As someone who just recently got laid off. Seeing those statements from Phil saying basically that Xbox is going to be better than ever after completely ruining families summers is ghoulish and pathetic. I’d probably cry if I saw that if I just got laid off like that.
I hope everyone lands on their feet. I get why these things happen, it’s just sad to see it done in a callous way.
Sorry to hear that, hope you can move on to something better soon.
I don’t think there’s a good way to do that sort of thing. 
As opppsed to what? The happy and delightful way to fire people?
They gave results and good one at that. Not saying they’re invulnerable to layoff or closure, but they don’t disappoint not just us.
Perfect dark was from a brand new studio built from the ground up though it’s not like it was an established studio taking that long
Unless invited in, I don’t think we’ll ever get the big picture of how this was decided. Can only speculate.
They’ll no doubt be journalists and youtubers frothing at the mouth at this news because it gives them so much content to shit on Xbox, but Microsoft don’t exactly help themselves. They went on an unprecidented spree, hyped up security and creativity thanks to gamepass (obviously things change i get that) but then end up closing studios from said spree and laying off so many from those studios.
From the outside looking in some of these cancellations aren’t surprising but still sad nonetheless. I always thought with Joanna Dark they had the chance to create a new mascot character for the brand and the verticle slice looked impressive. It’ll be interesting to know why that game ended up being cancelled. Was it too expensive a risk for just a AAA single player game in this day and age or was the game struggling to come together?
It’s a strange era for Xbox at the moment. On paper potentially so many quality games but now more than ever there’s a fear that you just don’t know who’ll be next to get shutdown. Like Rare for example, as good as SoT has done, i hope they’ve had something else cooking and it hasn’t been just Everwild for the last 6 years or so.
Who said that. I’m just saying you can acknowledge laying off people without including sentiments saying “this is going to make us better” right after that.
I think partly why Obsidian do so well, like Insomniac often have, is they know the game they want to make, re-use assets if they can, and most importantly stick to the scope and cut / tweak as needed to deliver.
It’s a skill that few development leads and teams have, and it’s worth its weight in gold as scope creep or not having a clear vision can be a death blow to a team in the current hellhole that is the game development landscape
Thank you, I already got something lined up thankfully.
Why would you do it if it wasn’t to make you better?
Yeah, it’s a different time but Microsoft seems to have major issues with development . Something is wrong with management where they can’t project the scope of their projects properly. There seems to be major disconnect to have these issues. I think it’s unfair not to give these studios a chance to see the finishing line but I guess they go by sunken cost fallacy. I think something like perfect dark should get the chance to release becuase not like they’re going to do anything with the ip and you never know what reception will be like
Im just saying, there is a zero percent chance he even wrote that statement. It was assuredly drafted by legal and PR. Firing people is callous with or without the statement.
Are you serious? This doesn’t make Xbox better it makes numbers go up for stock holders
I don’t really care to go back and forth if you feel the need to defend it.
I’m just simply saying you don’t have to say “these lay offs will make us better”. If you have an issue with that, that’s fine. I’m not looking to change your minds, it’s just my opinion.
Many companies are facing this kind of issue of giving them a chance. Xbox did have an issue of developing games with going to deep depth of hell. Now they have the issue of laying off at any time. PD is basically Scalebound of this gen. Feels like there might be more to the story but remember, this game did go to hell. Every other games developing today (not including publishing) are so far going normal pace.
Sadly, that doesn’t mean trouble is gone for good. There’s always bound for one.
seriously, fuck capitalism.
