The gaming industry in general has high staff turnover especially at lower levels which is why developers and publishers don't force as much crunch time and poor conditions on employees as in the past in an effort to retain staff.
You don't have to try hard to find plenty of evidence of staff turnover affecting games development cycles the last few years.
He probably got tired of being the public face apologising for 343i's incompetence.
Hiring Staten on paper was a fine choice but MS really needed to get the Slipspace engine up to par with additional talented software engineers.
343i as a collective were/are incompetent so replacing any one person wouldn't change much imo.
MS has shareholders who won't be happy to see huge losses in potential revenue should COD and other franchises with huge playerbases on other consoles become exclusive to Xbox.
Evidently MS and others made a more compelling case then Sony for the merger to be approved.
If Sony wasn't in such a dominant position in so many markets the merger may have been blocked, success can be a double edged sword.
Sony should have kept their mouths shut and let the lawyers present their arguments. Not enough thought was put into the public statements various Sony employees made and just weakened their case.
You say that like Sony acquiring developers/publishers is a bad thing.
If Sony acquire SE and SE improve I view that as a win for gamers vs the hapless SE of the last 10 years that that has been poorly managed and become obsessed with web3.0.
The Chinese, UAE and other countries were already buying their way into gaming, you can't blame MS for that.
Longer term the Chinese, UAE and other investors will prove far more damaging to gaming then the western (I include Japan in the west) developers and publishers.
Diablo is already ruined, it was diluted down for the masses with Diablo III and Diablo IV is a continuation of that.
Halo is trash because Bungie wanted out and MS formed a ragtag studio without a proper functional heirachy and management with checks and balances.
In any event Halo started to fade after the high point of Halo 3, despite the sales of Reach it was a divisive game amongst the Halo community.
COD was already moving away fr...
You mean the regulators.
The average gamer has no say in what developers and publishers MS and Sony buy.
The cash for the ABK acquisition came from Microsoft's other divisions. Xbox has bled money for most of its existence because MS is their own worst enemy and has made many mistakes in every console generation they've been a part of.
When they're done is the correct answer, lest we end up with more Forspokens.
Unless Capcom royally screw up I don't see them agreeing to be bought by Sony, Sony would not attempt a hostile takeover of Capcom for fear of it failing and Capcom becoming hostile.
In Australia at least neither PS5's (both versions) nor Xbox Series X were readily available until a few months ago.
There's no such thing as a COVID boost as PS5/XSX consoles simply weren't available in most regions, Microsoft paid for preferential treatment at TSMC but it's unlikely that was for many millions given production constraints at the time.
I think Microsoft is going to have a hard time differentiating themselves to the extent ...
Microsoft really need to up their game with upcoming bundles but that's pretty hard as the value proposition of bundles isn't as great when the same games are likely on Game Pass at release.
Whenever I see sales for the Xbox One it just reinforces that most gamers don't follow gaming media, the Xbox One reveal turned off most Xbox gamers I knew/know who went and bought PS4 but the ones who didn't watch it or know about the resulting fallout still bought what...
I was going to comment but this pretty much sums up my feelings on the state of the game and new hero.
It's pretty obvious the devs are only interested in pushing sales of the battle pass and not balancing the existing roster or adding more free content like maps.
Upvoted but I don't think SE can radically improve things without a management shakeup or cleanout.
It's pretty obvious SE have been trying to copy market trends with the last couple of FF games but they haven't created games that resonate with older FF fans as strongly as prior instalments and don't standout in any way to have the same cult following among new players either.
FFXVI looks to be taking inspiration from Souls-like games and ...
The potential market isn't anywhere near as large as in the past because casual gamers will game on their mobiles instead.
The PS Vita ended up having a pretty decent library but's it's clear Sony saw the writing on the wall and didn't want to heavily invest in marketing which was a wise move in hindsight.
If Sony made a Steam Deck like device that could play PS4 games natively that's possibly the only way to make a Playstation portabl...
Many people buy consoles to play multiplatform games like COD and Fortnite. Increasingly the must have games are multiplatform which makes sense as multiplatform games make the most money and thus have the greatest revenue streams and profit.
Surely Capcom wouldn't be so stupid as to make an exclusive RE game for Microsoft or Nintendo platforms but then they have form with RE Remake, various ports and RE4 on Gamecube. Really pissed me off back in the day when Capcom decided to fragment their games across Dreamcast, Gamecube and PS2 only for them to end up on PS2 eventually.
Microsoft should be getting their own internal studios in order, not funding third party timed exclusives.
Given Japan's population is declining, economic outlook and the stock shortages I'd say the PS5 sales are impressive but there's no getting around the fact that Japanese developers and publishers don't dominate the games market like they once did.
I much preferred the old days where Japanese developers/publishers made a lot more great AAA games compared to the current market where there is a ton of remakes, uninspired sequels, MTX and other predatory monetis...