The official HR Manager for Arkane Studios Austin,has stated that the studio is currently developing a game using Crytek,s Cryengine and is hiring also across multiple positions.
Though bear in mind this is Arkane Studios Austin not Arkane Studios France(the main studio that developed Dishonored),so this could be unrelated to Dishonored.
The founder and former president of Microsoft-owned Arkane Studios has criticised Game Pass, and claimed that it’s been “increasingly damaging” the industry.
“Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass),” Colantonio wrote.
“I think Gamepass is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade, subsidized by MS’s ‘infinite money’, but at some point reality has to hit. I don’t think GP can co-exist with other models, they’ll either kill everyone else, or give up.”
The WolfEye Studios founder went on to state that he’s “fed up with all the bs [Xbox] fed us” around Game Pass allegedly not affecting premium game sales.
He added: “It’s a long game that involves throwing a tsunami at the entire ecosystem of the industry. Only the gamers like it because the offer is too good to be true, but eventually even gamers will hate it when they realize the effects on the games.”
Seeing what's happening to the movie industry happen to gaming is sad, greedy mega corps like MS just destroying everything they touch so a few already rich people can get even richer at the cost of everyone else is painful.
He’s actually a brave man for speaking up. This is what Google Gemini said about the job cuts that Microsoft told the ABK hearing WOULDN’T happen:
‘During the hearings and regulatory reviews for its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft made various arguments and assurances regarding potential job losses.
Primarily, Microsoft's argument to the courts and regulators, particularly the FTC, was that the acquisition was a "vertical" merger rather than a "horizontal" one. In a vertical merger, different stages of production are combined, while a horizontal merger involves competing entities. Microsoft claimed that horizontal mergers often lead to the elimination of "redundancies" in staff, implying that a vertical merger like theirs would avoid such widespread job cuts because the companies wouldn't be directly competing in the same way. They stated that the post-merger company would be structured and operated in a way that would "readily enable Microsoft to divest any or all of the Activision businesses as robust market participants in the unlikely event that such a divestiture is ordered." This essentially meant they argued for limited control over studio operations, which would ideally mean less direct overlap leading to layoffs.
Furthermore, when mass layoffs did occur within Activision Blizzard and Xbox after the acquisition was completed, Microsoft responded to the FTC's concerns by stating that Activision had already been planning significant job cuts even as an independent company, citing broader trends in the gaming industry.’
Gamers will also hate it when they realize they’ve been walled in and would have to pay more than they used-to to play the same amount of games.
“Either kills off everything or give up”
Well, that has been MS’s goal since they entered gaming. They thought they would come in and create a monopoly. They are now trying to do that.
We been saying that for years now but Xbox fanboys refuse to accept the fact it's an amazing deal for gamers and worst for developers and publishers who depend on games sales which equals to their royalties snd bonuses
15 million players played doesn't mean much to a developer but only 2 million were sales. With all the wrong decisions MS have made with Xbox brand since 2011 till now there is no turning back. Whether we like it or not in 10 years time Xbox will be a software publisher. People have seem to forgotten the fact the last few years of Xbox 360 were really dry and people defended it saying MS are preparing for next generation yet Xbox one generation was even worst and now XSX. It has been going downhill for 15 years now
Only time Xbox was at top was with broken systems RROD and launching a year early. PS3 not only caught but surpassed Xbox 360 sales launching a full year after and at a much higher price
I hear a rumour that Microsoft is challenging a ruling that Sony will no longer be able to block GamePass on PlayStation... imagine that! All of MS games on Sony's machine for £15 month. Day in date. Super win.
That would be very very bad for many devs. Also, if Sony isn't able to make that 20-30% cut, that would then cut into their own profits. If MS is cutting so many people with GP cannibalizing on sales on Xbox, what do you think will happen to the sales they get on Playstation?
"Super win."
For who? The fired workforce or the gamers that can't play the games MS cancelled because they prioritised shutting down studios to make the rich richer?
As a Playstation gamer i absolutely DO NOT WANT GamePass. I think GamePass is a cancer in many ways and many variables, in regards to the decision making and development process of actual games.
If Sony PS doesn't want Gamepass on their consoles they have every right & there's absolutely nothing MS can do about that...lol!!
Rightfully so.
Gamepass is killing the industry and has caused significant damage to the xbox brand.
You cant justifiably argue that its a good thing for the industry with countless amounts of documented proof just this morning an article was published that first party costs are not included in gamepass costs so gamepass is not actually profitable.
The whole hey use co pilot to do your job now that everyone is fired
The constant missteps are wild
Thousands of people lost their jobs
Multiple studios shut down
Huge multi year projects cancelled
Yet this is just in the eyes of playstation gamers just get out of here with that shit man
The part that I fear most is now that they have gobbled up IP’s that were once vibrant from studios that prided themselves on “when it’s ready” release schedules, those treasured IP will begin to die off and not come back. Perfect Dark is the most recent example, but I fear the worst for other treasured franchises like Elder Scrolls. The writing was on the wall for most of us that opposed this mass consolidation. If you love gaming, and you love the IP, MS buying it all up should have been a huge red flag instead of a celebrated “win” for Green brand. MS won, gamers lost.
It’s gotten so ridiculous that MS could crap on some Xbox fans lawn and some of them would ask for more.
Any gaming access subscription system is not meant to move gaming forward. It’s only meant to change the playing field and create a constant revenue stream in order to show a semblance of success on that field.
Subscribers only see the immediate "value" (price of games) saved, and they fail to see the eventual "value" (quality of games) lost.
Worst of all, a subscriber becomes an accomplice of the system because of that perceived price value saved.
We’re so obsessed with lowering the effect on the wallet now (understandably so), that we don’t think of the eventual effect on the quality of the medium, subsequently the enjoyment and appreciation of it.
I dont agree. I think something like ea play or ps plus where the games come to the service years down the line once they've finished their primary sales part of their life is fine. It's a little bit like the movie industry where it has the box office. And if the gap between cinema release and arrival on did and digital and then eventually arrival in streaming services is large enough. Customers will still go and see it at the cinema. Infact for good films the gap can actually be short- the batman made over 700 million and it released to digital and dvd after 3 months, infact it was available digitally whikst still in the cinema. But most films cant do that. It's similar with games. They need that time available for a premium in order to be profitable. Then down the line when they are discounted heavily if they appear on a subscription service, that's fine. In some cases like a gsme like FBC: Firebreak coming day one to subscription services can be a good thing. The issue arises when its all your games and a bunch of others you buy out coming day 1 for free to the service that the economics just don't work. As Sony and Nintendo and square Enix and others all warned.
Even for older titles the same effect happens:
If consumers can find a cheaper way to consume, they will. Discounted games 6 months after launch, games going to GamePass/PS Extra...all have the same effect of making us not pay full price for the game.
Premium products aren't found in bargain bins (even after 6 months), and games should be the same. If we want a healthy industry with quality games, we're going to have to pay for it, and all these bargain bin approaches that allow us to pay less are only going to lead to more layoffs and lower quality games.
He's right.
I remember the days when Game Pass was introduced and its future features were presented. It sounded phenomenal.
At the same time though, the very first questions from many of us were:
Where do they get the promised content from? And how the hell are they planning to fund D1 releases?
Through sacrifices.
Today translated as massive consolidations/acquisitions, more than just one price hike for GP, price hikes for consoles & accessoires, thousands of cut off employees, cancelled projects, loss of creativity, damage to legacies of studios, even to their own Xbox IP.
And possibly a highly aggrevated working environment at this very moment, because noone really knows what to do.
I really wonder what news we all will be reading about Xbox at the end of this or even next year.
Gamespass is not profitable. They appear to not count the development budget of those day 1 games into the running costs of gsmes pass. If they did , I guarantee there is just no way its profitable.
Yeah.
Well, at least not with only 35 mill subs at an average price/sub of ... whatever they earn now in average.
Gamepass is profitable. Just Google it. 35 million subscribers paying 15 or 19 bucks monthly. Even if they only subscribed for one month its still making a lot of money. Is that why psplus exist? They wanted to be not profitable too?😆
@Reaper22_
I don't see sony releasing God of war or death stranding 2 or Ghost of yotel or Astro Bot day one on PS+. Considering these games are guaranteed to sell and recover the development and promotion cost within a day or two of release.
Sony's puts games on GP+ a year or more after release and once sales have died down you know once they have made all the profit from the sale of the games.
Developers at Arkane Studios are reacting to the announcement of the shutdown of Arkane Austin, calling it "absolutely terrible".
The situation looks like this in reality. Of course, I don't know all the nuances, but an independent studio generally wants to go under a big company to get financial backing so they can make the games they dream of. Then a bad game is made...for some reason...the big company gets disappointed, a lot of money was spent on them and they had to shut down the company they bought, because they lost faith in them. That's exactly what happened. I don't know what happened to Tango...
@rakentaja: You don't need to sell your company to get financial backing. Not to mention that the idea that you're going to be allowed to make the game of your dreams under a big publisher is naive to begin with.
More often than not, indies are just bad at the financial side of the business. It's common to underestimates the production budget needed and hire too many people leaving the studio in a vulnerable position. A lot of them sell out of necessity, not because they want to.
There are textbook scenarios where it's good...
Microsoft is definitely not one of those scenarios
I get it, but frankly, AA failed pretty badly on Redfall. The XBOX production team is also to blame (they are safe as usual) for releasing a game this hyped in a sorry state. There are lots of fail points on Redfall, but only Arkane bears the pain.
They were set up to fail by Zenimax and had been for a while. They should have done Prey 2, but instead were forced to do mp games.
Apparently even with Prey they wanted to name it something else, they didn't want to use the Prey name because it had nothing to do with it.
That alone put a lot of people off playing it out of support for the original.
@Foxtrot
Yeah, it was a mess, that whole business. Could probably also have done a killer Dishonored 3 if given the chance, right after Prey, when they had a top tier team.
the game (at launch) certainly wasnt all that. the performance update later on made it better but Im glad I got the special edition controllers when I did. Those are nice.
True. We don't know exactly who to blame for what, but end of the day you're not getting paid to put out crappy games.
I hope at least they kept the good people and moved them into other divisions
"Welcome to the Xbox family, graveyard is out back, what should we put on your epitaph?" Microsoft turning into this generation's EA, spend all those billions on Activision while closing studios they've run into the ground.
lmao forgot about that meme. Still pissed at EA for shutting down Westwood, Pandemic, Origin and Maxis. I will never forgive them for that.
Why I’m really disappointed in Xbox and MS at large. At the same time let’s not pretend that somehow this isn’t an industry issue. Theirs a graveyard behind every major publisher. The only company I haven’t seen canning people is Nintendo and let’s hope that trend continues.
Microsoft has closed a number of Bethesda studios, including Redfall maker Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks, and more in devastating cuts at Bethesda, IGN can confirm.
Hi-Fi Rush studio??? Seriously?? Goes to show quality matters lil to MS.
Worst gen ever. All big 3 battling are for who sucks the most. They just keep one upping one another.
This does feel like a “quick Sony is getting shit on for Helldivers, let’s announce it now to minimise impact”
That is silly. Let's say there is some weird conspiracy. This announcement would effectively take ALL the attention away from the HD2 situation, especially since there is no longer an HD2 situation. I don't think anything will minimize this impact.
... so they announce it on a Tuesday? 36 hours after Sony cleared up everything?
You people care more about the next conspiracy than anything else.
Nevermind that Sony followed the golden rule of minimizing impact by announcing horrible news on a Friday.
The constant weekly weird Sony drama is part of the industry's problem. Everyone else feels they can get away with murder. Also, what is the point of spending all that money if you just start shutting studios down. And... Redfall wasn't Arkane's fought. Microsoft new the shape the game was in but needed something for GamePass after a whole year of no releases into the service. Them taking it out on Arkane seems really disingenuous and distasteful. And WTF did Tango do? Didn't Todd just release a statement saying how he would never retire. Fire his ass.
Yes it does. Arkane Austin I can understand but Tango Gameworks made an excellent game in Hi Fi Rush.
On review, it want really all on Austin for Redfall and its failure, they were forced to make a multiplayer games when their expertise was always single player driven first person games.
"I don't think anything will minimize this impact."
It already has. Notice your comment(or lack there of) vs HD2.
On another note, I would like to see Microsoft buy more studios and do more shadows drops on subscription services like they did Hi-Fi Rush. It's great for the industry I was told by people on here.
I'm pretty sure that's exactly how it works. Same thing with layoffs. All of a sudden everyone has layoffs around the same time
MS will always make it to amaze me by showing the worse version of themselves every single time..
MS proving to the world that ttheir leadership cannot drive success from these new acquisitions. They have ran the numbers and they have realized that long term, without a clear direction from the motehrship, these are a loss for the company hence they need to be cut. I might be wrong but I am absolutelly sure that if these developers would have not been purchased by Microsoft they would be still on business. A shame ...
Both things have happened but N4G's commenters (90% Playstation ) will follow suit
10/10 deflection, the ol' Sony too deflect...
Let's not discuss the fact that PlayStations struggles have largely been caused by the fact that game pass has reshaped how consumers spend causing them to spend less as they play what is on subscriptions and don't buy games as much because they either have become subscription gamers or they fear the game will come to a subscription so they don't buy things.
And it's not just PlayStation, the whole industry has been effected, many big studios are struggling across the board to match sales targets from pre-game pass releases which is especially apparent in things like sequels.
Heck the best example was Microsoft's own Starfield which should have easily blasted past 10m sales by the end of 2023 going by sales of similar Bethesda games yet was only able to achieve 3m which of course was almost entirely on Steam.
Or maybe it's because Sony hasn't released multiple worthwhile SP games like they normally do each gen and the ones they did released actually sold well.
Layoffs aren't because studios are struggling, but because major publishers want to maximise profit gains.
Absolutely it's a service that's changed the way we view and consume games overall for the worse games have little value when they are part of a sub and become disposable doubly so if they are a day 1 freebie often it's the kiss of death for a game to be day 1 on gamepass as PlayStation players look at it like why do I have to pay 60 dollars for back 4 blood, payday 3 or outriders it'll be on PS plus soon enough and funny enough those games always fail to meet expectations sales are poor and longevity is poor.
When I see a game get a day 1 tag outside of first party my first thought is always something is wrong with it and it can't stand on its own feet so the publisher has made a deal to recoup development cost.
Even first party games have dropped in quality noticeably so since gamepass with gears 5 being the only good release I can think of since gamepass started
Wasn't aware that Gamepass is available on PlayStation.
Or are you telling us that a service from a console lacking in sales is so great that it affects the morale and buying habits of ppl lacking access to the service?
Also pretty sure that saying all of them competing for who sucks means the whole industry and not just Sony and MS.
This is what people online want. They just don't know or understand it. So many have warned about consolidation, and exactly what they have fear has been happening
This isn't the end, expect more bought out studios to be closed in the next few years
Spot on. All in the name "growth" to appease investors and shareholders. Can't sustain the lie though...it will always implode as illustrated by these closures. Applies to MS and Embracer.
This. ^
Publishers are slowly mitigating all development risk since every new big/medium budget game has become too big to fail. Games are too expensive to make and the profitability for titles rests on a hair’s edge. When you need to sell 5 million copies of a game to be profitable, you know that we’ve turned a new page in gaming. The real victims here are the smaller studios/games that bring so much character and variety to the industry, like with Hi-Fi Rush.
It looks to me that Hi-Fi Rush did not fulfill financial expectations for moving the GamePass needle, and the sales from the PlayStation port experiment did not measure up either. So it gets the boot.
Sad day and era for gaming.
I just don’t know how the hell a company that can spend $67b to purchase a publisher decided that it’s okay to close the studio that produces their best game last year.
Whoever the higher up there that decides this is completely out of touch of how the game industry works, the damn xbox division as a whole would’ve been closed already if they weren’t sustained by other MS divisions.
I got in an argument with someone on reddit and they weren't haven't that Xbox isn't propped up by other divisions argument. They swore up and down that Xbox was pulling its own weight. I just stopped after a couple back and forths
Didn’t move the GamePass needle and the PlayStation port couldn’t save the return on investment….
So this is what happens when you're pleased with the sales and investing in the studio? Good guy Phil at it again.
From Aaron Greenburg:
"Hi-Fi RUSH was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release."
😂😂😂 🤥🤥
Once again MS creates their own problems and they create their own animosity. Idc about their shitty excuse and "reasons" they're a incompetent company, plus all their Xbox fanboy influencers are dwindling I noticed. How many excuses can you make for a company like MS? Consoles are down and they're losing their own fanboy influencers also. That's all they had to cheer lead them now they're leaving them. Pretty nobody will be on MS dude no matter if they (if they ever but I doubt it) get their act together.
Trashy ass ppl and company....
If they go under eventual it's because of their own doing nobody else's.
Yeah overall this gen is pretty shit. Everyone is making horrible decisions, great devs are getting either gutted or entirely shut down regardless of quality or success, very little in the way of innovative games, etc. This industry needs to see some drastic changes.
where are all the cheerleaders for MS acquisitions amid all these?? you guys happy now? this will not be the end of it, maybe just the beginning!
Maybe it has to do with this:
Hinji Mikami is leaving Tango Gameworks in the coming months.On February 23 it was reported that Mikami would be departing Tango Gameworks. Bethesda has stepped in to confirm the report of Mikami's forthcoming departure from the studio he founded over a decade ago.
Mikami originally founded Tango Gameworks in 2010 after departing Capcom, having lead the development of iconic games like Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4.
Prey was fantastic. Red fall was shit because they were forced to do shit they didn't want to make.
Atkane Lyon did death loop I believe....I hated that one.
@shinoff2183
Because Prey was creative and different
Other than the live service Redfall, all other single-player Arkane projects have been creative and interesting
@Crows90
So just because people don't want to do something in life...bad quality is excused? Look what happened over that bad quality? no more studio
Will be more soon, I've said it before I can't see MS keeping Bethesda. I think they'll strip it's IPs and slowly close everything, it's what they do.
No one wants to admit it, but yeah MS has a long history of pillaging other smaller corporations for IP and dispensing with everything else.
That doesn't make any sense lol. How would they make money from these IP'S with no developers?
@Zeref
"That doesn't make any sense lol. How would they make money from these IP'S with no developers?"
MS don't care about the studios, they want the IP's. They'll keep the big ones in house, the game engines they run on and licence the rest. Stacks of cash to be made from licensing IP's ...or just sit on them so no one else can use them.
@Zeref silly fool, buy them for the IP have there other studios make the games using the IP names to sell them. We all know having a popular franchise name can sell
Well xbox fans you got what you asked for... and honestly deserved...
It was so easily predictable that game pass was never going to be able to support all these studios.
If Microsoft can't win they are going to burn it all to the ground...
Countdown to Phil Spencer telling us "it's better for the gamers this way" yet again.
@Barlos They indirectly did. Every person who made a wish list of who Microsoft should buy next and were sending tweets to Phil Spencer and Xbox with proposed studios, played a part.
The saddest part is the studios were closed because of the underperformance of their last games, and if they had been given a chance then their next games could’ve been great and succeeded. But it is the same old Phil Spencer Microsoft problem which is not giving them a chance, and that’s why he is not able to manage game studios.
Yeah they did. Just because they refused to see what everyone with a brain was telling them doesn't mean they didn't know. They were told, they should've put up a fight and they didn't. This is the result. But who knows even if MS' fans weren't such boot-lickers, MS could've carried this out against their fans wishes anyway. Unfortunately, we have the hardcore MS defense bots running to deflect from any bad news and maybe, just maybe, MS felt empowered to do more damage as a result of their fans cheering this all on.
They sold themselves out. Once people buy you they can do what they want. None of this should have been a surprise. When companies get bought out, they eventually get dismantled.
Xbox fans were to busy daydreaming of Ms curbstopping Sony they didn't look at the big picture.
Not disagreeing at all.
I want to add that from the day Microsoft announced game pass, before they even started buying up studios it was obvious that game pass wasn't going to be able to support itself.
It was so dumb that they doubled down on it by spending 100B on a service they knew only existed through subsidization.
They should have realized there was no way that adding massively more costs on a subscription they were subsidizing was certain to fail. Especially after seeing how it had devastated sales across the platform as a whole.
Heck by the time this generation started during covid when the console sales were similar PlayStation was already outselling xbox on multiplatform games 8:1 yet they still doubled down on it.
This is beyond wrong. Like wtf!? Especially Tango Gameworks with Hi-Fi Rush. I've heard nothing but good things about that game. Just because Arkane Austin screwed up one game release doesn't mean you need to close them. It sounds like they were forced to do a multiplayer game when they're a single player studio. They could have made a Prey 2 or some other game next.
Just wow awful news.
@Romulus23
All lies by the Green Bug, that just means that a lot of people fired bullets or whatever in the game, that's the key measurements they care to share.
Tango did NOT deserve to be closed down, they have not released a single bad game.
That's usually what happens when you don't release it at the same time as other platforms....same thing happened with tomb raider reboot sequel. MS got exclusivity for a year and then when it came to PlayStation it barely sold. Nobody cared anymore.
Well... I did my part. Hi-Fi Rush is a good game, but I don't think its MS' style. We don't really know how well it did or didn't perform by the numbers or whether it broke even. This could just be another MS blunder.
Exactly. MS purchasing a 3rd party studio & keeping games off of other platforms probably hurt them in the long run, then finally putting Hi Fi Rush on PS which in turn PS fans probably didn't care to buy & support Hi Fi Rush after a year later of release. Hi Fi Rush was released on Gamepass so it probably never really made any money selling solely.
@romulus23
Let's hope it didn't sell well because that would make this worse. Also I could have sworn I read an article about their next game in the works.
I was wondering if that played any part considering the timing, though, XB claimed the game to be a success last year only on XB & PC. Regardless MS f'd up there too. They shadow dropped HiFi on XB/PC last year at the perfect time. This year when they released on PS not only had the hype died, but there were so many solid games available the first 3 months of this year to play.
I almost bought it on PC last year, but now that it dropped on PS I just have far too many games to play to bother...
If MS needs PS and even Switch sales they need a better strategy. At the very least a release date where players are more inticed to buy said game. The problem is always going to be that if they want exclusives the hype for these games will be dead a year later. The exceptions might be some of their heavy hitters.... 2 cents
PS and PC owners probably bought more copies that Xbox owners.
I can only imagine the little amount of revenue both games generated, sent straight to gamepass and excluded from the largest current gen console userbase. Not to say both games would have done well if they were on PS5 too, but you heavily damage to a games revenue when you put it on a stagnating sub service for a poorly selling console, can't really see people going out in droves to sub to GP to play this.
Gamepass subs(most of Xbox players) don't buy games all like that so it's not sustainable. It's reality.
Yea Austin made one of the most creative game of last gen with Prey and were forced to take risk with Redfall and now the whole studio is being closed.
Yes, that Tango gameworks/ Hi-Fi closure was an eye opener for me as well. Neither played it nor was interested in it myself but all I heard was everyone acting like it was the second coming of guitar hero or something.
I don't know what else to say other than modern gaming is an overwhelming sea of mediocrity and there's not enough voices of reason speaking up and saying that most games made these days are just not very good.
Your playing the wrong games then. There's always been shovelware type games. Going back to wii, snes, nes, ps1 Xbox og. That's a bs blanket statement. As an older gamer since atari days I'd personally say this is a great time. If you can't find anything to play. That's on you
With all that said in no way or form am I speaking of multi-player games, gacha, or whatever. I'm strictly speaking on single player games.
you are hilarious. trying to validate your comment by excluding over half of the games out there today. Pathetic man.
Wait I was told Xbox had great engagement numbers?! Some Xbox fans said they bought games when I told them Xbox customers don't buy games?
So Xbox bought studios to keep games off other platforms and forgot they conditioned Xbox customers to not buy games. Whoops.
So anyone else think Outer World's 2 dies 🤔? I'm thinking a small game losing out on Nintendo and Playstation gamers buying will kill this IP. But it's okay Xbox fans can get more COD! Halo, Gears and Forza! Woot that's a 'win'. Yay Gamepass FTW
Can't wait to see the usual try spin and play this down. So much for the heroic MS and Phil saving these studios eh.
By the end of the day IGN will be talking about how this is right for the industry. Don't worry, Microsoft's PR is making the call now.
Tango did NOT deserve to be closed down, they have not released a single bad game, and I'm sure Arkhane failed just because they were both rushed and pressured into making a GaaS game they had no experience in doing and no support to get it completed out of the gate.
Not a big deal only hi fi rush was good
Sony has closed
Manchester studio
Japan studio
Pixel opus
London studio
Ready At Dawn ...
The difference being Sony has a large group of other studios that have done something positive. Microsoft just closed the studio to the only good game they released in the past year (Hi-Fi Rush).
They all suck as well of course. But MS spent 10s of billions on these publishers for mass consolidation, every made a song and dance about how MS would save them, using their endless Windows, 365 and Azure money to keep them open forever and how Phil was some hero.
Nothing is safe unless it makes money, even for MS.
Wow how far back do you want to go back.
Lionhead Studios
Aces Game Studio
BigPark
Carbonated Game
Digital Anvil
Ensemble Studios
FASA Studio
Good Science Studio
Hired Gun
Microsoft Studios Japan
Microsoft Studios Victoria
Team Dakota
Xbox Entertainment Studios
Xbox Live Productions
Lift London
Access Software
Salt Lake Games Studio
Twisted Pixel Games
WingNut Interactive
And more before this, this was just their cuts during xbone era that Phil cut while he was at the head.
And some of those PlayStation studios were merged not closed, most of the UK studios were folded into each other.
Japan Studio was renamed to Asobi not closed, aAsobi was an internal team of Japan Studio the "closure" the press misinformed people about was more or less a name change, the studio is in the same building and when the change happened less than 5 people mostly leadership positions chose to leave the studio to form Bokeh Studio, which still works closely with Sony.
And even if your deflection stood on it's own, Microsoft spent 3 Billion 3 years ago almost to the date to buy Zenimax and has already closed 2 of it's biggest studios and decimated Zenimax's support studio structure.
It's no wonder Todd Howard was talking about "more frequent releases" and letting other studios make their IP's games. The days of big budget huge Bethesda games is over...
In fact sadly Microsoft has ushered in the end of big budget gaming as we know it with their obviously unsustainable subscription industry change.
And I feel fully confident that this isn't the end of studio closures from these recently purchased studios.
Ready At Dawn was never a Sony owned studio, and only made a few smaller God of War games and a Jax and Daxter spin off, and of course The Order1866.
They are currently owned by OcUlus Studios.
How many times has MS fired Bethesda staff since they purchased it? I think it's been three rounds so far
London studio what have they made recently. Really the worst one was Japan studio. That sucked.
In reality though your deflecting. The fact of the matter is Ms just closed the studio that made their highest rated game in years. That's insane.
Ready At Dawn was never a PS first party studio.
Manchester was closed and it was proposed that London should be closed, but their website is still up with no news about it being closed on their official site anywhere. So it's possible that the proposed closure just did not happen to get fufilled. Meaning London Studio *MIGHT* still be open running lean.
Edit: Japan Studio was closed with some staff making up the new Asobi Team Studio who's first title was the PS5 pack-in game "Astro's Playroom." Pixel Opus was closed and not replaced or spun-off their only games were Entwined and Concrete Genie they also helped publish Journey according to Wikipedia.
Man you got crap info
Sony never owned Ready at Dawn. It's now owned by Oculus.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...
Phil needs to step down. What kind of usual spin do you want?
More and more people lose jobs but the people at the top stay the same. Hardware sales tank despite billions and billions spent. The math is plain and simple.
I'm still trying to figure out what was the real reason to acquire Bethesda for millions or Billions of dollars if you're closing down studios 🤔 What were their true intentions 🤔 I mean do Microsoft really want to be a third-party publisher? It sounds like they're confused.with their future in gaming
@Sonic1881
To rape each studio for their sweet succulent ultra-valuable IP. This is Microsoft's favorite past-time.
