Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios
Lol what a scummy company.
Inb4Fenris what abouts this
Makes sense. They want games like Hi-Fi Rush. They just don't want to *pay* for games like Hi-Fi Rush.No no they want people to pay for games like Hi-Fi Rush. The issue is that isn't happening.
Ah, the hard, hard life of a multi-billion dollar corporation :(
No no they want people to pay for games like Hi-Fi Rush. The issue is that isn't happening.Maybe Day 1 Gamepass is a bad idea then.
The funniest part about all this to me is that most of the outcry doesn't give a fuck about Arkane Austin because Redfall sucked.
Maybe Day 1 Gamepass is a bad idea then.It probably wouldn't be if games like Hi-Fi Rush actually moved Gamepass subs, but they don't do that either.
It genuinely feels like the Xbox division is being pulled in two directions right now. Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, and the games division want to keep making more great games with these studios, but the higher-ups above them at Microsoft were looking for ways to cut costs and saw these studios as expendable. They're not on the same page, and situations like this are a perfect example of that.
It probably wouldn't be if games like Hi-Fi Rush actually moved Gamepass subs, but they don't do that either.It's interesting then considering Microsoft said back during release time that it was a surprise hit, enough that they wanted to invest more into Tango.
It's interesting then considering Microsoft said back during release time that it was a surprise hit, enough that they wanted to invest more into Tango.They actually threw that out to try and quell the word coming out that Hi-Fi Rush didn't actually do much for Microsoft despite being such a good game.
This narrative that Hi-Fi Rush didn't do well is pretty odd, I gotta say.
They paid the largest acquisition price ever for Activision Blizzard King, and kill off smaller studios that come bundled with the acquisition. Man, fuck Microsoft.Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin came from the Zenimax acquisition tho. The other studios rumored to be on the chopping block are also from that acquisition.
Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin came from the Zenimax acquisition tho. The other studios rumored to be on the chopping block are also from that acquisition.
Maybe subscriptions don't make sense for gamingBut what about the very small handful of games with subscriptions that popped off? Now -every- game needs even more success than that
Didnt sony lose like an absurd amount of money on ratchet and Clank rift apart even though it was a great game with fantastic gameplay and art style?
"oh but, but Sony did THIS 20 years ago CHECKMATE fanboys!"
*insert copy-pasted wikipedia list saved on computer next to photos of phil spencer*
no, it actually performed beyond expectations.
You still failed to answer my question. How many copies did PS5 owners buy of Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo when it was timed exclusive?
LMAO. $64 million profit against a $81 million budget is not "performing beyond expectations".
It probably wouldn't be if games like Hi-Fi Rush actually moved Gamepass subs, but they don't do that either.No game is. It seems to have hit a limit.
Prey was amazing, I don't fault the developers for working on shit the suits forced them to and they didn't want.
You're making my point though. They spent so much money to get this acquisition through to the end zone. And now they're crying poor and saying they're spread too thin. Fuck off.
i reject your question. it is a meaningless attempt at a "gotcha" question that makes no sense.
My question is perfectly valid.
no it isn't. it's a game from 2 years ago that was no longer only on PS5 as of last year. How much it sold on PS5 two years ago has no bearing on the studio being closed two days ago. Question rejected.
It probably wouldn't be if games like Hi-Fi Rush actually moved Gamepass subs, but they don't do that either.This strikes me as not making sense. I don't see how any one particular game releasing on gamepass would move sales of the service. Rather, the deciding factor to a person would be the entire library of games available through the service. Hi Fi Rush being added there would be a small fraction of the pull for potential customers and blaming it for not moving sales seems questionable at best.
Phil and his team run the division. the higher ups may tell them what they want to see from their investments, but at the end of the day they make the decisions on how to make money off these investments, who to cut, who to close and what to cancel. They are just as responsible for all this, IMO.
I spoke to two former longtime Xbox employees, separately, and both lamented the current state of the business. One told me, prior to this weeks awful studio closures, I had lengthy conversations with a bunch of Xbox founders, and we all came to the same conclusion: its no longer Xbox, but Microsoft Gaming. Ouch.
The other chatted with me at length after the Bethesda bloodbath, and believes Xbox is now too big to quickly or easily get its house in order. There is just too much surface area. You have, effectively, three huge companies at play and Microsoft never really finished [the] integration with Bethesda. [And] Activision is like three times the size Xbox was. They added, Xbox 360 launched with a few hundred people. Last I heard Xbox is now almost 30,000 people.
And that growth has led to, in this Xbox veterans opinion, increased oversight and meddling from further up the Microsoft food chain. The reason this seems so inconsistent with previous Xbox leadership team statements is that these decisions probably aren't being made by Phil. This is all getting dictated by [Microsoft CEO] Satya [Nadella] and [Microsoft CFO] Amy Hood, and it all stems from the Activision acquisition.
The long-tenured ex-Xboxer continued: The situation Xbox was in when they made this call was much different. [They] couldn't keep consoles in stock, making money hand-over-fist with Game Pass growth [the Activision acquisition] seemed like a no-brainer.
"Now, console sales are down. Post-COVID recession. Game Pass slowing. The acquisition was more costly and time-consuming than anyone expected. And the focus on fighting the FTC probably cost them time they would have spent thinking through the people and studio implications.
I 100% believe this is a board-level decision. Xbox was a huge profit center, so Satya approved a huge merger. Now, games are slowing, and Microsoft stock is skyrocketing and there is no way Satya is going to let Xbox drag it down.
This is all my opinion, of course, butI'm fairly certain these are not decisions being made only by Xbox leadership.
Thats not to absolve Spencer for his role in all of this (unlike the tone-deaf Wont someone think of the multi-millionaire executives? response of former Xbox higher-up Mike Ybarra). He is, after all, the person in charge of the entire organization. The buck stops with him. The Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard acquisitions happened on his watch. As such, he is no more shielded from criticism for being, by most accounts (including my own), a nice guy than the star professional athlete is for underperforming on the field/court despite regularly signing autographs for kids before games.
So even sources within the gaming industry believe that there's a power struggle at Microsoft,