350°

Arkane Studios Devs React To Arkane Austin Shutdown, Call It "Absolutely Terrible"

Developers at Arkane Studios are reacting to the announcement of the shutdown of Arkane Austin, calling it "absolutely terrible".

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twistedvoxel.com
XiNatsuDragnel716d ago

Of course it is this is why big companies gobbling other companies is bad.

Cacabunga716d ago

yes and this is what happens when you sign pact with the devil himself..

rakentaja716d ago (Edited 716d ago )

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...

I_am_Batman716d ago (Edited 716d ago )

@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.

crazyCoconuts716d ago

There are textbook scenarios where it's good...
Microsoft is definitely not one of those scenarios

RhinoGamer88716d ago

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.

MrBaskerville716d ago

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.

-Foxtrot716d ago

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.

MrBaskerville716d ago

@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.

darthv72716d ago

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.

crazyCoconuts716d ago

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

PapaBop716d ago

"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.

TheColbertinator716d ago

lmao forgot about that meme. Still pissed at EA for shutting down Westwood, Pandemic, Origin and Maxis. I will never forgive them for that.

Hofstaderman716d ago

Papa Satya wants his ROI. No free lunch.

rlow1716d ago

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.

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40°

Gang of Dragon Studio Reportedly Removes YouTube Channel Amid Funding Uncertainty

Nagoshi Studio’s YouTube channel with the Gang of Dragon trailers appears to have been removed following reports that NetEase will stop funding.

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twistedvoxel.com
250°

We Are Xbox

Dear team,

Xbox has always been different.

We started with a simple idea. Games should bring people together through shared experiences. That led to the first Xbox in 2001, Xbox Live in 2002, and new ways to connect, from friends lists and achievements to parties and play across devices. Today, Xbox reaches over 500 million players around the world, with some of the most important franchises in entertainment.

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news.xbox.com
16h agoReplies(15)
Outside_ofthe_Box16h ago(Edited 16h ago)

If they go back to exclusive games it at least shows that they are finally getting it. They would be turning down immediate money for something that will potentially workout in the long term.

Only issue is they've already opened Pandora's box. A lot of their base has moved to PC or jumped to PS. So will be a long road to get back on track.

We have been saying this from day one exclusives are a must if you are going to be selling hardware look at Nintendo and Sony before Jim Ryan. That's the proven formula. You had some that were deluded and blinded by loyalty accepting that multiplat was the future and that MS was merely getting ahead of where the industry was headed, but at least they can finally see the light and agree with what everyone has been saying for a decade+

pwnmaster300015h ago

True, blame it on the rabid fanboys. MS can do no wrong and spinner this multiplatform move. While the actual fans moved on.

I feel like with the new Xbox coming they are hoping to bring back those old fans and then if it goes well. Bring back exclusives.

If the new console is performing like series x and one. Naw they staying multiplatform.

darthv727h ago

Actual fans dont move on... they can add to their hobby while waiting for the next new release. If you believe what you typed then I guess PS fans moved on too.... you know, since its been a Sahara for 1st party games this gen.

15h agoReplies(4)
CrashMania15h ago

I think it's too late, xbox sales were diving even before ABK, they got even worse since then even long before the full multiplatform push. I'd be surprised if they even went back to timed exclusivity at this point, Helix is basically a PC and is going to be expensive, they already struggle to sell cheaper xbox consoles, it will be low volume and they'll have a very small 'console' base to sell to, which has already been conditioned to just play via gamepass anyway.

Neonridr12h ago

I don't see them removing PC from the equation. Considering MS has a heavy enough investment in the PC market, it would be foolish to abandon them. I could see them taking away games from PlayStation or ensuring they are timed exclusives at the very least. Say what you will but if Call of Duty ends up becoming a timed exclusive to Xbox machines, that would hurt PlayStation, don't pretend like those games don't sell millions.

Outside_ofthe_Box9h ago

They would lose out on a lot of CoD sales tho. Doesn't PS make up most of the sales?

Pyrofire9510h ago

Their lifeline of solely the Xbox consoles is dry. Good-Great games on a 1st party scale can't be made at a loss so willingly - sent to the Xbox to only sell limited copies.
They invested billions scooping up studios and need to start making returns.
Sucks that nearly every company is publicly traded and have to be so shareholder biased but that's how it is.
Their words are strong but it'll take time to see what their actions accomplish. Lowering the cost of Game Pass and taking CoD off of it was a good clear start.

darthv727h ago

More like, allot of their base just played game pass. So now they need to encourage them to start buying again.

--Onilink--4h ago

What exactly is the long term goal with exclusives though?

Because for the most part, the hardware side of things has never been the most profitable, even sometimes being subsidized for a period before breaking even. And that’s before the hardware component nightmare we currently live in.

The whole point of exclusives was to get more people to buy your console in order to have a bigger install base, which meant even bigger software sales.

But if their ports to PS5 are selling (for the most part it seems) quite well, then other than negating the cut Sony takes there, unless you are REALLY increasing your software sales on your own console, it probably doesn’t make that much of a difference?

Honestly I don’t even understand Sony’s decision to scale back on it for PC unless they weren’t even recouping the port expenses. They released ports when the hardware sales never really dropped, and now that all consoles will undoubtedly take a noticeable drop in sales due to the ridiculous prices, that’s when they decide they don’t want to sell to a larger install base to more easily recoup dev costs… it’s just weird

Outside_ofthe_Box34m ago(Edited 31m ago)

I agree. I mean once they went multiplat, in theory there should be no going back especially when you have games that have sold really well on other platforms.

Microsoft are the ones that announced that they are reevaluating. So I'm just guessing on what their end goal is. Right now Xbox as a hardware is not a must buy for anyone but fans of the brand because their games can be played elsewhere. Going exclusive would solve this, but you lose out on a ton of money instantly which has always been what the company does not want to do so not really sure what their "reevaluating exclusives" means unless they are pulling a Phil Spencer and are just saying what people want to hear and will continue to do what they are currently doing.

SIdepocket1h ago

Unfortunately, the studios they buy wither under their leadership.

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 34m ago
maximusprime_15h ago

Despite all of that, it's clear that Microsoft's Xbox division is broken beyond repair.

14h ago
BeHunted13h ago

PlayStation is currently draining money on flop after flop. It's Sony that needs to re-evaluate their strategy

13h ago
CrashMania10h ago(Edited 10h ago)

Wonder how much money was lost on perfect dark, hellbalde 2, 300 million lost revenue
by putting cod on gamepass. The recent Jason schrier news that Xbox has cancelled dozens of projects, spent 70 billion just to see Xbox sales further collapse and gamepass see little growth.

The fact is this has been PlayStation's most profitable generation and they are making loads of money and selling plenty of consoles and games. While MS won't give you any sales figures or profit numbers for Xbox, says it all really.

shadowT15h ago

"Our presence on PC isn’t strong enough."

Fishy Fingers14h ago

It isnt. But I dont think they mean in 'games', rather, footprint.

They own the OS but as far as gaming is concerned, Steam dominate. I imagine the VAST majority of people who use the Xbox app/launcher are PC gamepass subs. No ones buying their 3rd party PC games through Xbox PC.

badz1494h ago

and many gamers prefer SteamOS for gaming over Windows too. If only Valve would be more uncompromising to the anti-cheat makers that locked out non-windows players, more pc gamers would have moved onto SteamOS by now and not looking back to Windows. overall, Win11 is a terrible, bloated, unoptimized OS which is not what many people want

Show all comments (79)
40°

Japanese Entertainment Giant Toei Announces Toei Games; Will Reveal First Game This Week

The famous Japanese entertainment company Toei Company is debuting in the gaming industry with the new brand Toei Games.

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simulationdaily.com
jznrpg1d 8h ago

The more games that are made the better. It’s nice to hear they won’t use existing IP to start and are making new IP from scratch. I hope they make some great games. Most if not all of their anime already have games made from other studios so it makes sense to try something new. Good luck