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I hate this Microsoft cycle so much: buy gaming studios, do fuck all with them, fire all staff, close studios, rinse, repeat. So much talent and so many great IPs down the drain because MS can’t decide what the fuck are they doing
They know exactly what they are doing, they are reducing competition.
That narrative doesn’t make much sense. There’s far too much competition in the industry, and you’re not reducing competition by shutting down the likes of Tango Gameworks.
It’s how these large corporations operate though. Ignore, buy, or bury, that’s how they all operate. They may have ‘plans’ to use the studio, but for them if all they get are the assets and a less of a threat from the old ip, then that’s enough. I don’t think it makes any sense either, but it also absolutely something microsoft has done for years in their larger business model.
From past articles on why this is happening though, it’s that they had a growth strategy for years, with Game Pass, with Xbox consoles, with studios. Then what changed was the general state of the economy and Nadella’s goals. Game Pass plateaued, the old console model is clearly headed toward obsolescence, and they bought the world’s largest publisher by market cap. Suddenly Nadella decided that you can’t spend what you were spending, and it’s time to take profits.
There was also COVID screwing up sales projections for the last few years. People were stuck at home for months and ended up buying a ton of digital media such as games to stay sane. Executives are stupid and were somehow shocked when numbers dropped after quarantine ended and people went back to their regular lives. Since then, a bunch of projects or even entire studios have been axed due to “underperforming” because they couldn’t compete sales-wise with a period where the entire world was a captive audience.
XBOX can’t be buried soon enough. It’s been dead in the casket for over a decade and it’s time to start throwing dirt on it.
I love the original and the 360. The people that had the passion and vision for what XBOX was and needed to be are long gone and this is what we’re left with. A bunch of suits making decisions who probably don’t even know how to play pong.
This will free up a lot of capital for c-level bonuses
Microsoft is exiting the console business
They probably realized that they’re better off paying 3rd party devs to put their games on gamepass than developing their own games.
Makes sense after how successful the oblivion AI remaster sold.
Can you provide proof that AI was used? It’s not disclosed on the Steam page which Valve requires for all games.
