That wouldn’t get Naughty Dog shut down, not even close.
Yes.
For what it’s worth I don’t remember such a huge meltdown when Lionhead was closed. People just seemed to shrug & go oh well.
I’ll be blunt here: I reserve my “gamer meltdowns” for stuff that actually impacts me as a consumer. As far as Xbox is concerned right now, everything seems… like business as usual, at least for me. Gamepass is even getting the third party drops I’m interested in as well (Lords of the Fallen is something I’m pretty hyped for).
So… yeah. I won’t delve into the rights & wrongs of corporate firings or capitalism (& that’s a huge topic anyway with multiple facets) but as someone who owns a Series X & pays 15 euros a month for GPU, this doesn’t change anything.
I’ll go further & say the people I’m reading in other places saying stuff like “Xbox is dead to me now, I’m cancelling Gamepass because of this news” really need to go & find God or something because that sort of moral handwringing about a corporation which sells a mere product is not healthy.
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The next TLOU game can cost anywhere between 200 & 350 million dollars to develop.
If it fails because the market loses interest in the genre… then you do the maths. Sony is just as ruthless as MS. They’re not stupid either.
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Maybe they shouldn’t have shadow dropped it Maybe they should have had physical editions that could be put on store shelves at Gamestop. Maybe commercial or two. I dunno…
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I know the aggro or spotlight is on Xbox, but don’t be distracted or manipulated to think other companies are saint.
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It’s to be remembered that COVID struck at the time when Ninja Theory was about to go into the studio to start mocaping. The studio lost two years because of that.
You just need to listen to Nick on the podcast, this is literally what his son is doing as well.
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On one hand, moral handwringing about a corporation torpedoing its employees’ livelihoods on a whim. On the other, endless gushing and fawning over a corporation and its executives for, as you say, selling a mere product. I know which I find most unpalatable.
Besides, it’s not just moral outrage at (perceived) unjustified redundancies. It’s the very thing you said you reserve for your own “meltdowns” - stuff that affects you as a consumer. If Arkane Austin and Tango are two of your favorite developers at Microsoft (hi) their closures have a pretty significant effect on what you’re now looking forward to playing. More generally, if you were looking forward to smaller, more experimental new franchises from Microsoft’s studios (hi, me again) yesterday’s closures and justifications for doing so have a pretty significant impact on what you can now expect as a consumer of the kind of risky, quirky first-party games that Game Pass was supposed to support.
But sure, I’m good, I love mass market stuff, nothing’s changed for me, it’s just a corporation bro, you care way too much, maybe you should find God or something.
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Is this a good source?
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Know the guy, so no.
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I dont remember ‘meltdowns’. The overall sentiment was more like depression when Phil Spencer closed Lionhead. Afterwards only like 5 studios were left. 2016 was a tough year for Xbox and their fans.
I don’t think so…we are gonna see A LOT of BS from new “insiders”. Sataya…umm yeah.
I mean sure if we pretend that Halo and Forza don’t exist or the fact that there were way over 30 million people playing SOT before it hit PS5. Sure. There is nothing special about what Sony puts out and Spider-Man (Insomniac ) has been carrying them along with third party deals. Yes we are all pissed at MS but come on now, no big games? I heard far more about Starfield than I did the new Spidey game which seemed to come and go. They’ve barely done anything first party wise this generation. 90% of people buy it and play the same shit they play on xbox , COD and Fortnite. Even Helldivers was a success mainly for PC.
Only console maker who’s first party IP directly drive it’s sales is Nintendo. NOTHING Sony puts out has anything on the likes of Mario (who is basically the Mickey Mouse of gaming), Zelda Pokemon etc. They shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath. Average Joe Blow on the street has no idea who Elle or Joel are and if they do it’s more than likely from the TV series than the game. People buy PS5 because their friends have it. They are the “it” brand.
Frankly they aren’t handling things much better than MS is, but being Sony they get a pass. Which is why I kinda roll my eyes at people saying they’re going to Sony. Same Sony that closed Japan studio who have been responsible for most of their best stuff since the PS2. (R.I.P Gravity Rush)
We’re all pissed at MS and rightly so but let’s not go overboard here.
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Booty’s email with a line about focusing on high impact titles seems like it could be extrapolated to other parts of Xbox.
It’s just a generic statement. Like when Disney says they’re going to focus on high-impact Marvel movies, it doesn’t mean Disney plus is dialing back on TV shows as a format over film.
There’s no question small games = small movement and big game = big movement, anyone chasing success will alway chase big. Doesn’t mean they won’t make ever make small games.
There is however an absolute abundance of small games (they are called indies) and Game Pass has a stranglehold on them right now.
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Couldn’t agree more but I’m afraid that many ppl right now are incapable of discussing rationally. Just check the reactions on social media, including this very forum, I feel lost.
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I’ve been avoiding Twitter for that very reason. Though a lot of it gets posted here anyway.
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As a big Xbox fan it’s just very sad to see all this shit happening and it’s been not so great for a while now.
Halo Infinite with the mismanagement, whoever’s fault that was, it sucks. The whole Everwild situation which honestly, I’m sorry is just ridiculous. The less said about that, the better and we all know about it anyway.
Now the closing of four Bethesda studios of which two truly sting, Tango being the most because Arkane Austin had lost a lot of people already and i doubt it would get back to their gems like Prey. That’s not to say it’s not a big deal they got closed.
And to top it fucking off Perfect Dark now apparently too if we are to believe Jeff Grubb. Saying that even after Crystal came on board, basically not much has improved at all.
A absolute shit ass year for Xbox so far. With honestly the whole multiplatform news being the less shit news in my opinion.
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People are just happy they have something to be angry about. That happiness will slowly fade until they find something new to be angry about. 
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Still wouldn’t get a studio of that level and legacy shut down.
Will Microsoft care about that? We’ll see.
Halo… 343i got gutted after Halo Infinite so clearly things didn’t go right, otherwise 343i would’ve been kept intact, FH5 is a huge success sure, same for SoT.
Doesn’t matter what you heard more about, Spiderman 2 sold 10 million copies by February and the Insomniac Spiderman series has sold over 50 million units by now, it clearly had a bigger impact than Starfield and console sales and game sales prove it, this isn’t even arguable by the way.
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That’s educated guess. I also think Arkane got 1 year to turn Redfall around. Why do they get closed now if they were only working on Redfall ? Maybe this last update wasn’t doing enough from internal testing so they scrapped it.