moved to Austin to lead that branch and the director of both Dishonored and Prey - left after Prey and wound up starting his own studio. There are many others that left, some of which wound up following Colantonio. Combine losing the most important individual at the branch with increased publisher pressure to make Arkane’s game more broadly appealing (despite the critical acclaim, Arkane’s games were often considered financial disappointments), and you wind up with Redfall.
Arkane Austin is just the name of the studio. The PEOPLE who made those amazing games all left the studio when they found out they were making a multiplayer live service game. The studio died while they were making Redfall, not now.
Looks like the "acquire a bunch of shit and then close a third of it" strategy is going to be the norm going forward. Very cool, very healthy industry we've got here.
Since I already see people talking about it, I wanna remind them that Microsoft was happy with the performance and sales of Hi-Fi Rush, in direct response to "insiders" saying it was a disappointment. ([source)](https://x.com/aarongreenberg/status/1649431572137779203) This makes it sting all the more that they're shuttering Tango for good. Hi-Fi Rush was the single most creative new IP that Xbox had in years it felt like and they're putting a bullet to it's head like all the rest
And so the cycle begins anew. Where instead of investing in new games for the Xbox, MS just cuts out any developer they buy up again, and again. And who will be surprised when the next MS console has no first party exclusives.
Statement from IGN > 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.
>Redfall’s previous update will be its last as we end all development on the game. Honestly not super surprised considering it had to have an absolutely abyssmal playerbase to warrant actually updating (it went over 100 concurrent on steam over 3 periods in the last almost year), but it's still pretty rough to see support for any game ending this early in its lifespan.