General Gaming News.

[Chimpzy]

Xbox shuts slew of Bethesda studios, including Redfall, Hi-Fi Rush developers

Xbox has today announced stunning cuts and studio closures affecting a slew of development houses under the Bethesda ba…

www.eurogamer.net

microsoft doing it's thing again

Oh fuck off. Those are the ones that actually made interesting games.

Also, this email the Xbox suit sent staff

It's Alpha Dog Games and Roundhouse Studios. It couldn't even be arsed to get the names right.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Yeah I meant after they released their big games that everybody claims to love. Respectively: Elden Ring, BG3, Tears of the Kingdom.

Sure but nobody liked Redfall, Ghostwire was a mid game, and Hi-Fi rush was a low budget release not a huge money maker, so why would Microsoft keep these studios around? Microsoft is trimming the fat of redundant studios which makes sense business-wise, but the problem is that they aren't going to do anything about their other problem areas.

 

[CriticalGaming]

It's Alpha Dog Games and Roundhouse Studios. It couldn't even be arsed to get the names right.

I gotta be honest, I have never heard of these people either.

 

[Chimpzy]

I gotta be honest, I have never heard of these people either.

Alpha Dog was a mobile dev. Roundhouse was formerly Human Head Studios, they did Rune and the original Prey, but everything since has been meh or worse (Brink, Defiance, The Quiet Man).

 

[CriticalGaming]

Alpha Dog was a mobile dev. Roundhouse was formerly Human Head Studios, they did Rune and the original Prey, but everything since has been meh or worse (Brink, Defiance, The Quiet Man).

I mean that kinda explains these shutdowns in a nutshell.

As bad as it sounds to hear about these layoffs all the time, when you are working at a studio making nothing or shit, then there isn't an expectation that you'll keep the job forever.

At the end of the day these studios need to be making games that make money on a consistent basis, and if that's not happening then at very least you should expect a "restructure" if not an outright closing of the studio entirely.

 

[Gyrobot]

Good, Hi Fi Rush fans can get fucked for dunking on Forspoken like that.

 

[BrawlMan]

Sure but nobody liked Redfall, Ghostwire was a mid game, and Hi-Fi rush was a low budget release not a huge money maker, so why would Microsoft keep these studios around? Microsoft is trimming the fat of redundant studios which makes sense business-wise, but the problem is that they aren't going to do anything about their other problem areas.

Hi fi rush still sold well. Not.
To mention tango games is a really talentalented studio. Hopefully capcom can pick them up morning Nintendo with platinum games. This is so much bullshit.

 

[Gyrobot]

Hi fi rush still sold well. Not.
To mention tango games is a really talentalented studio. Hopefully capcom can pick them up morning Nintendo with platinum games. This is so much bullshit.

I expect them to be shuffled into support studios to help fix Starfield

 

[CriticalGaming]

Hi fi rush still sold well. Not.
To mention tango games is a really talentalented studio. Hopefully capcom can pick them up morning Nintendo with platinum games. This is so much bullshit.

That's sort of the thing to. Maybe these developers are really talented, but they don't work well together with that particular group of people. Perhaps joining new teams and new studios will help these people make better games. Everyone walks out of the job with the experience gained from working there, whether that's engine tools, 3d rendering, programming language, whatever. They can then take those skills to another studio and apply that experience in a new environment with different people that might gel together.

 

[BrawlMan]

That's sort of the thing to. Maybe these developers are really talented, but they don't work well together with that particular group of people. Perhaps joining new teams and new studios will help these people make better games. Everyone walks out of the job with the experience gained from working there, whether that's engine tools, 3d rendering, programming language, whatever. They can then take those skills to another studio and apply that experience in a new environment with different people that might gel together.

Tango I know they are pleasant to work with because a lot of them are just former cat Capcom guys and gals. Microsoft letting them go is really dumb because they pretty much. Let them make the games they wanted to make. And they always delivered on time even before the buy out. Microsoft is the freaking issue here. Sony is the freaking issue here.a majority. These big publishers, developers, and consoles are the huge issues here. Sony still has some uses, but as far as I am concerned, Microsoft is fucking dead to me. Fuck them and everything they stand for. Thank you for pointing out an even bigger reason, why I need to buy your current generation console.

 

[Chimpzy]

Coincidentally, M$ also announced a new special edition Xbox controller today, with an amazing tagline.

Sadly, it has since been removed for reasons no one can fathom.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Man, EA at the very least tries to make SOMETHING with their studio acquisitions, and then close the studios.

Xbox just seems to not do anything with all those studios. There are few releases, but with all those studios you'd think Xbox would have steady flow of games from them by this point.

Or maybe Xbox was trying to play a long-con game in hopes of making a comeback, but I guess it never did. And from what Phill Spencer said, they aren't even going to try to compete anymore with other consoles

 

[BrawlMan]

Man, EA at the very least tries to make SOMETHING with their studio acquisitions, and then close the studios.

Xbox just seems to not do anything with all those studios. There are few releases, but with all those studios you'd think Xbox would have steady flow of games from them by this point.

Or maybe Xbox was trying to play a long-con game in hopes of making a comeback, but I guess it never did. And from what Phill Spencer said, they aren't even going to try to compete anymore with other consoles

Thus, they wasted everyone's time.

 

[Piscian]

Oh fuck off. Those are the ones that actually made interesting games.

Also, this email the Xbox suit sent staff

It's Alpha Dog Games and Roundhouse Studios. It couldn't even be arsed to get the names right.

In before they announce the CEOs bonus and surprise stock dividend payouts to investors.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Good, Hi Fi Rush fans can get fucked for dunking on Forspoken like that.

It really is impressive how you always have the worst possible take.

Also Forspoken fucking sucks.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Tango I know they are pleasant to work with because a lot of them are just former cat Capcom guys and gals. Microsoft letting them go is really dumb because they pretty much. Let them make the games they wanted to make. And they always delivered on time even before the buy out. Microsoft is the freaking issue here. Sony is the freaking issue here.a majority. These big publishers, developers, and consoles are the huge issues here. Sony still has some uses, but as far as I am concerned, Microsoft is fucking dead to me. Fuck them and everything they stand for. Thank you for pointing out an even bigger reason, why I need to buy your current generation console.

I just don't understand why Microsoft keeps buying all these studios if they aren't going to let them make games.

Tango made them money with Hi-Fi Rush. The game was made on a small budget and made a good profit. Microsoft made a big deal about the game, they called it a "breakout hit" put it in all of their promotional material, ported it to Playstation. Last year they talked about how pleased they were with the game and said that they had plans to "reinvest" in Tango Gameworks. Now they've just killed the studio.

Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard and axed every unreleased project they were working on. All they cared about was grabbing Call of Duty and Warcraft and everything else could get fucked.

Microsoft has some of the biggest studios in the world and somehow has almost no exclusives. Do they even have a single game coming out this year outside of Call of Duty?

 

[Piscian]

I just don't understand why Microsoft keeps buying all these studios if they aren't going to let them make games.

Tango made them money with Hi-Fi Rush. The game was made on a small budget and made a good profit. Microsoft made a big deal about the game, they called it a "breakout hit" put it in all of their promotional material, ported it to Playstation. Last year they talked about how pleased they were with the game and said that they had plans to "reinvest" in Tango Gameworks. Now they've just killed the studio.

Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard and axed every unreleased project they were working on. All they cared about was grabbing Call of Duty and Warcraft and everything else could get fucked.

Microsoft has some of the biggest studios in the world and somehow has almost no exclusives. Do they even have a single game coming out this year outside of Call of Duty?

Corporations think developers are just fungible assets and they just want the IPs. Basically you just "find" efficiency gaps in games that used to be made by several studios, and make them with one studio, and then find efficiency gaps in that studio and so on.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Sure but nobody liked Redfall, Ghostwire was a mid game, and Hi-Fi rush was a low budget release not a huge money maker, so why would Microsoft keep these studios around? Microsoft is trimming the fat of redundant studios which makes sense business-wise, but the problem is that they aren't going to do anything about their other problem areas.

Microsoft forced Arkane Austin to make Redfall into a live service loot shooter, something the studio never made before and wasn't in their wheelhouse. They're known for immersive sims like Dishonored and Prey and instead of letting them continue to make stuff like that Microsoft just couldn't wait to make every single game a "live service" and fucked it all up. The studio is getting axed because of Microsoft's poor management.

Hi-Fi Rush wasn't a huge moneymaker, but it did make money. They didn't lose money on Hi-Fi Rush, they made a profit. Especially considering the small budget it would be nothing for Microsoft to keep investing in these kinds of AA games, especially since Hi-Fi Rush became a prestige title for them and earned them some good will from the gaming community. The game won a couple of awards, and Microsoft had stated that it was a success in "all key metrics."

Xbox says Hi-Fi Rush was a success "in all key measurements" amid rumors of poor sales

"We couldn't be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release"

www.gamesradar.com

Really though, Microsoft doesn't have fat to trim as it were. They have all these studios and have barely produced any games this entire console generation, and the ones that they made were pretty forgettable.

Halo Infinite was completely mishandled. Starfield was pretty boring and has been mostly abandoned by the mod community (which is saying something for a Bethesda title). Redfall was one of the worst reviewed games of all time. When was the last time you even heard someone talking about a new Gears of War release? Hi-Fi Rush was one of the few Microsoft produced games that was worth anything.

 

[CriticalGaming]

snip

So I think what we are seeing over the past year or so is a big industry-wide shake up. It's no news to anybody here that development teams have gotten too big, development costs have gotten out of control and in order to maintain all this shit you need games damn near on the level of GTA 5 in order to keep pushing forward. A lot of the big companies are taking a step back and going, "Okay what we are doing isn't working, we need to narrow the workforce down and point it n more specific directions. Key games, focused projects, etc."

What I think this means is that they are going to make few games overall but each game is going to be more of a pillar AAA release. Your Far Cries, your Final Fantasies, whatever it is.

I hope this means that these studios stop trying to force live services into everything, because how many of this pieces of shit can lose them millions before they pivot to some other fad really?

Either way these teams are too big to sustain anything and that means jobs are going to get the axe, it sucks but the bloat has to get let out somewhere. It's just a matter of whether this direction shift works out for the AAA industry or what.

 

[Piscian]

What I think this means is that they are going to make few games overall but each game is going to be more of a pillar AAA release. Your Far Cries, your Final Fantasies, whatever it is.