Microsoft have finally heard the calls of beleaguered Xbox LIVE users…They're cancelling the Xbox LIVE service for the original black and green console which probably the best advancement of the service since Xbox 360 launched in 2005!
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
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 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.
Insider reveals Xbox's Perfect Dark reboot struggles in development, far from ready despite ongoing efforts.
The hits just keep on coming. Will not be surprised if this gets canned. It already got rebooted and they had to bring on an outside studio to try and help developement. Some of the original creatives have left the project.
But I will say, just wait until the MS showcase. If you don't see it there, then alarm bells should start ringing.
God, please don't screw this one up Microsoft! I am keeping my expectations super low, but Perfect Dark (the original) holds such a special place in my childhood. I want this to turn out well SO bad.
Just cancel it because we know you won’t be happy with its sales performance while giving it away on GP day one. GP is the biggest issue for developers and that affects the sales. No one can deny that now. GP equals to good deal for gamers and bad deals for AAA development. Take two CEO said it and he was 100% right. There are certain games that make sense on GP but not every game. 20 million gamers playing a game on GP doesn’t mean much to MS it seems because they still want sales. Just please start releasing all games on other platforms otherwise Phil is next now. You can’t spend 80 billion and be this bad
The studio was founded in 2018. It's still not adding up in my head how it can take 6 years to develop a game, with a whole dev studio working on it.
This is the only upcoming MS game I'm looking forward to. I hope it doesn't get canceled.
Nirav from GL writes: "If the makers of a GOTY competitor that outdid sales and Game Pass expectations and owned by the richest company in the world cannot stay open - what hope is there for everyone else?"
***If the makers of a GOTY competitor that outdid sales and Game Pass expectations and owned by the richest company in the world cannot stay open - what hope is there for everyone else?***
None if you stay in an arena of corporate driven metrics. And this is what happens when you allow publishers to buy up massive amounts of studios and IPs. There's only so much internal competition and the focus in the end will remain on those who look best on a spreadsheet.
Players can be so driven by what is best for them and only see what is put right in front of them. But that's not what is best for them. They are being lied to constantly, as seen by Microsoft's ridiculous praise for Hi-Fi Rush and Phil's lies about Redfall prior to release and how big of a supporter of both studios he has been. But, instead of thinking "wait, this corporation wants me to think this way, should I be listening to them and believing them?" players eat it up and go "OMG, did you hear what they said! They're just like us and they know what's best for the industry."
And because of this single-mindedness of the majority of gamers, we are where we are now. Massive layoffs. Massive studio closures. Games that we were told were representative of the core values of said corporations shelved and studios behind them shuttered. The truth is coming to bear because the truth all along was only what the numbers in an excel spreadsheet told the corporate suits.
If you truly want what is best for the industry, what is best for developers, then you need to support Indie games, support developers that maintain control over their IPs and direction, support boutique publishers who only exist to help Indies make it out the door and don't own the IP. Stop supporting major corporations with your money or you devotion. Stop playing their games, and I don't mean video games, but their marketing, their double speak, their guy without a tie who says things you want to hear PR, their future of video gaming concepts as if we were hurting for new ways to play games other than installing/downloading and playing them, and especially any slogan from them that gives the impression that they are for you, the consumer. They are not. You're merely a value on a spreadsheet.
Sure, I'm the one drinking the koolaid. Keep believing in the corporations. They definitely have your best interests in mind. All hail the Big Green, For You Blue, and Nostalgia Red! All praise big corporations buying up other publishers. All praise the inevitable spreadsheet adjustments. For greed, not the players.
@Christopher - look, I didn't mean to sound rude with my comment there, you do make some good points. However, it doesn't have to be all doom and gloom. If this is honestly how you feel, then you don't have to game anymore, you can go find another hobby and put your time and effort into that.
Do I wish that these gaming companies were always a customer first driven business? Sure, that would be great and dandy, but that's not real life, nor it is realistic to expect that fully.
Saying to stop supporting these corporations, or my guess is specifically only Microsoft considering this is the mantra at N4G, isn't the answer. Indie games are great and I have adored plenty of them, but imagine a world with no Halo's, Zelda's or Last of Us titles. No thanks.
***However, it doesn't have to be all doom and gloom. If this is honestly how you feel, then you don't have to game anymore, you can go find another hobby and put your time and effort into that. ***
Do you know how many great a indie games there are out there? Why would I need to stop gaming at all? There are even AAA quality indie studios who develop and publish their own games still. Why would I need to leave gaming when I can instead support the good elements of the industry?
***Saying to stop supporting these corporations, or my guess is specifically only Microsoft considering this is the mantra at N4G, isn't the answer. Indie games are great and I have adored plenty of them, but imagine a world with no Halo's, Zelda's or Last of Us titles. No thanks. ***
First, pretty sure my reply to you makes this about all of them, not just Sony.
Second, I can easily imagine not playing those games considering the mass majority of us spend over 99% of our time playing other games from third party studios as it is.
Third, the answer is indeed to speak with your wallet. As long as you keep supporting these companies with your wallet, they will continue to treat studios the same. It's obvious that MAU don't matter, as seen by the closure of Tango Gameworks, the canning of promised updates to Halo Infinite, and the canning of TLoU MP.
Fourth, speaking with your wallet can also mean just waiting for deep sales and never buying MTX. This is how I support Ubisoft. I pay practically nothing for their games that I'm not even a blip on their radar. Even if it's a great game, I wait for a deep deep sale because I want them to get as little as possible from me until I feel they've changed their ways.
I don’t always agree with you. But you are correct and well said. It amazes me on what used to be a pretty straightforward industry has turned into such a greedy mess. Layoffs galore across the industry and corporates pushing/firing whatever is going to move the bean counters. With no regard for the people making the games. I’m tired of hearing these rich companies saying it’s just business, or an adjustment needed to be made, but it’s not personal. Then on top of it they have to inject corporate inclusivity into every game. On top of releasing broken games and expect people to pay top dollar.
But again well said and we as the consumer need to not only speak up but vote with our wallets.
Anything that makes millions is going to become a miasma of greed and corruption.
Honestly feel like Christopher's comment is on point.
Probably one of the truest statements I've seen on this site rdegarding the gaming industry change.
We have got to support smaller titles and fight against the homogenization thats been happening. Admittedly even from Sony even more so from Ubisoft.
There should be steam group or a site dedicated to listing devs on a scale with how much they control of their IP and if not, I might look into it myself.
I'm liking your agenda man.
This should not be surprising to any of you. We have been saying for MONTHS that Game Pass is not sustainable and that these acquisitions will come at a massive cost to the industry. People refused to grasp the difference between buying and investing in a developer like Insomniac or Housemarque, and buying the entire publisher. People refused to accept that spending billions to acquire the biggest publishers in gaming means you have to RECOUP those costs, and you aren't going to do it without consolidation, focusing on core IP that sells, creating revenue streams via ownership and releasing on other platforms, and closing down studios that are superfluous to the budget requirements. You will not recoup those costs by investing in risky new IP or creative new games and studios.
No, people cheered Microsoft on like they were delivering GOTY titles to their door and pouring money into the industry to grow Indies and triple A projects.
You are getting what you deserve. You take the consequences of the practices you supported.
Layoffs happen. Some games don't succeed. Everyone has seen it happen. Happens even to the winners.
This, however, is goddamn shambolic and if you can't see it now then there's no helping you and you should keep enjoying the "value" of Game Pass while contributing nothing to this industry.
I've never seen the developer of one of the best games of the year get axed before.
Ninja Theory is next after Hellblade 2, I can see them going independent again. There's more to come from MS.
This is exactly it. There is more of this coming. MS runs from one bad idea to the next, and GamePass is an unsustainable train wreck that we get to watch in real time.
GamePass is stalled for subscriber growth, and all that they can hope for is to either A) Reduce the quantity of games (i.e. shutter game studios), B) Reduce the quality of games (to make more mediocre but lower budget offerings), or C) Raise prices on existing customers. Or some combination of those.
MS does not have a passion for the industry. The XBox project, from the beginning, was sparked from the fear that someone else would eat their PC market lunch by making a games machine that replaced the PC. THAT was the entire motivation for getting into the games industry.
I saw it from the outset of day 1 on Xbox it's unsustainable no one was buying their games and a noticeable decline in quality and a push to live service elements to keep subscriptions active was obvious.
I saw it every time I'd go to a physical game shop for a Multi plat pre order no one was there for the Xbox version.
I'd go to CeX or other used game stores and be able to pick up the full range of Xbox studios first party games for 20 bucks and change while on the PlayStation side 20 bucks might get me two PS4 launch games and wouldn't even get me a single Nintendo first party game.
"Ninja Theory is next after Hellblade 2"
Anyone think it's weird it comes out in 2 weeks and there's hardly anything on it
Actually Foxtrot, I don't find it weird. When last has Microsoft thrown advertising weight behind one of their releases? Long gone are the days where their games had the sheer presence of Halo 3 or Gears of War 2. It's all been replaced with "play it day one on Games Pass."
Why spend millions on marketing a product when you aren't SELLING it? The Xbox faithful aren't going to buy it, they're just going to see it on the splash page of Game Pass.
They know what they are doing. If 'you' treat them like "good 'ol simple minded folk", then 'you' are relieving them from blame via ignorance. They knew that they were going all live service, streaming and mobile a long time ago, The Oracle tends to see the obvious. While companies patronize gamers like they are children, which most of them are, may be confused for stupidity, they are also not so stupid they don't understand the decisions that they are making toward the overall direction of their company.
*None of their games were even close to competing for GOTY. They paid for names to be mentioned.
Xbox survived it's first gen by pure luck halo became a hit and it was huge followed up by halo 2 which had one of the biggest marketing campaigns I can remember seeing in the early 00s we had guys in master chief outfits on the sidelines of state of origin as a promo it blew my mind.
Then the 360 fell under the excellent leadership of Peter Moore and outpaced the PS3 for the first three quarters of that generation the only time anyone has ever done that.
Since losing Peter Moore it's been a rapid decline and buying up the industry stank of a desperate move along with the idea of gamepass itself stank of desperation to me no one was buying the X1 they needed something to get people interested and here we are.
I would happily lose gamepass if Xbox could go back to the 360 era style of focused heavy hitters and solid games.
The championing of consolidation they did was disgusting and what's happened as a result is proof they never had gamers or the industry at heart they need their ROI and that's all they cared about big daddy ms has signed a number of blank checks getting them here and it's coming to collect on their debts
Well, MS bought Bungie to get Halo (and shut down the Mac version), which is a big reason they were as successful as they were. And the PS3 actually outpaced the 360, which is why it eventually outsold it despite releasing more than a year later. So really, not much has changed if you think about it.
This is originally posted Xbox Live General Manager at http://gamerscoreblog.com/p... , and has a less controversial headline "Xbox LIVE being discontinued for Original Xbox consoles and games".
Also it's already being discussed at MajorNelson's blog as well:
http://majornelson.com/arch...
i wasn't even aware it was even still up
This will make way for improvements to the current Xbox Live, larger friends list capacity for example.
yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssss
I still liked to play Halo 2 occasionally. That's a really shame but if it's in the name of progress I can't really complain too much.