By all visible metrics, Hi-Fi Rush in particular is an extremely successful and widely acclaimed game. So just being really good at making games is clearly not enough to prevent you from getting shut down.
Community MetaSteam | May 2024 - Wake up samurai, we gonna get this Persian kitty home
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Kinda makes you worry for a studio like Double Fine that specializes in smaller games that don't exactly set the world on fire...
Surefire like Redfall was
Surefire like Halo is
Surefire like Starfield is
Nothing in AAA is surefire.
You are one middling game away from closing the studio.
Until the market stabilizes and budgets (and expectations!) calm down, you are better off making safe AAA sequels with moderate budgets. AND A to AA games with a wide net in genres and scope as possible. So that you can react to market conditions and player taste faster. Maybe there is even the next Halo, TLOU, COD, GTA, Palworld, Minecraft, Stardew, etc. among those A and AA games.
Because then you have EXPERIENCED and CONFIDENT developers.
Dumping all money in massive AAA games that take 5 to 10 years is just asking for the Studio to be closed. And can even impact successful small studios as collateral.
I can see why some people supported a number of acquisition by MS, which includes me. Some of the studios that they bought may not have survived for long without their capital, including Double Fine, Obsidian, and Tango. They make great games but these games don't sell well. In a perfect world having supports from a first-party platform owner can safeguard their future, financially-speaking.
However, we all now know the world is not perfect. Feel free to call me stupid, but a first-party platform owner who saved some weak but talented developers sounded great to many people. The important thing is if there are people still cheering for acquisition after today. I went to Xboxera just now and most of these hardcore xbox fanboys are fucking pissed, just like any sane person should feel.
I feel that the ABK acquisition is actually the final straw. The cost was too big and MS higher-ups want to see results quick, so they cut these "minor" studios and re-focus their resources on big and important games. Fucking short-sighted if you ask me.
Saw some threads on Reddit about it being blocked too. I'm ignorant on the situation, but I saw a few posts discussing how Valve might not pay taxes in the country and if that's the case then yeah that'll do it.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying it's good or bad just that that's how (big) companies see it (you just need to see how WB did with Suicide squad).
The problem with this is companies keep firing and hiring new people which leads to retraining which leads to lack of experience (but that's a tech industry wide problem).
Tango being shut down is very ominous news for XGS studios like Ninja Theory, Compulsion, and Double Fine, none of which are set up to produce big AAA releases
Double Fine is one in real danger because they are in expensive area.. Ninja Theory is smaller team in UK where developers are cheap as hell compared to US. Compulsion is in Canada so cheaper than US nut not as cheap as UK.
But new hires have cheaper salaries. Surely this will make profits go up!
Imagine making the only decent game Xbox has released in the past 6 years and then being thanked by closing down your studio. Fucking rats.
If I were a Microsoft-owned studio I would be fucking terrified of being the next casualty of the Microsoft Studio Graveyard.
Thank god Toys for Bob got the fuck out of there.
If I were a Microsoft-owned studio I would be fucking terrified of being the next casualty of the Microsoft Studio Graveyard.
Thank god Toys for Bob got the fuck out of there.
The smaller studios are on thin ice, which is ironic considering this interview awhile back:
Pentiment wouldn't have been possible without Game Pass, says Obsidian's Josh Sawyer
Obsidian's Josh Sawyer has said Pentiment never would have been made without Game Pass. The medieval-em-up is definitel…
www.eurogamer.net
Microsoft has Call of Duty now and doesn't have to pretend to care about auteur projects any more.
I mostly stay out of such topics, but this one hurts.
What kind of business strategy are these leaders running? To kill value creating studios and people?
These people shouldn't work in games industry for the utter disrespect they just did.
UK is only cheap because they're competing with the thousands of devs already laid off here
Microsoft, what is it you doing
But there's definitely been a shift in Xbox plans due to things not working out as they thought they would. Sucks.
Yeah, there is a timeline where these earlier acquisitions worked out.
But there's definitely been a shift in Xbox plans due to things not working out as they thought they would. Sucks.
It never made sense to me when phil said this but then again I never bought into the magic of gamepass. The one thing that will always hold true is that games need to make money at the end of the day. Fairy dust like MAU and other made up analytics don't pay the bills, money does, and letting everyone rent your niche games for $10 was silly.
This comes on the heels of every TV sub crashing and burning except for netflix they're the only ones who managed to make some sense of this model. The others have spent untold billions to just keep losing money every year. Microsoft saw this happening and went what if we did the same thing but in an industry where it makes even less sense to do so because the majority of people aren't playing a bunch of games they're living in a handful of already free to play live service games 24/7.
Now I'll remind you that a bunch of executives got paid tens of millions of dollars to have that galaxy brain idea and put it into action while we get paid the bare minimum to get by despite being much smarter than this.
My issue with the original quote in that thread is that they have been sacrificed to prop up Bethesda.
So last week we had a reminder that corporations don't really care about the players (until they get hit in the wallet). This week the reminder is that corporations don't care about the people who work for them,
"Prioritizing high impact titles" just a shit corporate excuse to fire and shutdown any studio that isn't selling 10+million titles.
They are going with the Sony strategy but again..the difference is Sony is still selling the Playstation really well around the world. At least as well as the PS4 in same time frame. So Sony could weather this type of storm and still set revenue records with 3rd party software.
With Xbox they aren't selling that well so good luck with this wait and bake AAAA strategy. They expect PC gamers to pick up the slack but these big games are all one flop away from you losing hundreds of millions of $$$. They need to sell so much more Xboxs for this strategy to work.
They are going with the Sony strategy but again..the difference is Sony is still selling the Playstation really well around the world. At least as well as the PS4 in same time frame. So Sony could weather this type of storm and still set revenue records with 3rd party software.
With Xbox they aren't selling that well so good luck with this wait and bake AAAA strategy. They expect PC gamers to pick up the slack but these big games are all one flop away from you losing hundreds of millions of $$$. They need to sell so much more Xboxs for this strategy to work.
Man that has got to be some awful timing on that Humble Bundle.
Giveaway
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This giveaway is a raffle and will be closed after May 8, 2024 at 2:35 AM. A winner is chosen randomly with the key delivered via a PM.
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- Hi-Fi RUSH
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Unfortunately it's not just gaming industry. I doubt that there is single industry these days where these things don't happen.
first Humble Choice I've bought in quite a while. the four games on the right are all on my wishlist (particularly Mediterranea Inferno), and while I've already played through Hi-Fi Rush, I'm glad to have a copy that isn't tied to a Game Pass subscription.
Man.
but yeah, that timing is one hell of a coincidence
They're fully owned by Microsoft through the ZeniMax acquisition and either the studio would need to find another company to buy them or raise up money and buy themselves out.
Yeah, I see the situation as a bit strange.
The funny thing about the whole Hades 2 situation is that it's explained pretty clearly in the beginning that the protagonist is actually Zagreus's daughter, so I can see why they'd want to try something different with a female protagonist. I just think people on social media are too jaded from games with whedonesque writing and overused millennial writing tropes (for example: Steve Urkel type characters and characters with the killmonger haircut) trying desperately to appeal to everybody (When really, such a thing is nigh impossible to do), and mis-avertedly blaming it on diversity, when that's not really the problem here.
The only way you could try to claim that the game is "woke", based on what I've seen of the game, is purely based on the engagement farming articles that certain gaming sites have been pushing for controversy and clicks, when we know that these same sites would try to "cancel" the game and attempt to pedo-jacket it 0.0000025 microseconds after it drops if it was hetero-normative (not coded or pandering towards women or gay people that read smutty romance novels or spend too much time on Tumblr). Not that those kind of games are a bad thing, variety is the spice of life, just that there's a reason why they gave the bear druid scene in Baldur's Gate 3 a pass. The same engagement farming sites were quick to jump on the Xenoblade 2 hate train, just to then glaze the third game at every waking opportunity. The way that I see it, these gaming outlets are once again creating a culture war problem. How much of this is down to engagement farming on social media and the Steam forums, I'm unsure at this point.
That said, I'm looking forward to giving the game a try once it leaves early access. The game seems alright and the soundtrack is an improvement over the first game's.
Yeah harassing over something like that (not like harassing individual employees is acceptable at all) I think is pretty petty. Big difference to me between changing something that already exists and making something entirely new.
This is so funny when you consider that most of Xbox's big games as of late have been live service failures and then there's Starfield, which Walmart was suggesting they'd sell for $4 and then dump the remaining copies in landfills.
Halo Infinite (Enough has been said about this already), several Forza Motorsports games (Including the developers lying about physics being built from the ground up, needlessly demanding system requirements, poor optimization, corruption with how they handle the community and game moderation), Starfield, Redfall. Could go on. While Halo MCC is in a okay state right now, there's a bunch of issues with it that haven't been fixed. And yet Microsoft is still choosing to pump and dump billions of dollars into these failed ventures while ignoring feedback.
And it doesn't help that I'm already skeptical of Hellblade 2 and the other stuff that Microsoft is working on. I wish they'd just put that Activision + Blizzard acquisition to good use and greenlight a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4.
The Xbox client and the Microsoft Store still being unstable, Windows 11 still being a glorified beta with half of it's features not working or cancelled (Windows Subsystem for Android, the only Android emulator on PC that wasn't spyware), the Xbox system software having like so many UI problems, the Final Fantasy XIV banning problem showing how Xbox has replaced actual moderation with AI, their controllers being the absolute worst with how complacent they've been. Not even to mention how 343i and many of their other studios have bled through employees due to Microsoft's hiring practices and poor management as a result.
HiFi Rush was like the one rare W that Microsoft and Xbox had, and they completely blew it. I don't feel sorry for them (Or Sony) anymore. I hope the employees can swiftly find somewhere else to work that will hopefully treat them better.
The only Japanese support that Xbox has at this point are several year old ports of games, stuff from Bandai Namco/Capcom/Sega that have already been adjusted for western appeal, and Dragon Ball. Which isn't much.
I tried this with Devotion and Driver: San Francisco, and sadly both showed up as region locked, and prevented me from going further.
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Nintendo quarterly Software sales.
18% of sales are 3rd party.
There are some Japanese powerhouses in those 3rd party sales.
So where is the narrative of those Indie "Switch successes" coming from?
€dit: Seems like 1st party full revenue against 3rd party Nintendo Revenue (the money that goes to Nintendo from every 3rd party sale.)
Also, the last 5 years:
FY23: 79.1% (source: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2023/230509_3e.pdf)
FY22: 78.8% (source: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2022/220510_6e.pdf)
FY21: 79.4% (source: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2021/210506_3e.pdf)
FY20: 82.8% (source: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2020/200507_3e.pdf)
FY19: 83.8% (source: in the FY20 report above)
18% of sales are 3rd party.
There are some Japanese powerhouses in those 3rd party sales.
So where is the narrative of those Indie "Switch successes" coming from?
€dit: Seems like 1st party full revenue against 3rd party Nintendo Revenue (the money that goes to Nintendo from every 3rd party sale.)
Also, the last 5 years:
FY23: 79.1% (source: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2023/230509_3e.pdf)
FY22: 78.8% (source: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2022/220510_6e.pdf)
FY21: 79.4% (source: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2021/210506_3e.pdf)
FY20: 82.8% (source: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2020/200507_3e.pdf)
FY19: 83.8% (source: in the FY20 report above)
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Many Nintendo first-party games sell 5-15 million+ whereas third-party games selling over 1 million is already a huge, huge success. The numbers match.
Regarding the indie successes, I think they can be relatively successful compared with Sony or Xbox, because the latter two either don't advertise or just put them on Game Pass. Meanwhile, these successes definitely have no match to those on Steam where indie games can really blow up.
Edit: Also maybe the narrative comes from the first or second year because I haven't read such success story on Switch for a long time.
What seems insane to me is that T2 or Microsoft or some other video games megacorpos are still making money. They're still profitable. But instead of cultivating talent and technical expertise from the people who made it profitable in the first place, they're more concerned about watching ROI numbers goes exponentially high on the next financial report. And possibly using that ROI to fund yet another acquisition, and thus complete the circle of insanity.
Another thing that raised my ire today is some people are still defending Phil Spencer. And I quote: “But he’s a good human and he cares deeply for the creative process and developers.” This is hilarious to me because if he cared about the creative process in the first place, Phil should be out of the job since as far as I've seen, he's fucking terrible at it. Phil also have the privilege to come home that night to play on his Xbox rather than explaining to his family that he's been sacked.
But anyway, what do I know. I'm just a weeb.
Another thing that raised my ire today is some people are still defending Phil Spencer. And I quote: “But he’s a good human and he cares deeply for the creative process and developers.” This is hilarious to me because if he cared about the creative process in the first place, Phil should be out of the job since as far as I've seen, he's fucking terrible at it. Phil also have the privilege to come home that night to play on his Xbox rather than explaining to his family that he's been sacked.
But anyway, what do I know. I'm just a weeb.
Is all that came to mind for the Microsoft stuff today
With the Sony check (Forcing changes on games that already had ESRB and CERO ratings, and were compliant within legal laws to release), and closing down Japan Studio, it really feels like they kneecapped themselves in the process. I have only seen one game release so-far that had it's Switch release canceled for content reasons, and that got a Steam release anyways. The fact of the matter was that Japanese developers were the only ones keeping the PS3 and Vita afloat when Sony had a problem with getting people to adopt it.
Nintendo still makes most of their bank off their recognizable first-party games, licensed merchandise, and profit margins on their hardware (regardless of how dated the Switch is, or how their joycons aren't built to last), but considering the Switch is the only console platform nowadays that's really getting close to PS2 numbers, that's pretty impressive.
I sold my Switch because I barely used it, but if a Switch 2 releases soon, I will probably get one of those before I buy a PS5 or an Xbox Series console.
Yeah while there's something to be said about how bloated and slow the eShop is, susceptible to the same issue of shovelware as PSN and Steam, at least Nintendo advertises new third-party game releases on their official outlets fairly often.
I'd probably get a Switch 2 once the hardware exploit is out in the open. I've got to have my overpriced cartridge ripper after all.
This is jeff grubb talking about Perfect Dark. I've been saying this for years but the industry's been needing to talk about how seemingly every MS game has severe mismanagement issues for a while but it's largely gone ignored.
Halo Infinite- we all know how bad this was handled by now
Forza- MS gave them 6 years to make a standard racing game and it launched woefully incomplete and full of issues
Hellblade 2- It's finally coming out after 5 years since it was announced despite the fact it's a budget sub 10 hour game. What took so long?
Sea of Thieves- It may be ok now but it launched as a bare shell of a game and took 2 extra years to fix.
State of Decay 3- missing in action since it was announced in 2020
Perfect Dark- multiple years of reports of this being a total shit show
Fable- Was leaked by eurogamer in 2017 and here we are 7 years later and it's nowhere in sight
Everwild- missing in action since it was announced and reports have come out in the last few years that even Rare had no idea what this game was meant to be
Redfall- this may have been started with zenimax but MS had ample time to look it over or help fix it and they did nothing
Starfield- again may have been started with zenimax but MS did nothing to really help fix the game's many issues. When it launched it was missing standard things like a FOV slider, brightness slider, maps. It was another woefully incomplete game that took 5+ months to get these things.
Holy shit Microsoft stop shoving Windows 11 down my throat I don't want your shitty OS.
Did Nintendo get lucky with the Switch?
Back in the day those indie devs were lucky that Breath of the Wild turned into a huge success.
Back in the day those indie devs were lucky that Breath of the Wild turned into a huge success.