Last night, Bethesda laid clear its policy on media reviews from Dishonored 2 onwards. In a short statement on its official site from global content lead lead Gary Steinman - himself a former games journalist - Bethesda announced that you won't see any reviews before the launch of its games because it will continue to send out code to publications a day before release.
"The sudden closure of several video-game studios at Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox division was the result of a widespread cost-cutting initiative that still isn’t finished.
This week, Xbox began offering voluntary severance agreements to producers, quality assurance testers and other staff at ZeniMax, which it purchased in 2020 for $7.5 billion, according to people familiar with the company’s plans. Others across the Xbox organization have been told that more cuts are on the way.
Speaking about the closures more broadly, Booty said that the company’s studios had been spread too thin — like “peanut butter on bread” — and that leaders across the division had felt understaffed. They decided to close these studios to free up resources elsewhere, he said.
Game Pass has not seen the massive growth that Xbox boss Phil Spencer may have been hoping for."
"Speaking about the closures more broadly, Booty said that the company’s studios had been spread too thin — like “peanut butter on bread” — and that leaders across the division had felt understaffed. They decided to close these studios to free up resources elsewhere, he said"
So what you're saying is...you bought all these studios and you guys can't run them.
Jesus.
Spread thin after firing over 2000 employees a few months prior. So basically they created the problem and their solution was to just fire more people. Absolute geniuses over at Xbox, of course can we even believe this to be the reason for the closures?
Reports are suggesting that Game Pass will be getting a price hike soon and that Call of Duty may not be added to the day one offering. I honestly have a hard time believing this but it does beg the question why exactly did GP fail? I think the answer is that it just didn't get the growth that it anticipated. Jim was right but I wish he wasn't because at the end of the day, its gamers, devs and other front-line workers who have to absorb the blow for Spencer and team's miscalculations.
Honestly as long as is not a situation where the industry has to contract in order focus wealth on a few people who are already trillionaires..
For all the armchair executives who were calling for Sony to release its big-budget AAA games on PS+, the same exact thing would have happened at PlayStation. Game Pass has killed Xbox. Congrats.
There's not many of of us clamoring for Sony to do this because most of us understand it would kill Playstation. I'm sure there's a few but I've not seen alot of it myself.
I will give you a like sense this site is pro sony even the mods will delete this comment like my last asap as they defend sony 24/7.
Those with brains knows microsoft a trillion dollar company cares little about devs and is all about making cash so they will lease out ips gamepass is not a loss like amazon/netflix the overall ms make billions a week.
Phil Spencer and Microsoft have come under fire following the closure of multiple Bethesda-owned studios including Tango Gameworks.
wow haha.
i dont think he will resign. or will be kicked off.
if hes still here after everything in the past, this wont affect him unfortunately.
He and his cronies have a sweet deal. Even if they are fired, stock options and parachutes will mean they never need to work again. Cronyism at its worst.
I think his days are numbered TBH. Spending 80 million of all acquisitions yet can’t even compete with others it’s insane
This also proves gamepass isn’t as profitable as Xbox fanboys make it out to be
That huge Acti-Blizz acquisition wasn't worth it ... They should've stopped at Zenimax and instead focused "rescuing" individual studios like Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal, Crytek, Volition or Gearbox etc (much better than trying to devour the whole of one of the largest gaming publisher)
IMHO, with no $70 Billion deficit, these studio closures would not have happened ...
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Twisted Voxel writes: "We've almost reached the end of the 1st half of 2024, and Xbox has had more studio closures than first party game releases in the year so far."
Hellblade 2, Indiana Jones, Avowed, Towerborne, and Call of Duty are still to be released this year. Marcus Fenix collection to be added to the list with the Xbox showcase, hopefully.
"Xbox Has Had More Studio Closures Than First Party Game Releases So Far In 2024"
they kept the IPs though. they'll be making them under the MS brand i'm guessing. like minecraft all those years ago.
If we're going to talk in "still to be's" there still could be more studio closures from Microsoft this year as well.
How much confidence do people have in these games being good though? I hope they will be (especially Avowed) but from what we know of them so far, it's hardly a guarantee, is it?
And even if they do turn out to be good, how much of that will be down to Xbox and its leadership? Most of these games were either sequels to games made before being acquired or started development before being acquired.
And just a note on Hellblade II - it is out in two weeks and unless I'm missing something, I don't see much in the way of previews or advertising from Microsoft. Not ideal for a niche game that looks like it probably cost a lot of money to make. It genuinely feels like another game being sent out to die and then have the studio shut down.
To me...Avowed graphics look cheap, the game looks generic as well as boring.
I find it interesting that people have to resort to praising how they were randomly born in a certain location to say they're not weird. But, I'm not sure this kind of stupidity can be generalized over an entire group of people, at least, I'm being optimistic here.
Sony doesn't have to bother fighting the next Microsoft acquisition. The massive layoff by themselves should be enough to get the next big buy blocked.
Vindicates Jim Ryan. Don't know who didnt see this coming except those frothing pro acquisition fanboys who are not commenting here for some reason....
Let’s not pretend Sony is setting the world on fire with its first party either….it’s been crickets from them as well. In fact they even said not to expect any at all this year.
MS is a dumpster fire and Sony isn’t fighting anymore and it shows. I fail to see how this is a good thing.
Wasn't it no new existing IP entries? That would still leave room for new IPs, maybe we'll see one or more of those this year.
So if MS hadn't spent $80 billion consolidating the industry just think of all the games and jobs that would have saved.
MS is a drain on gaming and have been nothing but a negative.
not exactly like the studios were putting out good games anyway. Industry needs to restart from the ground up; if games like battlebit or manor lords can be made by teams with 10 people - then there's something fundamentally wrong with having 500 man teams put out glitchy overmonetized crap.
Interesting. Prey was a good game, evil within was dope, and hi fi was the best Xbox game that Xbox has had in so many years. That's according to the base.
HiFi Rush was a really good game actually so that's hardly the reason for shutting down Tango.
While I don't agree with this practice, another way of looking at this is that "reviewer's" will be able to do a review on a "day one patched" game, which the consumer will be buying rather than reviewing a pre day one Patched game which normally is more buggy and still unbalanced in place such weapons and enemy's. Just saying.
Well in an ideal world, such a policy would cost them consumer confidence and in turn effect their preorder numbers but in reality it probably won't change anything.
I wonder how we survived before people reviewed games over the Internet? People act as if they can't wait for reviews if it bothers them so much. No one is forcing you to buy any games. Do we all live in the same world?
Another day and something else to complain about. I understand that everyone has their opinion and that's fine but gamers like to make everything seem like it's the end of the world. Again, who is forcing you to buy any game before those precious reviews come out? Hell, most of the time people crap on reviews anyways especially if a site gives a game a score you don't believe it should have gotten.
Personally, I don't buy many games day 1 anyways because gaming is expensive. And I'm definitely not going to complain if I would have to wait a day or two for a review. But I do understand in today's society how people with no patience can be upset. It's more of the period we live in then the actual act itself.
I commend Bethesda. I've been talking about how busted the review process has become and the amount of influence they have on a consumer that's "unsure" about the product. Everyone and their mother says, "Oh reviews are nothing more than an opinion," and to that I say no, an opinion is an opinion.
A review is a subject matter expert's commentary based directly on actual user experience that is grounded in fact, with analyzation, and descriptive information to provide someone the information needed in order to make an informed decision on purchasing said item regardless of whether the consumer and the reviewer share the same interest. Opinion is injected within the review to give personal reflection in order to give a more personal insight that the user may or may not experience.
For example, a game may be objectively good but the reviewer may have been bored to tears playing it. This is important for a consumer that does not get bored with the genre of game knowing the facts that the game is good, but it's also important for someone who is not familiar with the genre yet is still interested in the game.
The problem now a days is anybody writes an opinion piece that's nothing more than what he/she liked or didn't like about the game without actual analyzing/interpreting design and design intent. Reviews have a lot more fact and analysis than simply saying, "I did/ did not like X game for X, Y, Z reasons." Because at the end of the day someone elses opinion holds so little weight as consumers have a variety of interests and preferences.
Since that's the case any opinion piece holds little to no relevance for many, which is why providing facts regardless of your own preferences/interests is crucial and important for the review process. This just simply isn't the case anymore and it's gotten out of hand. Negative reviews do impact the sales of a game, which in turn decides whether more get made or whether developers will take more risks when making a game. So, I hope more publishers do the same thing Bethesda is doing until reviewers actually start reviewing more or at least quit saying "game review" and start saying "game opinion".