The blog says they’re looking to keep working closely with them. Game Pass deals are all they need for family games, they’ve gotten a ton of them into the service already.
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With each passing day MS proves how/why they are a competently run business and that they can see the forest for the trees.
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Bluey is charting well in most played.
Unbelievably dumb move
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While I’m a little sad to see they didn’t want to remain first party for whatever reason (might still be some bad managers left in ABK atm?), at least it seems they’ll still be published by Xbox / Activision for now so we get the benefits of their output and they get to be happy.
I’ve got friends on both sides of the “console wars” so often can overreact to news around Xbox as I get it in the neck, but in this situation if that’s what Toys for Bob wanted I’m happy for them and glad it’s likely to still be on Game Pass and Xbox
We wait years for Xbox to finally acquire a good family friendly studio and then they support them to go independent? What the…?
Good for T4B but I really don’t get Xbox sometimes. T4B will probably be acquired by someone else within a few years.
Hopefully Xbox held on to Crash and Spyro etc.
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Double Fine is fine enough. Yeah, I said it. T4B has shrunk a lot thanks ABK who in turn to MS. Plus, this set precedent that Xbox doesn’t kill studios but give them a chance to go elsewhere. Let’s face it, it would die if Bobby was still in charge. To me, I find this nice.
Yes, Xbox still owns Spyro and Crash. ABK purchase is franchise purchase.
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I imagine after years of being pushed into being a Call of Duty support studio they saw their chance and went for it, and given Xbox’s push to give studios a relatively high amount of creative freedom - it makes sense that they wouldn’t hold on to a studio that didn’t want to be there. Or perhaps there was the risk of studio closure with all the recent cuts and this was their only option to survive.
Either way I am sad to see them go, I had hoped they would be something truly special under Xbox - but I am glad they will continue to work with Xbox moving forward.
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Phil said for many years that they need more family friendly content for Game Pass and now they finally have a great studio for that and they let it go indie instead of making it bigger…like wat?
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Unfortunately I wouldn’t really consider Double Fine very family friendly though. For example suicide is one of the topics raised in Psychonauts.
Phil himself said they need more family friendly content which was after DF were acquired.
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I hope Xbox make everyone realize or rather remember that CoD has 5+ studios being worked every year and when you separate them to give them a chance, there’s a lot to feed the whole market.
lol they can still make Spyro and Crash, MS just owns the IP. Also still day one on gamepass. Wish them the best of luck.
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Doesn’t really matter if the studio doesn’t want to be under Xbox.
They took their chance to be free, hopefully it works out for them.
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I honestly dont know what to make of this.
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The IP’s are under Activision.
On first glance it might suck, but maybe for the better for the studio to be removed from the Activision structure, noting that they’re still planning on working together… though I wonder why wasn’t that step taken before the layoffs…
Honestly, as an Xbox fan I can see why it is bad news… But in reality it can’t be bad news as the studio wanted to do it, and if MS is still the publisher and giving them support outside of the Microsoft Gaming team, then more power to them.
I’ll be there for them.
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Its not bad news for anyone. A studio gets freedom and a chance to survive, they are still working with MS.
T4B is about 50 people at this point. Its not the studio that people think it is anymore. It needs a fresh start.
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So next few games Microsoft / Activision published, create a popular live service game then when it starts to reach its end (maybe after a sequel) get acquired by Sony for silly money but stay multi-platform.
The Bungie route 
In seriousness though, sad to see they didn’t want to remain first party for whatever reason (might still be some bad managers left in ABK atm?) but at least it seems they’ll still be published by Xbox / Activision for now so we get the benefits of their output and they get to be happy
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Microsoft said ABK planned this so I’m not sure how business work under corporation like this, but I imagine it couldn’t be undone.
It was either this or being shut down I think