I have seen a few rumours this morning that Shinji Mikami’s new studio Kamuy has been hiring many of the Tango employees.
Not sure if there’s much truth to it, however it would suggest Shinji may have known this was happening when he left Tango.
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Spanish Xbox leaker Extas1s (good record) says his sources tell him folks at Obsidian, Compulsion and Double Fine are really really worried at the moment.
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Of course they are, the message MS sent was that even though you devs made an award winning game even if you are successfull it is not enough, it does not matter anymore, numbers will do all the talk they cant wait longer for the userbase to grow they want all the possible money ASAP
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Bullshit. Can we skip the rumor mongering?
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Not sure why Obsidian are worried, The Outer Worlds sold well and they generally do pretty well in both reviews and sales…
Compulsion and Double Fine I can understand - they don’t have quite the same name recognition and their next games may sell amazingly or they may struggle, it’s a coin toss whether they’re promoted well, come out near other bigger games etc.
Turn 10 I hope are safe, but I hope Xbox learn from Motorsport not doing brilliantly and let them go back to Project Gotham, making more of a track racer than Horizon but still more fun than the super-serious Motorsport
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Maaaaaan, hopefully all these worries will turn out to be unwarranted, but I get them very well. I get that games have to sell well, or do well via GP but it absolutely feels as if things have really changed at MS, and not for the better.
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They’re not going back to Project Gotham. Motorsport is the more popular IP. Which is why Project Gotham is no longer made.
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But it’s so frickin boring lol - I don’t mind the racing, but it’s like they forgot to put any fun in it, there’s no music, no real rivalries or anything interesting in it.
There’s none of the fun and liveliness of Forza Horizon, and none of the fun of the old Project Gotham - it’s a super serious simulation which there doesn’t seem to be a huge market for anymore (and if there is, they’re a group that want much more content than Motorsport launched with).
I admit it’s more my preference - I loved the old PGR games, love Horizon, used to like Motorsport but it feels too samey after a few dozen races
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I shouldn’t laugh, but really? I think you could expand that list a bit. My sources tell me Undead Labs, Ninja Theory are also worried…
I will go a step further, everyone on linked in who works in the games industry is worried (its like a perpetual state of being for most of them)
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Think it’s just people’s wishful thinking, as they’ll feel better if most of Tango’s staff have a job to go to with the founder than being left unemployed
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Also, Pentiment is a game made by like 15 people over three years. Hi-Fi took over five years to make and was developed by hundreds of developers. Totally different scale. I believe there are still space for projects like Pentiment at Xbox.
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Post acquisition close we were all like “Can’t wait to see what they cook up once they’re fully integrated” We didn’t even get to that stage. Awful.
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Yeah I don’t know.
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Yep it’s a horrible time in gaming - EA actually took a risk with Immortals of Aveum, did massive marketing for it (including getting the star to be at the Game Awards) yet it still flopped (despite actually being a pretty decent, good looking game - I picked it up on the 90% off offer).
It’s the danger now, when publishers want £70 for a game we want it to be a known quantity even if reviews are good - whether that’s a developer or IP we know, or it’s got a trial or demo - and we’re right to be wary when so many games release unfinished.
They’ve shot themselves in the foot by allowing game budgets to get so out of control they now have to charge so much even with all the MTX and premium editions - it’s way too much money for most people to risk during soaring inflation and many sectors shedding jobs.
It’s also why Game Pass is such a lifeline to us gamers and I’m sure many developers as it takes the risk out of it.
If there’s no trial, demo or subscription offering, most of us are going to wait for a sale now - if you’re there Day 1 you often get an inferior product, pay the most and won’t enjoy it as much as someone who comes along 6 to 12 months later at half / a quarter of the price…
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Thank god for Grounded…maybe? They pimp player counts but as we can see, player counts don’t really tell us much. Outside of Obsidian I don’t know how these other non-flagship studios are going to survive. Hopefully that limited integration talk means they can just go independent when their games inevitably perform okay.
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Annoyingly, the usual suspects are using this as a chance to kick Xbox with the “see Sony was right, Day 1 subscription services aren’t sustainable”:
It provides a large, regular income to Xbox which is more than its games can be said to do (given it wayyyyyy to often has periods of 6 months or more with no first party releases) and it’s great for us gamers, so they can do one.
There’s also rumours of a Sony showcase this week or next, which thankfully will take some of the attention off Xbox but will provide a poor contrast - Xbox need to come out fighting next month to show us what is worth these painful cuts and get gamers excited again, give us an idea of what the future strategy really is after a few months of not-ideal news
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In 10 years time, even Naughty Dog won’t exist anymore.
So… I think people need to get ready for some ‘shocking’ stuff tbh.
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Making games that do better sales-wise than Redfall and Hi-fi Rush shouldn’t be too hard for them
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Sony’s mismanagement of their studios with this whole live-service push has been abysmal.
At the moment though, it’s been the smaller studios that haven’t put much out that have taken the brunt of their cuts - their gamers were upset as we are (I particularly wasn’t happy about the Getaway developer closing, I loved that game as a kid) but they didn’t have ones that hurt quite as much as Tango and Arkane Austin I think.
But yes if they don’t sort out the mess they’ve made with their studios, some of the big ones could feel the pinch - but at least for now Sony doesn’t seem to be punishing them for their decisions, which unfortunately Arkane Austin does appear to have been (admittedly maybe more Bethesda’s decision than Xbox’s)
I’m not sure - Redfall was marketed quite a bit (compared to Xbox’s usual approach) and HiFi Rush really did have strong word-of-mouth - everyone I knew on PC / Xbox were playing it, Steam reviews were excellent and it really seemed to have a great vibe around it.
I’m not quite sure how some of the other games may outdo them - any that aren’t mainstream may struggle for similar reasons to HiFi Rush, and if any aren’t fully polished / are a bit meh may struggle like Redfall.
Then there’s the risk of other big games launching around them and overshadowing them, as has happened so much in the last few years with the backlog of games releasing post-Covid - and given how much Xbox has to release, they might clash with each other given they seem to push them all out at the same time rather than hold them for the “one every 3 months strategy”.
I bought the Starfield premium edition for early access for example, and would have bought the Forza Motorsport one but it released too soon after Starfield so I was still on that and instead waited for the general Game Pass release - if it had more of a gap between them (for example into the 6 months we’ve been waiting between first-party games) I might have got the upgraded version
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