The head of Xbox talks about the latest console launch.
Microsoft & Xbox have shut down Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks to lay off more workers, insinuating that they're not in the game anymore.
They're headless for a long time because closing tango isn't exactly a good move
Ever since that cringe Kinect reveal they've never been the same. They used to make some amazing games and do great deals with third parties Early on in the 360 era they had games like Chromehounds and Shadowrun, both well ahead of their time. Now instead of nurturing their studios, they'd rather gaslight gamers and throw billions on pre existing studios. Not sure how Spencer is still in a job, I wouldn't trust him to organise a piss-up in a brewery.
We've said all along Spencer needs to go. I wish xbox went back to xbox only with new gears fable forza halo releases lots of third party releases
Those early rainbow 6 Vegas days and phantasy star universe are gone forever
MS has its head in the game but the game they are playing is something different from what console gamers expect from a platform. MS’s end game has always been to use the xbox as a trojan horse.
“Acquisitions always come with cuts”
343 trillion points shield activated
343 trillion percent damage negate activated
All damage reduced to 1 for 343 trillion turns.
MICROSOFT DEFENSE FORCE IS A GO
Especially for Microsoft, when Booty pretty much said they didn't know how to handle that many studios.
Why even make the acquisition then.
Didn’t they make the swipe for Bethesda when Sony wanted like 6 months exclusiveness for Starfield
It’s like…chill, you got Rise of the Tomb Raider for a year.
Do they always come with senseless cuts becasue that's exactly what cutting Tango was, senseless.
Everyone's acting now that game companies care about games and Xbox is committing the Ultimate betrayal, they are all like this and you have just been quiet about it for far too long
I wonder if Microsoft do pull out of the console market that it might open the door for valve to relaunch the Steambox. Competition is good for the industry but Microsoft don't even seem to be trying anymore.
Steam / Valve are one of the few truly pro-consumer bright spots in gaming right now. Thankfully.
From all the money Valve make from Steam they reinvest almost 0 into creating new AAA titles for the PC platform, Absolutely no giving nothing back in that regard. Wake up.
“Your game has won some pretty significant awards and is a show piece for where we want to go in the future.”
1 hour later.
“We’re gonna have to let you go. You can’t cover our 100 billion dollar acquisition. Oh and take your awards too 👍🏾”
"They want you to believe the devs under them are super stoked to work generative AI into their processes," continued Gaider, "but I assure you what they took as excitement was really a veiled wail of despair not unlike the time that team was informed of their new 'really cool' live service mandate.".
I think anyone with some common sense knew this, im glad i don't support their games anymore, what a sh!t company.
I said this yesterday. AI isn't what we want when it comes to crafting artistry. Alas, these soulless corporate morons don't care about their work, only about cutting corners as much as possible.
One modder produced an unofficial, modern-day take on the Game Gear.
What irks me here is that he is basically saying that he doesn't care if people are educated on the difference of system names, the X vs the S. He says people go into a store and know there is a more expensive one, and a cheaper one. There is going to be a lot of confusion with consumers who don't live and breathe gaming news - parents, grandparents, girlfriends, wives who just buy the cheaper one not knowing that it's actually underpowered, not just scaled back on hardware features.
I used to love my 360, bt MS has really lost its way these days.
Da fugg.. Why are they showing a pic og Jamie Oliver?
Better not talking, when not delivering.
This was actually a good read.
It's interesting to see their business model and take with GamePass and trying to expand outside of the traditional gaming market with Streaming.
With GamePass they're obviously taking a large loss upfront in the hopes of making that money back up once they establish the service as THE PLACE for games, in which case they will need their entire ~60m user base (based on XBO) onboard but also non-traditional console gamers as well. It's a high risk, and its one I don't think is going to pan out for them the way they want. I see it being a successful service and reaching around 40m subscribers, but you have to deal with laws of other countries & censorship, simply being able to simply offer the service in other countries, and getting non-console gamers to even care about a console-style streaming service.
I think GamePass is a golden opportunity from a developers standpoint, because obviously Xbox is throwing money left and aright at them to build a pool of good content, and on top of that they can still get PlayStation, Switch, and in some cases mobile sales as well. Xbox is literally covering almost entire development budgets and paying a chunk of cash (tens of thousands/hundreds of thousands / and even millions) to get exclusive content. Again this is causing them to take a big loss on the service but for developers, this is the golden age of having the publisher under their thumb.
Now the problem is leaking money for too long then it will inevitably lead to a price increase of $20/mo. then up to $30/mo., Content quantity or quality (/if not both) with be reduced to maximize profits, and if it still doesn't make the profit it needs then eventually it will have to be completely restructured and rebranded into something else (Something like PS+ Collection but more expansive) or canceled.
It's a big risk but considered they've been outsold by the competition every generation it's one they had to make, although I personally would have gone another route as this goal isn't going to be the standard for the industry for another 10 - 15 years. The PC focus is obviously an improvement for them as PC software sales have soared to the point of surpassing Xbox and rivaling PlayStation last year for major publishers.