Just seen the news… What the actual f***!
Xbox finally has a talented Japanese studio and they close them down! Hi-Fi Rush was my GOTY!
Arkane Austin too 
.
I swear Xbox just want to punish themselves.
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It does seem particularly unfair given for example Redfall wasn’t what Arkane Austin wanted to make - the live service / co-op elements were forced on them by Bethesda in order to try and make money beyond the purchase price.
They should have at least been given a chance to make games with the support of a financially-secure Xbox and see what they’d produce - Prey showed what they could achieve, and HiFi Rush if it had been better marketed (I mean was there a demo, or many ads?) it really could have been a much bigger hit than it was
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What a fucking nightmare!
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Just saw this quote on Other Era from the Xbox documentary. I will not trust anything from Xbox ever again. How often will these corporations repeat the same cycle over and over and not learn anything? Probably forever…
“We acquired Lionhead in 2006, and shut it down in 2016. A couple of years later we reflected back on that experience. What did we learn, and how do we not repeat our same mistakes?”
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Oh, they have a lot to answer.
I hope Ryan can rip into them into his interview cause this was the worse thing imaginable alongside the single player multiplat stuff.
I said this again. Some of the Xbox higher ups need to go. Cause its clear to me that these idiots to not value their studios at all and it will backfire.
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Here I thought something like Gamepass was supposed to prevent this kinda thing and lead to more creativity in this space again.
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This is really sad for those affected and a(nother) sign of how ultimately these companies are about making money not art nor even fun (primarily).
Saying that, its frustrating to see outrage being expressed by folks with big followings who we all know will engagement farm the hell out of this in the coming weeks for ad revenue before doing the same in the coming weeks with showcase rumours and debrief.
(Edit to say this isnt shade thrown at our good hosts at xboxera - i dont doubt their tone and reflection will be thoughtful and measured).
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Yeah, if they start to focus only on AAA hit games they’re not better than Sony. I mean, Sony actually releases blockbusters games on a frequent basis.
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For Fucks sake this is horrible, this industry is just completely in the shitter. I’m SO FUCKIMG tired of all the negative crap coming out of gaming lately, all the tit for tat stupid shit and fanboy wars and industry crap with the entire hobby falling apart.
I JUST WANT TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES, but this damn hobby is so toxic that keeping up with gaming news is like fucking depressing.
Think this is me stepping away from forums/sites and news and just casually playing games I like as a hobby.
FUCK this crap,
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I thought the question, “Where are you going then?” because really, nowhere is safe. It’s like that South Park episode about expanding a brand, only to burn it down in which leads to a new familiar cycle with the next one. You could “argue” that Nintendo is the safest bet, but once they jump to this generation, who really knows if they will be safe.
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https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1787859093966717279
Yep, no more creativity and smaller games it would seem…
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So frequent, they won’t come back until March 2025; literally what they said in their investing call. Face it, this industry as a whole is really screwed up.
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I say it will live under “partnership” and other developers.
Ppl condemning Spencer once of course it not his call. This system is broken and it is not sustainable and sucking us out. These companies are reporting profits over profits, and what they do? Close studios, stores, fire ppl why? To post even higher profits next quarter to appeal the hungry investors. This industry is not for gaming, but for investor, this should be pretty clear to anyone at this point. The system is sucking everything to the abyss, run to hills and grab the most money you can hold. This is the logic of investors that is translated in these kind of situation.
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I’m pretty much there as well. I’ve been paying way less attention lately and have focused more of my time on indie games and going back to play some older retro games I never got around to.
As much as this all sucks, great games will continue to get made and released at a cadence far greater than what we had in the past. It’s just the culture that surrounds videogames that makes everything seem like the absolute worst.
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I can only react to the news, but can’t really point finger at someone or rather can’t “charge” him to a degree. Like can you be FULLY responsible or partial or third party perspective. This whole thing is a mess.
Xbox was the last hope to see some diversity from a platform holder 1st party wise with all those smaller studios and the supposedly more welcome to riskier projects nature of a sub like GP…at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ll see big changes in Game Pass as well till the end of the year.
And to echo @Knottian 's point…with this hyper capitalistic notion of numbers must always go up this industry could be pretty much fucked at this point.
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Who could have guessed when the narrative “sales matter” started to get spread amongst the usual PR outlets.
Blockbuster AAA is literally Songs strategy.
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Not good. Because it’s not like these super huge AAA games don’t take years to make, sigh. What a shame.
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Xbox have shown no record in actually producing succesful blockbusters either.
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