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[Bernoulli]

hours ago

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Now they say they want to invest in big profile games, so if Hellblade 2 doesn't sell, you know who's next.

Videogame companies should be run by people from the core business. Tourists don't make good decisions.

 

[FunkMiller]

It's a crying fucking shame there's no way to delete your Xbox account without deleting your Microsoft one. I need the latter for work.

 

[Negotiator101]

Of course, that’s the only way to make money. Not selling your games the proven, profitable way. Giving them away on subscription services that are failing and bleeding money in every industry.

And you have the cheek to ask if I’m dense.

You are dense, that's their business model which is profitable! I'm not sure you even know what you're talking about?

How you gonna run a business which is reliant on games driving your sales (subscriptions in this case) if your Studios aren't producing quality games for your subscribers?

It's clearly not working and it is not sustainable as a long term strategy, they surely must be actively thinking about how to escape out of it

It's currently profitable, I suggest educating yourself and not following everyone on here like a lemming.

 

[DForce]

This game is coming out in a few weeks and I'm barely seeing any marketing for this game.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

At least Arkane and Tango were releasing stuff. Why not trim the fat on a studio like Compulsion games, who haven't released anything in the six years that Microsoft has owned them?

Oh I bet Compulsion is sweating their *** off right now.

Arkane and Tango released their salvos and MS didn't want to float them for another 4 - 6 years. If South of Midnight doesn't do well...watch out.

 

[Sleepwalker]

- Sir, as for this weekend Sony is the most despised company out there.
– Hold my macchiato.

 

[ulantan]

Don't be stupid.

It's an 8 hour game that has not been marketed well coming out on gamepass the sales won't be there.

 

[ShadowkillXNA]

To be fair, MS has spent quite a bit of effort brainwashing these fans. They gave them attention on twitter. They invited them to events. They constantly lied to them and while the rest of us knew Phil was just doing lip service, the fans had no choice but to take him for his word.

Phil is the kind of real life politician who leads his flock astray. It's easy to label them sheeps but if its between Phil the CEO or a guy name Slimysnake with a stupid avatar on neogaf, who would you believe?

Now though. After MS has effectively gone third party due to Phil's idiotic decisions and shut down many studios. Now, those fans have no excuse. Now the facts are staring them in the face. If those fans continue to live under a rock then yes, they cant be helped.

Some people have the ability to tell the difference between someone pissing on our face and an actual rainstorm.
It's not that difficult.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Fuck MS

Games aren't that good though.

 

[GHG]

Holy shit.....this video....



"You acquire a studio for what they are great at now and it is your job to accelerate how they do what they do. Not them accelerate what you do."
-Phil Spencer

Guys, seriously, please read this interview from 2008 after this guy shut down Ensemble:

Phil Spencer - Part One

Last week, Microsoft announced that it would be closing Ensemble Studios, the developer behind the long-standing and hu…

www.gamesindustry.biz

Running a game publisher, especially a first party game publisher, is about exclusive franchises, and those franchises driving platform initiatives - in our case today both the Xbox 360 and Windows. Making sure that when you look at your franchises and build a plan for how those franchises will come to market, why they're going to matter when they come out, what are the things you're going to be talking about when you talk about the next release of a Gears game, or a Halo game, or an Age game, that you have big news or a big plan, or something that's really going to change the perception of your platform.

16 years later and he's still wheeling out exactly the same PR:

---

2008:

"As we know, those kind of efforts - especially in today's videogame business - require resources. You need to have a lot of people behind your franchises that are really driving platform success. For us, today, it's important that we have those investments in those huge franchises that we're building - things like Fable, things like Banjo, Halo, Gears."


Today:

"These changes are grounded in prioritising high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda's portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades."

----------

16 years, 16 years. They are so fucking lucky that Microsoft as a whole still seems to be clueless about gaming and what makes it tick.

 

[jshackles]

Oh I bet Compulsion is sweating their *** off right now.

Arkane and Tango released their salvos and MS didn't want to float them for another 4 - 6 years. If South of Midnight doesn't do well...watch out.

Same with The Initiative and Perfect Dark. Hell, even if the games do well (like Hi Fi Rush apparently did) that doesn't mean they're safe.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

It's currently profitable, I suggest educating yourself and not following everyone on here like a lemming.

Like how Aaron Greenberg educated us about Hi-Fi Rush lol

 

[TransTrender]

This game is coming out in a few weeks and I'm barely seeing any marketing for this game.

I had this feeling for the last three months it's going to be delayed at the last second.
Of course, being sent to die is still on the table.

 

[Jerm411]

Anyone else NOT surprised that underperforming studios got closed down?

Sometimes NeoGAF is a place where common sense goes out the window.

Weird considering they themselves told us HiFi Rush hit every metric they wanted and they were happy with it….

And then was Arkane Austin’s “underperforming” until Phil got his claws on it?

The goalposts keep moving to avoid blaming the goofs who put these studios in these positions to begin with…

Oh NOW sales metrics matter? Lol ok….

 

[Clear]

This is the reality of consolidation, always at the mercy of corporate steering/strategizing.

To be honest the only surprise for me is its the Zenimax group that's feeling it first, I'd have expected studios from the initial acquisition burst to be top of the hit-list.

 

[midnightAI]

You are dense, that's their business model which is profitable! I'm not sure you even know what you're talking about?

How you gonna run a business which is reliant on games driving your sales (subscriptions in this case) if your Studios aren't producing quality games for your subscribers?

Wait, did I read that wrong or did you just say Gamepass is profitable?

 

[Warablo]

I am sure the studio head leaving Tango played a part of it.

 

[Pelta88]

Full circle.

 

[Danjin44]

Why close Tango Gameworks? They made some damn good games! Are you fucking kidding me?

 

[Agent_4Seven]

The should've fuckin' closed pos BGS instead of Tango.

 

[AtomicStarving]

 

[JackMcGunns]

Where are they going to put their only japanese developers?

I don't know man, that's effed up if they're just laying everyone off.

 

[AV]

You are dense, that's their business model which is profitable! I'm not sure you even know what you're talking about?

How you gonna run a business which is reliant on games driving your sales (subscriptions in this case) if your Studios aren't producing quality games for your subscribers?

It's currently profitable, I suggest educating yourself and not following everyone on here like a lemming.

It's not profitable enough to survive long term. We know that nothing is moving the needle, not even Starfield. We know that the current install base is not where they projected it to be.

The next Call of Duty will be the real test. If it's on Game Pass day one, it's their final rally to try and get the numbers up, and we'll see how that goes. Anything else is them admitting that they know they're going to eat shit on sales.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

shatters the narrative. the only thing shattered is Jez's ass

 

[rm082e]

I'm not the least bit surprised, and there will be more of these before the end of the year is over.

With the last round of layoffs we saw from PlayStation and Xbox/MGS, we got a clear picture: MSG umbrella had 22k people and 39 total studios. PlayStation had 11k people and about 20 studios. How could MGS survive with double the expense rate, but less than half the install base (and shrinking)? The only answer is they had to keep cutting people.

And with the recent sales numbers of the Series hardware, it's only going to get worse. Even if they're planning to rush and launch a new console in holiday '25, that's 6 quarters of results they're going to have to suffer through and there will be pressure to stop the bleeding. Not to mention the costs to launch a new console (500m - 1bl?).

 

[Fake]

The amount of ugly controllers they've put out is astonishing.

I wish they have the same effort they do with Xbox controllers for making their exclusives as well.

 

[DJ12]

So how are other studios under Microsoft's leadership flourishing? You're just writing nonsense, because if you weren't Microsoft would have no studios.

Yeah I'm writing nonsense.

Which studios are flourishing?

Turn 10
Playground games
Bethesda
343?

Step away from the discord mate, your becoming deluded as fuq.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Full circle.

Seeing the Raven logo right next to some Call of Duty stuff never fails to depress me.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

I don't know man, that's effed up if they're just laying everyone off.

The small ass paragraph basically says it all

"Thanks everyone. Game is still available to buy". Peace."

 

[rkofan87]

no sympathies for the red fall developers but my heart goes out to the tango guys.

 

[DForce]

You are dense, that's their business model which is profitable! I'm not sure you even know what you're talking about?

How you gonna run a business which is reliant on games driving your sales (subscriptions in this case) if your Studios aren't producing quality games for your subscribers?

It's currently profitable, I suggest educating yourself and not following everyone on here like a lemming.

People can see past the bullshit from Microsoft.

We have been telling you guys this for years but






Remember the 3 million player number was celebrated?

Was wondering when someone would come in with this line, wouldn't be an Xbox Gamepass thread without it

They celebrated 3 million players and now look what's happening.

Game Pass is not doing its job, no matter how much you want to believe it.

The moves Microsoft has been making within the past 6 months prove what they were previously doing was not working. It should have been obvious with all the leaked documents and emails from Microsoft, but you guys want to believe "everything is just fine." lol

 

[THE DUCK]

Yes, exactly. Signing a publishing deal, not meeting the terms and conditions of that deal, losing that deal, and not being able to find another publisher is EXACTLY THE SAME as getting aquired by a publisher and then getting shut down with no alternative. Thank you for pointing this out! It is a disgrace what Jim Ryan did.

It's very similar, Sony took action and the results were they were shut down.
Your denial of that doesn't change anything.
Not to mention the many other companies and developers who have closed companies and cut staff over the last 2 years, including Sony and Nintendo. But ok, everyone else gets a free pass!

 

[Bridges]

Am I misremembering that GhostWire Tokyo 2 was part of that big MS leak from awhile back? I guess that's definitely gone now.

Fuck. If it was just Arkane Austin people would be sad but understand, I think. Tango deserves so much better

 

[Null Persp]

That sucks, Prey is one of the best immersive sim games and I enjoyed EW1 and EW2

 

[JackMcGunns]

no sympathies for the red fall developers but my heart goes out to the tango guys.

Indeed. Wth?

*no pun intended.

 

[Danjin44]

I wish Tango was owned by Atlus.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Same with The Initiative and Perfect Dark. Hell, even if the games do well (like Hi Fi Rush apparently did) that doesn't mean they're safe.

Hi Fi Rush was arguably the biggest bomb of the generation. 3 million players with a horrendous completion rate = taking a dump in the swimming pool.

Weird considering they themselves told us HiFi Rush hit every metric they wanted and they were happy with it….

They ran laughably bad PR to try and cover up Hi Fi Rushes putrid metrics and some of y'all actually bought it.

 

[balls of snow]

That June showcase will have a spectre hovering above every fp game they show thats not cod. If a close to 90 meta game can get the studio axed, all bets are off.

 

[GHG]

I wish Tango was owned by Atlus.

They've been trying to get Atlus for a while as well.

 

[Banjo64]

You are dense, that's their business model which is profitable! I'm not sure you even know what you're talking about?

How you gonna run a business which is reliant on games driving your sales (subscriptions in this case) if your Studios aren't producing quality games for your subscribers?

Please don’t expect me to continue responding to you you doughnut, my patience is already thin having dealt with my 3 and 5 year olds all day.

 

[Bigfroth]

Make-good offer?! Is this new industry terminology?

 

[The artful mincer]

.

 

[LordCBH]

That June showcase will have a spectre hovering above every fp game they show thats not cod. If a close to 90 meta game can get the studio axed, all bets are off.

They should just skip the games and just replace the trailers with studio shutdown notices.

WORLD PREMIER: compulsion games shut down

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Games aren't that good though.

oh, more closures incoming then

 

[TintoConCasera]

I wish Tango was owned by Atlus.

My hope is that they either got hired by Mikami's new studio or they go back to working at Capcom.

Whatever happens, I just hope their talent isn't wasted away. They've proved they can make fun, quality games.

 

[Danjin44]

They've been trying to get Atlus for a while as well.

I’m glad they didn’t. Right now MS can’t be trusted with talented devs without getting shut down.

 

[TheShocker]

Redfall sucked. And there was no redeeming quality to it over the year after it was released. MS gave AA year to get it right and they didn’t do anything. Bye.

 

[ToadMan]

Are we all in agreement that Phil Spencer will be out at MS by the end of 2024?

I think they need to get rid of Phil in a way that is "graceful" because he is so closely related to the xbox brand and the brand still has value. Dumping him unceremoniously as a "failure" may be justified now, but would further tarnish the xbox brand itself which is already a laughing stock these days.

So, I'd guess they'll aim for an announcement from Phil around 12 months post the ABK acquisition closing, and shortly after the release of the 1st MS published COD - both coming the end of this year conveniently.

They can spin all that as Phil saying "Mission Accomplished", ABK successfully integrated, xbox stronger than ever and its time to pass the baton and blah blah blah marketing bullshit.

Then he heads for the hills and new management takes over publicly (I think Phil has already been sidelined internal to MS for any practical purpose).

So yeah, I can see something like that occurring towards the end of this year.

 

[rofif]

Full circle.

100% ninja theory is next.
No way hellblade 2 makes up it's 7 SEVEN (SEVEN!!!!!!!!) years of development.
It's a very niche game to begin with.
Then compulsion.