Before I get down voted, consolidation is bad under any mega corp. Bethesda merger was bad and ABK merger was bad.
MoontainIV
Microsoft is a blight to video game industry and everything bad on modern video games and hardware is because of them and their Xbox.
DrizzyDragon93
Games what games? /s
Havi_jarnsida
Hopefully this time ppl actually take it too heart like we seen them destroy halo and said nothing, please gentlemen stop caping for these corpos please
EtheusRook
Real talk – what studio has **ever** had its output improved after being acquired by Microsoft?
Bob_the_peasant
At some point the theory that Phil Spencer buys and fires people who makes games he can’t beat becomes more and more real
Omega21886
ea: “hey, that’s OUR shtick”
GME-Member
I go to my local gamestop and buy every physical game release I plan to play. IT WAS GG!
Spuigles
Banjo tried to warn us.
nbiscuitz
they can start new studios, and every news be like….ex-lalalala studio blah blah making this new game.
PhenomsServant
I warned people the Activision acquisition was a mistake but nobody listened.
“Who cares what happens to everyone else, I get to play Call of Duty on Gamepass, plus this will get rid of Kotick even though there are a hundred people there just like him to take his place”
Battlefire
This is just tiring. Arkane Austin lost most of its people during Redfalls development. It is just a shell now. And Tango has been releasing flops. Regardless if Hi-Fi Rush was highly acclaimed. It sold worst than their previous projects with higher price tags. Not to mention the showrunner in Tango left and likely poached the top talents there with him. The fact is, Microsoft decided to cut the life support in these closings.
hishoax
What does Game Pass have to do with these studios shutting down? It’s not like this would have been avoided if Game Pass didn’t exist – I don’t think games like Ghostwire would have been more successful if Game Pass didn’t exist.
nutbutterguy
Didn’t they only shut down Lionhead Studios in 2015/2016?
After_Delivery_4387
Going into this generation there was tons of talk about MS’s acquisitions being a remedy for the poor exclusive lineup on XBO last time around. If they’re closing studios, isn’t that entirely counter-productive then? Even if they retain the closed studio’s IP that would mean that, at best, we’d have another Halo/Gears scenario where a newer, younger (read: cheaper) dev is brought in to make sequels to, say, HiFi Rush, but the new guys don’t quite get what made the OG great, resulting in a decline in quality. And that’s even ***IF*** they choose to keep the closed studio’s IPs alive, which they may very well not. We might not another Prey, Dishonored, Deathloop, Hifi Rush, or Evil Within at all.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: MS sucks at managing talent. They don’t seem to understand that you can’t just replace one developer for another. They don’t seem to get the artistic side of making games, that one person will make a very different product to another; people aren’t interchangeable.
turkoman_
It has nothing to do with Gamepass.
Starfield was also launched on Gamepass but it was the 3rd top grossing game on Steam after Hogwarts Legacy and Baldurs Gate 3 last year. Forza Horizon launched on Gamepass, Age of Empires launched on Gamepass, Flight Simulator launched on Gamepass, they are all fine.. Palworld was a day one Gamepass title ffs, it sold also like hot cakes. So stop with that bullshit.
WickedMagic
2030 the year Blizzard shuts down
Vampyre_Boy
There was no surprised pikachu just an “oh its that time again is it?” If you work for a big corporation and cant consistently push profit higher youll eventually get axed for more lucrative opportunities.
Fit_Detective_8374
I mean, would these studios have done well on their own though? There’s a reason they decided to sell in the first place. Many of these studios had already lost the talent that made the games they were known for to begin with. Arkane for example had some bangers in the past, but redfall really fucking tanked them. Almost all the devs who worked on dishonoured series and prey aren’t even there anymore anyways and had left a long time ago.
Still sucks they’d rather close them than pour more money into hiring talent though.
iluminatethesky
If HellBlade II doesn’t deliver, I have a feeling Ninja Theory is going to be next
20 Comments
Before I get down voted, consolidation is bad under any mega corp. Bethesda merger was bad and ABK merger was bad.
Microsoft is a blight to video game industry and everything bad on modern video games and hardware is because of them and their Xbox.
Games what games? /s
Hopefully this time ppl actually take it too heart like we seen them destroy halo and said nothing, please gentlemen stop caping for these corpos please
Real talk – what studio has **ever** had its output improved after being acquired by Microsoft?
At some point the theory that Phil Spencer buys and fires people who makes games he can’t beat becomes more and more real
ea: “hey, that’s OUR shtick”
I go to my local gamestop and buy every physical game release I plan to play. IT WAS GG!
Banjo tried to warn us.
they can start new studios, and every news be like….ex-lalalala studio blah blah making this new game.
I warned people the Activision acquisition was a mistake but nobody listened.
“Who cares what happens to everyone else, I get to play Call of Duty on Gamepass, plus this will get rid of Kotick even though there are a hundred people there just like him to take his place”
This is just tiring. Arkane Austin lost most of its people during Redfalls development. It is just a shell now. And Tango has been releasing flops. Regardless if Hi-Fi Rush was highly acclaimed. It sold worst than their previous projects with higher price tags. Not to mention the showrunner in Tango left and likely poached the top talents there with him. The fact is, Microsoft decided to cut the life support in these closings.
What does Game Pass have to do with these studios shutting down? It’s not like this would have been avoided if Game Pass didn’t exist – I don’t think games like Ghostwire would have been more successful if Game Pass didn’t exist.
Didn’t they only shut down Lionhead Studios in 2015/2016?
Going into this generation there was tons of talk about MS’s acquisitions being a remedy for the poor exclusive lineup on XBO last time around. If they’re closing studios, isn’t that entirely counter-productive then? Even if they retain the closed studio’s IP that would mean that, at best, we’d have another Halo/Gears scenario where a newer, younger (read: cheaper) dev is brought in to make sequels to, say, HiFi Rush, but the new guys don’t quite get what made the OG great, resulting in a decline in quality. And that’s even ***IF*** they choose to keep the closed studio’s IPs alive, which they may very well not. We might not another Prey, Dishonored, Deathloop, Hifi Rush, or Evil Within at all.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: MS sucks at managing talent. They don’t seem to understand that you can’t just replace one developer for another. They don’t seem to get the artistic side of making games, that one person will make a very different product to another; people aren’t interchangeable.
It has nothing to do with Gamepass.
Starfield was also launched on Gamepass but it was the 3rd top grossing game on Steam after Hogwarts Legacy and Baldurs Gate 3 last year. Forza Horizon launched on Gamepass, Age of Empires launched on Gamepass, Flight Simulator launched on Gamepass, they are all fine.. Palworld was a day one Gamepass title ffs, it sold also like hot cakes. So stop with that bullshit.
2030 the year Blizzard shuts down
There was no surprised pikachu just an “oh its that time again is it?” If you work for a big corporation and cant consistently push profit higher youll eventually get axed for more lucrative opportunities.
I mean, would these studios have done well on their own though? There’s a reason they decided to sell in the first place. Many of these studios had already lost the talent that made the games they were known for to begin with.
Arkane for example had some bangers in the past, but redfall really fucking tanked them. Almost all the devs who worked on dishonoured series and prey aren’t even there anymore anyways and had left a long time ago.
Still sucks they’d rather close them than pour more money into hiring talent though.
If HellBlade II doesn’t deliver, I have a feeling Ninja Theory is going to be next