Michael Futter writes: No gamer, pundit or casual observer can deny that mobile platforms have become serious contenders in the realm of interactive entertainment. My own children have driven that point home for me, with my three-year-old able to deftly manipulate touchscreen devices as if he were born with one in hand.
This is a stark contrast to my own childhood, when only a single weekly encounter with my assigned Apple IIe in the computer lab, glowing a dim monochrome green, meant I would have the chance to chase down Carmen Sandiego one more time.
Even as the company sets out to overhaul the very definition of Xbox, cuts at its studios risk creating a negative image reminiscent of EA's worst era
I appreciate the article but this guy must be living in a delayed universe, The reputation was ruined 10+ years ago and hasn't recovered since. As such people have voted with their wallets and stopped buying Xbox products in large amounts.
Their reputation was lost way before that. From the moment Microsoft said they entering the console business, we all knew it would be a downgrade.
That's not true at all the OG Xbox had drive and they had hunger and they wanted to accomplish something. It was a great console.
they didn't quite reach their goals and they gave up prematurely because they couldn't win. It was halfway through the Xbox 360 when kinect released and that was when they lost their way and we're a rudderless ship ever since
Replies(1)
Rumors of Turn 10 being either shut down or hit with massive lay offs is on the horizon.
The issue is MS will do something right only to do something very, very wrong. And they do this what seems calculative at this point. Doesn't matter what they do the Investors and leadership want more and more money an endless bottomless pit of purr insatiable greed. A company that acts like it's broke or hurting is what really, really infuriates me. They've surpassed apple again well over 3 trillion who acts like they're a million dollar company is fk stupid. Pivots and changes for no reason and can't do things for more than a year with out a pivot or changing their metrics.
That would be really bad since Phil just hyped up next year as a big Forza year at Summer Game Fest.
Isn't the point that it's irrelevant how profitable MS is, the suits have decided it's time that the Xbox division started making them money. Hence the layoffs, the pivots.
That wouldn't surprise me, as motorsport has been heading down hill since the great number 4. Where as playground have consistently put out better games. I think the two studios will be merged under playground games banner.
Replies(2)
The cuts are expected to be announced next week.
Microsoft is also planning thousands of job cuts that will impact other parts of it businesses
Replies(1)Replies(1)
MFs has been beating their chests over great quarterly results and big profits to shareholders while firing people by the thousands just like Sony.
I wonder if at the top of those rumored layoffs they´ll also cancel upcoming or unannounced games while shutting down more studios as well.
Always got to throw shade at Sony smh.
Yes we get it,
MS good Sony bad
MS bad Sony is also bad lmao
F* them both!
Just for the record, I don´t care about your victim complex crap either. Find someone else who cares.
@Blacktiger
Im not offended , that’s just his formula lol
He can’t help help himself, he needs to bring Sony down when the topic involves MS.
Whether is good news for MS or bad, it some how leads to Sony doing bad lmao.
It’s actually hilarious.
He's not wrong but im tracking what youre saying. In this case is should just be MS bad. Thats a lot of people fired
"just like Sony"
Gosh you're insufferable, not everything needs to be both-sides'd. Sony's had layoffs, but nothing like what Microsoft has been doing and is continuing to do.
I mean, no offense, but this is why you’re not some corporate business person running a major corporation. Big profits don’t mean jobs are safe. Do you understand why things like this happen:
Cutting jobs to maintain or increase profitability, especially in underperforming divisions like parts of Xbox like other gaming divisions.
Corporate restructuring and relocating resources for strategic stability in ever changing markets and consumer behaviors.
Investor expectations and optimizing operations to maintain investor confidence. Whatever boosts stock prices and improves future margins.
And there’s many other factors at play. It’s never as simple as business doing well, everyone’s safe. That’s just you not understanding at all how corporations work and have been working since the beginning. This isn’t something that’s specific to Xbox, you can bet your ass Sony and Nintendo do this and if it’s not clear by now, game development is not a stable job nor has it ever been for many. A lot of developers are contractors and guess what happens when a project is done?
Nintendo said they have no plans for layoffs, and you can't seriously claim that the scale of Sony's layoffs most of which involved Bungie which is self managed as even close to the same scale as what Microsoft has done since they purchased Zenimax. And that significantly less layoffs would have happened if those publishers had stayed independent. Keep in mind that much of these layoffs have been due to redundancies specifically related to these buyouts.
@Ganif
Nintendo:
https://gamerant.com/ninten...
Sony:
https://gamerant.com/playst...
https://techxplore.com/news...
I don’t think it’s realistic to treat Sony’s layoffs as somehow outside the norm for the industry right now. Even if Bungie is self-managed, Sony’s cuts went far beyond that like Naughty Dog, Insomniac, London Studio being shut down completely, and multiple teams across the globe took hits. These weren’t just minor adjustments.
Nintendo, I had to look up and you’re right. They seem to be an outlier, but rest assured at some point it happens. And even then there’s been layoffs, albeit a smaller amount and contractors.
Would fewer layoffs have happened if studios from acquisitions stayed independent? Maybe. But even independents have been hit hard and look at what’s happened with Embracer’s fallout, or smaller devs like Digic, Roll7, or Volition. This isn’t just a “Microsoft problem” or strictly tied to acquisitions; it’s a broader correction happening across the whole industry, and unfortunately, layoffs are a big part of that process right now.
From your article:
"According to reports, Nintendo of America restructured its testing operations, leading to layoffs of about 120 contractors, part of a strategy for global integration.
Nintendo of America, publisher of iconic franchises like Mario and Zelda, is shifting some contractors to full-time roles for better development integration."
Contractors are not employees, and even if you want to count them as that, it's 120 people vs around 7500 since Microsoft purchased Zenimax.
In an era of game industry layoffs, Nintendo is hiring more people
https://automaton-media.com...
Nintendo Announces 10 Percent Pay Raise For Devs Despite Lower Profits
https://kotaku.com/nintendo...
Nintendo CEO’s refusal to layoff staff goes viral following industry-wide cuts
"Satoru Iwata took pay cuts to ensure staff didn’t have to be let go"
https://www.nme.com/news/ga...
And as for Sony you're comparing less than 1000 total jobs to an estimated7500
Has the industry faced layoffs, yes, but that still doesn't account for the mass layoffs due to redundancies that was easily predictable, or that fact that at least 1/3 of Microsoft's layoffs and studio closures happened before the industry downturn.
Take the L, Crimson.
People hate Nintendo, but Ganif proved why they deserve support.
It's like banging your head off a wall, he just can't help himself.
Microsoft can do no wrong, Sony sucks at everything and Nintendo is bigged up because it's less hassle than trying to defend Microsoft all the time
What's going to happen when Microsoft finally turn completely third party, then what?
Did you know that the first n4g was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program.
I wouldn't be surprised at this point if anast and osbcure were both alts for the Admin.
We know how Obscure especially drums up additional comments and clicks with his spam-worthy remarks that somehow never get moderated
Thats business present a strong front to your shareholders while your company burns around you.
Keep shareholders happy at all costs andnif not happy keep them numb to the reality of you organisation
" Just for the record, I don´t care about your victim complex crap either. Find someone else who cares. "
Just for the record, you clearly you do if you have to vent this hard.
Basically you think like kids when it come to choose between candy or chocolate.
Mass Damage & Consumer Foundation in the Netherlands has filed a class action against Sony for inflating PlayStation Store prices.
My personal opinion:
Manufacturers and publishers have indeed inflated the industry.
From $700 million development costs for games like Call of Duty, to digital (store) prices for games and DLCs, online multiplayer fees on consoles (why can you play Helldivers 2 online for free on PC but not consoles?) or still preventing sell/lend digitally purchased games.
Sometime in the future, this bubble will collapse.
They should know better, but they just can't help themselves and suck even the last penny out of our wallets.
Because Sony knows people will be forced to pay those prices for single player and multiplayer games, not everyone prefers PC gaming. Sony also has a monopoly on PlayStation digital games. In 2019, they stopped allowing retailers and game key sellers to sell PlayStation digital games, making them available only through the official PlayStation Store
They should be suing the individual publishers increasing the prices to $80 instead of suing the store. There are plenty of publishers still selling game for like $50 with much success (like E33). But this proves that the publishers are the ones setting the prices.... so again nothing changes because they aren't even going after the main offender. How is suing Sony going to make Microsoft not charge $80 for the next COD? Sony being the number one store in the market doesn't mean that publisher have to charge us an arm and a leg. Again the industry is laughing at us because consumers never get real representation. Just these fake platitudes that are meaningless.
"How is suing Sony going to make Microsoft not charge $80 for the next COD"
Because Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly, I can purchase Call of Duty at a huge discount from CDKeys or other gaming retailers. The only way to purchase digital PlayStation games is through the PlayStation Store.
Weird, I swore GoW, Stellar Blade, Horizon Zero Dawn, TLoU, etc. were on the steam store....uh.....
@djI3485
I'm talking about PlayStation games that you can only purchase on PlayStation. I can purchase Steam and Epic games from 3rd party retailers and key stores.
"Sony to stop selling full-game download codes at retailers"
https://www.videogamer.com/...
About time. There is zero fair reason why digitally distributed products that you cannot recoup any value when you want to dispose of them, should be priced higher than that of physical copies that entail all of the costs and the benefits of owning.
Great article! This is something I've been concerned about for a while.
Mobile games will just kill itself. lol
the 3ds is the number 1 system in the world. That shows you how little impact mobile has
Feel sorry for the idiots who Reacted by trashing ios and android games. Smartphones have good games and is as convient as can be but they are in no relation to consoles.
Look, I understand that most mobile gaming devices aren't killers who ascribe to a radical ideology, but a disturbing number of them are, and they receive little in the way of ridicule from supposedly mainstream mobile gaming devices.
Innocent consoles are dying! This senseless violence needs to stop.