Microsoft and Activision's new AA-focused dev team makes the shuttering of Tango Gameworks baffling

Microsoft and Activision have announced a AA-focused splinter team, making Tango Gameworks' closure baffling.

[Jin_Sakai]

Yea let’s shut down a AA studio that just put out a great game and open another AA studio out of nowhere. I swear Microsoft never make any sense.

[purple101]

tax evasion id pressume, maybe same reason sony spun off some form bungie into a new studio?

[jwillj2k4]

Why fire the people then

[Terry_B]

lol. when I read Jin's comment..I just knew one of the first replies would have the word Sony in them.

[purple101]

yer cos, if you open a new studio, you can put down a £200,000 (or whatever) cost for new offices, computers, hiring people, promotion, etc, against any profit,

if you stay with the same studio, you still have costs, but less so, as stuff is already up-and-running, them accounts teams don't just 'restructure' stuff, for fun, you know.

[ChasterMies]

Probably has something to do with repatriating foreign profits.

[anast]

MS Xbox has made some curious decisions, but this studio has underperformed as a whole. Just because they made an average game with trendy art and they have game writer friends doesn't mean that they are releasing bangers consistently. Ghostwire, The Evil Within, and Hifi-Rush were average or slightly below average games. Evil within 2 was a solid game. So, in the last 10 years, this AA studio only made 1 good game. This is fine if we are talking about AAA companies like R* that make enormous games, but we aren't.

[talocaca]

Microsoft constantly talks about creating new studios but most of their titles end up coming from studios they just threw money at 🤷‍♂️

Remember when they hyped The Initiative as their Naughty Dog? It's been 6 years and we've seen a trailer....

[Reaper22_]

I remember when Killzone was supposed to be the Halo killer. That didn't work out out well either.

Let's not forget that Sony threw a butt load of money @ Bungie and they just laid off some people. And what have they produced since that purchase.

[BehindTheRows]

Whataboutisms don’t change anything and only show how out of touch you are. Microsoft’s handling of their studios has been poor. No amount of “but Sony” is going to change that.

What you should be doing is rooting for them to do better. They are where they are partially because many of their fans would rather shill instead of demanding better.

[Cockney]

I knew it had to be sonys fault

[Dude Dutch]

Sony never said it to be a Halo killer.

[__SteakDeck__]

@Reaper22_ You mean Destiny 2 The Final Shape, arguably the best Destiny expansion and one of the highest rated titles of the year? Also. No one is saying that Sony doesn’t miss. But PS’s hit rate is much higher than Xbox’s.

[Doomeduk]

Just give the nurse her phone back eh ?

[-Foxtrot]

Actually Haze was suppose to be the Halo killer

If you’re going to bring Sony into it and call them at least do it right

[KillBill]

Yes... the term "Halo Killer" was very popular in all of the articles on the game when it was being promoted. Everyone claiming that "Sony never said..." and yet today we know and have learned that articles are controlled by those who pay for them to happen.

This was the early days of game marketing change that had Sony trying to not have anyone fill the hole that Sega left in their departure. They discounted MSFT early on and then reacted only when they actually had some traction.

[The Wood]

Bottom line is the Xbox part of Microsoft is in a helluva mess. The pivots are snapping ankles.

[KillBill]

Obviously the team that remained after so many left didn't meet the needs of MSFT. A new team is not unusual for new projects. Some of the old team moved on internally and we do not know where they all went. The resources elsewhere that were freed up could likely have even been a part what spun up this new studio. Resources move. Just not in Tango Austin anymore.

[jwillj2k4]

Nobody left they were let go. Stop trying to sugar coat it. If they didnt meet the needs its Microsofts fault.

This whole thing stinks like it was a flip coin decision made on the golf course with a bunch of beers.

[Reaper22_]

Just like many here were sugar coating not long ago Bungie laying off people and acting like Sonywas in the dark and had nothing to do with it. They are the parent company . They knew.

[KillBill]

Incorrect. Prior to the the studio being shut down Shinji Mikami the lead developer left to create his own studio. And some of his team left with him. He wanted to take a completely new direction in his development and didn't want to continue "His reasons for wanting to leave weren't animus, as Mikami said he wanted to create an environment where young talent could prosper through development which included shorter project cycles, for example. Mikami also had a desire to make unique, smaller scale games himself, so wanted to connect these two ideas." He felt after take over by Zenimax that he became closer to a "rank-and-file employee" and had been wanting to leave since then.

After his departure MSFT was not comfortable with the remaining team as it stood and closed it along with other studios during the period of restructure.

Just a myriad of investment in searching for reasons why things happen would have led anyone to the actual answer instead of simply supposing and creating a 'coin flip on the gold course' scenario.