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Microsoft Closes Redfall Developer Arkane Austin, HiFi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks, and More in Devastating Cuts at Bethesda

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Give Microsoft a break, they need to shutter the studios as they need the money. Being worth over 3 trillion dollars get you nothing these days...

Screenshot-20240507-163252-Edge.jpg
This is the part that upsets me the most. All of these sillicon valley companies and gaming companies like Sony and Nintendo are posting record profits. Nintendo hasnt laid off anyone but sony just did any why? What the fuck are these guys doing? They need to invest MORE into these studios.

If Arkhane was not able to make games themselves then they shouldve been turned into a satellite studio for Bethesda to help make Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. Same goes for Tango Gameworks. Dont get rid of talent FFS.
 

Thief1987

Member
I think it will be wise for the developers at Turn10 to look for a new job already, because writing is on the wall for them. They for 7 years developed a game which was even bigger flop than HFR, and HFR has very warm reception from the players, flopza doesn't have even that. Though maybe they could make skins for COD, who knows.
 
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Ogbert

Member
Phil Spencer is the absolute fucking pits.

He's a complete moron that doesn't care about video games. He just wants to grow share price and he's fucking shit at that too.

He is a shining example of how poor you can be at senior levels. Incompetent clown.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
This is the part that upsets me the most. All of these sillicon valley companies and gaming companies like Sony and Nintendo are posting record profits. Nintendo hasnt laid off anyone but sony just did any why? What the fuck are these guys doing? They need to invest MORE into these studios.

If Arkhane was not able to make games themselves then they shouldve been turned into a satellite studio for Bethesda to help make Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. Same goes for Tango Gameworks. Dont get rid of talent FFS.

Exactly. These corporations should spin these studios off into their own company. Instead they kill them off but cling to all the IP that they will never fucking use again. It's pathetic.
 
But i thought MS acquiring all these publishers and studio was a good idea?

I thought Gamepass was great for smaller titles like Hi-Fi Rush?

How the mighty have fallen.

How can a company be so mismanaged and everyone can still keep their jobs except for everyone that's working on actual studios? How the fuck is Phil still head of Xbox?

As someone that's not on Xbox's ecosystem, i have no idea what MS's plans are for their gaming division.
 
This is the part that upsets me the most. All of these sillicon valley companies and gaming companies like Sony and Nintendo are posting record profits. Nintendo hasnt laid off anyone but sony just did any why? What the fuck are these guys doing? They need to invest MORE into these studios.

Look on the brightside. We're getting a $26 billion paramount aquisition instead.
 
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Radical_3d

Member
I guess you are right.

is our fault MS spent 100B in five years just to not have games and when they have, they are still trash


is our fault .... WE DIDN'T GAVE XBOX A DAMN CHANCE and now Sony's monopoly is closing Xbox studios.
Ey chorizo, you should have bought the games that are in their service for 1$ a whole month. Not the physical, tho. That’s the past and owning something digital is proven to be pretty safe as the crew players know. Also it’s sometimes cheaper. So let this be a lesson to you all: subscribe to gamepass and buy the 120€ digital deluxe edition with 3 days early access and digital art book*.

*: conditions apply.
 

Puscifer

Member
shocked holy shit GIF


Consolidation is great
Yeah, these closings really end the whole Gamepass and developer creative freedom argument. Stuff like Hi Fi Rush should've been getting made with all that monthly income from the service, but nope.

I halfway thought it was going to be a troll article going into it.
 

YOU PC BRO?!

Gold Member
Wait a second? Wasn't Hi-Fi Rush one of the games Microsoft just launched on the PS5?

Trust Microsoft to close down a studio that actually made a decent game. It probably raised the bar and made the rest look bad. These are exactly the kind of decisions that make me glad to have recently sold up and ditched Xbox.
 

Jinzo Prime

Member
I think it is likely that many will have gone there or to Unseen.

Poaching is pretty common place when new studios are built out.

Tango was never that big in the first place, it can't afford an exodus of a lot of employees. We'll see once these studios put out their games if the staff are the same.

The most important staff at Tango were director John Johanes and game designer Masaaki Yamada. I'm really interested to see if they end up at Unseen or Kamuy to keep that kind of game design alive.

posted yesterday and now deleted LMAO

YDqNyTL.png

She's the kind of person that would fit right in at a communist committee. Go against the party: no job for you!
 

leizzra

Member
Hellblade 2 better sell gangbusters.
Well we all know that it won't because of Game Pass release (on top of the fact that it's not a blockbuster type of game). If they won't release it quickly for PS5 then there is no chance. Also Mikami left Tango few month prior to shutdown. Tameem Antoniades made the move recently... ;).

I seams that MS will gather around biggest IP's from ActiBlizz and Bethesda (MS has Halo, Gears and Forza still but they are in crippled state). How's that for Game Pass? Or their turn into biggest third party publisher, as many are speculating?
 

near

Gold Member
Its not that Arkane. That was Lyon.

Austin made Prey 2017 and the aforementioned Redfall.

While Arkane Lyon still exists, a lot of talent is being consolidated into Bethesda from the Austin studio. Dishonored was conceived and built at Arkane Austin, Prey is also a solid game. Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio have shared duties with leading both Lyon and Austin studios at different times, together and solo. Redfall killed a solid studio, I think this is being a little understated.
 
Arkane Austin I get, Redfall was a mess all over, but Tango? Evil Within 1 and 2 were good games and they just had a huge hit in Hi-Fi Rush
I agree but HI FI wasnt a huge hit . XBox should have allowed the studio to make another horror game mind.
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
The way things are going, the landscape is going to be insanely massive blockbusters and home grown, low budget indie games, with nothing in-between.

We're kinda witnessing the death of the b-game here. Avowed absolutely isn't going to move the needle financially regardless of how good it is and Obsidian will probably be next in the firing line - unless they give them the Fallout licence to shit out a spin-off as soon as they humanly can.
 
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EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
The way things are going, the landscape is going to be insanely massive blockbusters and home grown, low budget indie games, with nothing in-between.

We're kinda witnessing the death of the b-game here. Avowed absolutely isn't going to move the needle financially regardless of how good it is and Obsidian will probably be next in the firing line - unless they give them the Fallout licence to shit out a spin-off as soon as they humanly can.
Same thing happened to the movie industry. Consolidation into a handful of cookie cutter, safe, broad appeal megaprojects per year to pump effective marketing campaigns into.
 

Flabagast

Member
The way things are going, the landscape is going to be insanely massive blockbusters and home grown, low budget indie games, with nothing in-between.

We're kinda witnessing the death of the b-game here. Avowed absolutely isn't going to move the needle financially regardless of how good it is and Obsidian will probably be next in the firing line - unless they give them the Fallout licence to shit out a spin-off as soon as they humanly can.
To be fair, this is mainly the fault of hardcore gamers (neogaffers for example) who now refuse to buy B-games and keep throwing their money at rotten IPs or lame subscriptions services like Gamepass or PS+

For example, Dontnod recently released a solid and complete AA title and it barely generated any discussion around here. Thaumaturge as well, released this year, does not even have an OT here. Examples are aplently.
 
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StereoVsn

Gold Member
Arkane i understand, Redfall was embarasing, but Tango, come on now.


I had zero faith in MS before, now im actually excited to see what else they close so we can have the other half of our industry back.
Man, and I was looking forward to Ghostwire Tokyo 2 and pretty much anything else from Tango. They were a great studio, this is damn frustrating.
 

midnightAI

Member
While Arkane Lyon still exists, a lot of talent is being consolidated into Bethesda from the Austin studio. Dishonored was conceived and built at Arkane Austin, Prey is also a solid game. Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio have shared duties with leading both Lyon and Austin studios at different times, together and solo. Redfall killed a solid studio, I think this is being a little understated.
For now, lets see how Blade does
 

Doczu

Member
I know thst the current Arkane are not the same ones who made Prey, Dishonored and Arx Fatalis, but holy shit a real Immersive Sim legend got killed off and that makes me sad as hell..
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
GamePass was a fucking disaster.
I don't think that they have a problem with GP users as far as 1st party studios. It doesn't really make logical sense. They don't expect people to sub and also buy the games, which is basically paying for it twice (many of them do this anyway). The GP sales concern only really made any sense for 3rd party stuff, but they are compensated.

I've got no problem shitting on MS for this one, but of course you guys just use it as an excuse to attack random gamers who like Xbox and like these games. I think the bigger problem is all the people that didn't buy an Xbox at all, that trashed everything they put out for the last 4 years, that trashed GP, and that didn't buy it on PC or PS5. People subbing to GP have definitely given money towards this $25 game. They're probably the main ones that did. The issue is the system adoption is dead, and the normal growth you'd see along with that never happened. GP was never even close to 100% of Xbox users, it was about 15%. You guys just run with this story for no reason. And this game is unfortunately not selling well on any system, so that obviously isn't exclusive to Xbox gamers. We have 20 million+ subs that paid into this game partially.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
This is the part that upsets me the most. All of these sillicon valley companies and gaming companies like Sony and Nintendo are posting record profits. Nintendo hasnt laid off anyone but sony just did any why? What the fuck are these guys doing? They need to invest MORE into these studios.

If Arkhane was not able to make games themselves then they shouldve been turned into a satellite studio for Bethesda to help make Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. Same goes for Tango Gameworks. Dont get rid of talent FFS.

Going by Booty's email, they're going to focus primarily on the 'blockbuster' titles now. A shame for developers who primarily made AA games.
 
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