The Times is running a new opinion piece today from Giles Whittell.
"This is not because of anything wrong or bad about video games or heroin or teenage parents. It's not even because of game-induced homicide or web-grooming of little girls by perverts - serious problems, but statistically low-risk. It's because, compared with everything else on offer in a kid's life, video games and heroin and teenage pregnancy are a colossal waste of time."
"They want you to believe the devs under them are super stoked to work generative AI into their processes," continued Gaider, "but I assure you what they took as excitement was really a veiled wail of despair not unlike the time that team was informed of their new 'really cool' live service mandate.".
I think anyone with some common sense knew this, im glad i don't support their games anymore, what a sh!t company.
I said this yesterday. AI isn't what we want when it comes to crafting artistry. Alas, these soulless corporate morons don't care about their work, only about cutting corners as much as possible.
Has the rapid growth of Xbox made the ship too heavy? Following the closures of Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, and Roundhouse, we explore what the future of Xbox could look like.
This ship was never meant to sail, this ship was made from the get go to sink as fast as possible. It almost feels that they want to lower the standards of quality in the industry so that they can fit in
I disagree, Xbox from the get go innovated and changed the industry. They did a lot of firsts and standardized a lot of others. It wasn’t till the beginning of the Xbox1 era that things started to go south.
Yep, although I’d argue it started going to shit when they tried to hock Kinect on their audience instead of continuing to invest in their studios and IPs. 2001-2010 Xbox was peak gaming, though.
@Stevonidas
I agree they never should have focused on it after the 360 era. But you do have to remember they were faked out by the huge volumes of Kinects sold. To quote info on Wikipedia, “Project Natal, It was first released on November 4, 2010, and would go on to sell eight million units in its first 60 days of availability.” So if your Xbox and see these huge sales on a peripheral where are you going to put some money? Criticism in hindsight is worthless…..if only we could all see our future. In other wards they had no way of knowing. Plus they had engagement numbers and a lot of signs pointed to people wanting it.
Their biggest mistake wasn’t the Kinect, but unlike Sony after the PS3 debacle. They didn’t double on down on exclusive good games. The other huge mistake was letting Call of Duty go to Sony.
Xbox has no soul and Phil has no confidence, and it's impossible to say either do when they killed Tango and Arkane Austin.
Everything they've said since has only made them look worse to a point that they're actually less competent than Embracer.
Whe you release something like the series S and expect it not to hurt your business model, and developers have to have parity with games. Then you know Microsoft don't care. Series s is the final nail that broke developers,
While on stage with Dina Bass at The Bloomberg Technology Summit the President of Xbox, Sarah Bond, was asked about the Xbox studio closures of Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Studios
Of course she did. She's part of the problem and will just tow the company line.
Bloomberg’s Dina Bass could barely read her scripted question without looking at her notes, whilst Sarah Bond who WAS expecting the question spoke without saying anything of substance or answering the question in any meaningful way. Clearly she’s had the same expert PR training as Phil, but this avoidance was disrespectful. In time the short-sighted decision to shut down Tango Gameworks will be seen as of the most notorious examples why Phil Spencer messed up his tenure in charge of Xbox. That’s a fully built out talented team that could’ve been put to work on any project.
Additionally, Phil Spencer should not be using Sarah Bond as a patsy for his mistakes- he should be answering that question.
I think you are all really overselling Tangos value. Hi-Fi rush was a lot of fun. Ghostwire was incredibly dull. Evil within 1 and 2 were just okay.
Evil within 2 was incredibly under rated. I thought that game was surprisingly good
Someone else said it best. I don't think it was a Phil decision. It was most likely a Satya decision. I think Microsoft is done giving out free money to Xbox.
people please boycott Activision Bethesda next release and support Hellblade.
these people mus understand that they cannot treat their fans and employees that way.
scumbags.
She's playing her role. There's absolutely nothing any of them can say other than the truth, this is about profit margins and not quality, so they just don't answer anything and wait for gamers to forget.
I think news is coming of more ps5 release but they gotta be careful cause Xbox is still sitting on store shelves. They can't get left holding all that stock
Come next month they'll flash nice looking games in our faces and expecting us to forget.
The only thing that'll be going through my mind at their showcase is how many of those studios will get shut down after release.
I'm not joking around either. MS probably expects every game to be like COD and do COD numbers. What a way to destroy gaming for the entire industry because they're dumb af at being realistic in what success means for each game.
Always feels she was brought in / promoted for this. Happened just before things started to be out in motion.
Phil and co have someone to throw under the bus and share the blame with
I always wondered why xbox had multiple leaders with similar titles like Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, and Sarah Bond, like, how many heads do you actually need?
Seems to me it would be more cost efficient to cut 2 of them instead of all those studios.
Frankly, I suspect she is the most competent of them. I don't mean that I like her more, I mean that she's the best at articulating herself and giving the talking points MS wants to give. The others are starting to sound more like her than her sounding like any of them.
Are any of these people "responsible" for what's happening? No. This reeks of Nadella. But that being said, I don't see any of the Xbox heads stepping down in protest.
"Don't shoot the messenger", sure, but at the same time, the messengers don't seem to take umbrage with the message. Not enough to remove themselves from it, anyway.
I disagree. Nadella is looking for profit as a CEO should in my opinion.
The problem is Dr. Phil & Co. had 10 years to bring Xbox back on track and have been failing woefully.
Phil needs to sell to Nadella that if we are to make a profit, we need to make great games. And to do that we need employees here for the long haul and the freedom to work on creative projects.
But as Phil said himself he doesn’t believe great games sell consoles.
Dude, 100%, forgot Major Nelson and Aaron Greenberg, like what is the point for all these suits? They have more C-level executives than games released in a generation.
This is just so they can all pass along the hot potato one at a time and in between all of them can say a lot without actually saying anything, misinformation at its finest.
This is one of the most disgustingly offensive posts I have ever read. It's not the sort of thing I would expect from a "quality" newspaper like The Times and it really shows that Byron was indeed right about one thing - parents are completely ignorant.
Comparing video games to heroin is offensive to everyone who plays and makes these products. I think that Mr Whittell would find that if he actually researched video games, he'd find many products which are supportive of a child's learning (those Nintendo consoles you speak of feature many games with objectives set firmly in maths and reading) along with many more which provide some of the finest entertainment around.
I think it is time that Giles Whittell apologised to the millions of people who play games in the UK (yes, the Byron review did NOT solely focus on England as he so mistakenly tries to convince us) and accepted that he does not have the parenting skills required to allow his children to enjoy games in moderation.
another case of the media feeding off the people's misery. it's sad its like video games are like drugs nowdays the way alot of people see it, but yet there's senseless war but its normal for society the media says
... for many MANY people, it's a very valuable way of spending their spare time, either alone or with friends/family.
Plus, it's a billion-dollar industry, providing work for many MANY thousands of people (probably millions), and thus also making lots of money for the country, and thus the people.
Kinda sad that a newspaper singles out videogames as waste of time, cause TBH the same could be said about pretty much every hobby, using those same arguments. It also bypasses/neglects all the positive influences of games on people, while stating some very rare negatve ones...
Dumb article. Probably written by a clueless, bitter old guy...
And soap operas and mindless television enjoyed by billions every day contributes to society in what way?
Games are just more addictive cause they are a hell of a lot more fun than tv.
It's all good for those who can control their addiction.
<What really is wasting time?)