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[Unknown Soldier]

What the fuck why is this dude shitting on Costco tho

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Contraband announcement trailer has been removed from the main YouTube channel

 

[Dr. Samuel Hayden]

Damn looks like the bottom has really fallen out huh.

But seriously the sooner MS is gone from the industry the better.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

 

[Heisenberg007]

Contraband announcement trailer has been removed from the main YouTube channel

 

[chromhound]

So they fired all these peoples but has requested 14 181 new H-1B visas workers so far this year...

 

[LordCBH]

Bro just wanted to roll the credits so he wouldn't forget anyone.

 

[MayauMiao]

Same vibe

 

[Wolzard]

Bad comparison, because Microsoft has many other sectors besides gaming, it has 220 000 employees and these layoffs affected several areas (although gaming was the biggest focus).

Microsoft is such a stereotypical American company. Throwing money in an industry it doesn't understand. Looking to buy out everybody. Always targeting 'billions of consumers' while they can barely maintain their 50 million or so.

Then doing talks in PR words, treating their audience as if they're children 'when we all play, we all win' (Tbf a lot of American adults are childish and fall for this). Always trying to undercut competition (Subscription services, Series S) using their excessive money. And, ofcourse, treating their employees like numbers while trying to somehow spin everything positive as usual.

Raise your hand if you're not the least bit surprised about this. This is the most easy-to-predict thing happening right now. Most ppl here could tell subscription day one was going to lead to cannibalization and low sales and third party pivot which would reduce xbox sales. Most here can tell their next xbox is basically a pc and they're trying to end thir hardware business. You don't need research for all this when it's this obvious.

When it comes to passion hobbies, American public companies have two options: either find a formula that works for normies while vocal minority criticizes you (Disney Marvel movies, Call of duty, Fifa) or create something with passion. I feel for these employees but this is the system they voted for, the system they fought for half of the 20th century and this is their American culture. Nintendo bosses famously took a paycut in dire times, you think Microsoft (or Apple, Facebook, any public limited American company) would ever do that, LOL. It's all tit for tat and when the tat falls, they come for your tits.

This stereotype you mention was largely established by Microsoft itself, especially in the 90s.

 

[Boo Who?]

Bad comparison, because Microsoft has many other sectors besides gaming, it has 220 000 employees and these layoffs affected several areas (although gaming was the biggest focus).



This stereotype you mention was largely established by Microsoft itself, especially in the 90s.

The Simpsons talked about it years ago.

 

[diffusionx]

Here we go…

This is what these Xbox shills always do, they see MS melting down and claim it's an industry wide problem and not specific to the stupid company they shill for.

 

[LordCBH]

This is what these Xbox shills always do, they see MS melting down and claim it's an industry wide problem and not specific to the stupid company they shill for.

But when Jez or Destin see PlayStation hit a rough patch, suddenly it's a PlayStation exclusive problem, and not an industry problem.

 

[Wolzard]

The Simpsons talked about it years ago.

There's a B-movie from the 2000s called Antitrust, where the villain of the movie is basically Bill Gates, because he killed developers to steal their code.
Horrible acting, but a super fun movie.

 

[ToadMan]

I have to say I'm conflicted.

On the one hand I'd be happy to see MS out of gaming altogether, and that implies job losses like this on a major scale. And as they screw up their gaming business, the risk is they take some beloved IPs and studios down with them.

But of course I empathize entirely with those now faced with a job hunt in the AI reality we have today. It is terrifying if you are supporting a family to see the way the IT industry has moved.

So good luck to the job seekers - I hope they land somewhere they can do a great job.

 

[poppabk]

Well, that escalated quickly.

Didnt they already have a bee in their bonnet about MS supporting Israel somehow?

 

[LordCBH]

Well, that escalated quickly.

We never should have closed the insane asylums lol

 

[StreetsofBeige]

What the fuck why is this dude shitting on Costco tho

Who the hell knows. Doesnt even make sense.

Costco is among the most beloved stores with loyal shoppers, growing like crazy, has good products and awesome returns/refund policy.

Xbox and some of their first party games are the complete opposite.

 

[powder]

Literally 500k people bought Doom The Dark Ages, I don't think more than 20 people played the Gears beta. Aside from Forza and Sea of Thieves no one wants Xbox games.

I was referring to their first party legacy stuff (gears, halo) but honestly they have so little first party franchises that are successful that it probably doesn't matter.

 

[//DEVIL//]

No one asked him

 

[Baemono]

No one asked him

But IF people do ask him, he has his answer ready.

 

[LordCBH]

No one asked him

 

[Beechos]

All good once they are down to 2-3 studios again like Xbox One era they can just spend another $80 billion and repeat the process

That's the 5d chess they are playing so they can buy up the industry. There is no way they will get regulatory approval for more purchases without doing this. Now when ea and ubisoft go for sale they will cry that they need them to compete and show how little marketshare they have and gain approval.

 

[Baemono]

They should rename the division "Xbox division by zero"

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

 

[Nonehxc]

TES in shambles?!?!?!?

 

[SamuraiEdge]

Which one is this?

 

[yurinka]

Sure, MS has to save some game cancellations and studio closures for the next quarter / private Sting concert.

 

[RCX]

 

[Nydius]

People brushing over the fortnite, roblox, and GTA marketshare are coping. A lot of games are struggling to make money, even when they are good games.

I don't think anyone is "brushing over" the impact of those games. The issue is Jez is using them to spin a false "the entire industry is fucked!" narrative.

PlayStation still sells loads of games and the PS5 is on the roughly same pace as the PS4, despite issues with getting first party games out at the same rate. Nintendo just had a record breaking console launch despite its price tag and despite there being very few launch day titles.

The industry is fine. It's Microsoft that's fucked. Jez damn well knows that but he's gotta run his spin anyway.

What the fuck why is this dude shitting on Costco tho

For real. Microsoft would kill to have something as beloved as the $1.50 hot dog and drink combo.

 

[Astray]

S SneakersSO wins yet again.

 

[onQ123]

TES in shambles?!?!?!?

I believe he is talking about the game that everyone loved during play tests

 

[SneakersSO]

This is what these Xbox shills always do, they see MS melting down and claim it's an industry wide problem and not specific to the stupid company they shill for.

They are absolutely infuriating. Ya know what though - after I read about what Ebay did to a couple who shilled for them in the early days and what Ebay did after they turned on them, maybe the reason Jez (and the others) do what they do is purely because they're scared of the repercussions that could come from actually calling out their corporate overlords.

 

[GHG]

Working with Jason as we speak to ensure this is outrageous enough to bury the Helldivers 2 news.

 

[Moridianae]

S SneakersSO wins yet again.

Yep. I always like to listen to what he has to say. If he says the situation at Xbox is far more dire than even what transpired, I believe him.

 

[Beechos]

I d

I dunno about what this man is saying just sounds salty. They greenlit narrative heavy games like hellblade 2, indy, pentiment and that southern game with the unique artstyle to name a few where the main focus was on their narrative.

 

[EN250]

Damn looks like the bottom has really fallen out huh.

But seriously the sooner MS is gone from the industry the better.

How they're gonna go now that they actually have mobile money maker number 1: Candy Crush + PCMR/Consoles money maker number 1: COD?

This just shrinking to focus on what's profitable and fuck the rest, it's not like they have to make exclusives to entice people to buying their HW anymore

That's why I hope the next HW is going to be a PC branded Xbox and not some shitty ass handheld trying to catch up in the Steam Deck niche market

 

[RickMasters]

Where's RickMasters to tell us everything is great in Xbox world.

Cute….. care to give an example of me ever saying that?

 

[onQ123]

Xbox loves you

 

[Thebonehead]

The reason why so much effort is being poured into maintaining the charade is because theres a 10-20m userbase of very diehard users who all have an absurdly high likely hood of maintaining their higher tiers of GP subscriptions through this.

They wanna maintain that revenue stream as long as possible while they, over-time, restructure Xbox into a far leaner endeavor that focuses on a handful of mega-projects.

These cuts are gonna go on for a much longer while, and the sad part is - if the gaming community finally said 'enough is enough' and just all chose to divest, and tbh its hard to argue we're not already there given how returns have been (outside of ABK) the last couple of years - Microsoft would just expedite the process and close off even more teams now. To them, whether someone like 343, now Halo Studios, makes Halo versus just outsourcing it out is just semantics to them, plus Halo hasn't been 'Halo' since Bungie bought their way out.

MS is never gonna have the come to Jesus moment that media mouth pieces keep claiming just around the corner for team Xbox.

Boiled frog?

 

[powder]

What the fuck why is this dude shitting on Costco tho

Bad analogy. Some people might looks at Costco as a "discount" store or something because they sell in bulk. I hope this guy lost his job cuz he said something bad about Costco at the office.

 

[Cre8]

Xbox loves you

 

[jm89]

Which game was this?

Edit: oh I see the other thread

 

[evolve]

S SneakersSO how does puting Steam on the next Xbox help Xbox? wouldn't that make them lose money since people would just buy from Steam instead? Do they really think PC players will transition to their PC-Console because of Steam?

 

[CircleOfFire]

Didn't they make a promise or some such to the FTC to not layoff people as a result of the acquisitions?

 

[SneakersSO]

What the fuck why is this dude shitting on Costco tho

Costco is the reason most folks I know can even afford eggs!

Yep. I always like to listen to what he has to say. If he says the situation at Xbox is far more dire than even what transpired, I believe him.

Honestly, I think most folks with an inside track are still getting an accounting of how bad yesterday actually was. A ton of projects that were unannounced basically vanished, but it still affected loads of team members who were contracted out. I am still finding out colleagues, some of whom had at least a degree of separation, who got caught up in this.

This is what, the 5th round of layoffs that Xbox has weathered since ABK closed, and clearly one of the largest single day of layoffs in Western game dev history, so getting a full-on sense of the sheer magnitude of this is gonna take a few more days/weeks.

And for folks who wondered why certain teams or projects were spared, this is just a far too cold way to interpret this but was basically told - MS is gonna have more upcoming quarters that could used juiced margins and dividends. Basically just pacing out lambs to the slaughter. No need to dump it all at once. Microsoft could probably do this for 2 more years before they reach that toned down, streamlined project + headcount that they hope are even more efficient thanks to forcing folks to adopt AI workflows.

Boiled frog?

I don't really like that analogy here, simply cause a cooked boiled frog is dead, and as long as enough users are subscribing to a GP-tier, they'll never shut that stream off, no matter how expensive MS jacks up the price (this is inbound...) or how few titles they are releasing into it.

Didn't they make a promise or some such to the FTC to not layoff people as a result of the acquisitions?

Well luckily, it was in an American court - corporations lying to Federal judges and facing no repercussions for it is basically a Tuesday in America.

 

[kruis]

Costco is the reason most folks I know can even afford eggs!

Honestly, I think most folks with an inside track are still getting an accounting of how bad yesterday actually was. A ton of projects that were unannounced basically vanished, but it still affected loads of team members who were contracted out. I am still finding out colleagues, some of whom had at least a degree of separation, who got caught up in this.

This is what, the 5th round of layoffs that Xbox has weathered since ABK closed, and clearly one of the largest single day of layoffs in Western game dev history, so getting a full-on sense of the sheer magnitude of this is gonna take a few more days/weeks.

And for folks who wondered why certain teams or projects were spared, this is just a far too cold way to interpret this but was basically told - MS is gonna have more upcoming quarters that could used juiced margins and dividends. Basically just pacing out lambs to the slaughter. No need to dump it all at once. Microsoft could probably do this for 2 more years before they reach that toned down, streamlined project + headcount that they hope are even more efficient thanks to forcing folks to adopt AI workflows.

Do you have an inkling of what's going on in the UK? There was speculation that Ninja Theory and Compulsion Games might be in danger since they're in between projects. NT will release an enhanced port of Hellblade II for PS5 next month, Compulsion Games will probably be working on a PS5 port too. Once those games are out the door, what will happen? Any idea? Are these studios in danger?

 

[SneakersSO]

Do you have an inkling of what's going on in the UK? There was speculation that Ninja Theory and Compulsion Games might be in danger since they're in between projects. NT will release an enhanced port of Hellblade II for PS5 next month, Compulsion Games will probably be working on a PS5 port too. Once those games are out the door, what will happen? Any idea? Are these studios in danger?

I don't have any specific information about them, but I also was told that as long as MS are in this position of scaling down costs across the MS org, that no team or project is safe, and that scaling down effort did not come to a close yesterday. What was I told is that there is gonna be a need for more sacrifices before earnings reports in the future, so keeping a few teams around for that is necessary, and as you mentioned - both those teams have ports in the works.

Trust me, from the sound of things, and this sentiment is only gonna get louder in the coming weeks, but I doubt any dev wants to be working under these Russian Roulette conditions that the teams are now working in. When even folks on CoD got let go, thats when you know how unstable of an environment you're in. Again, 5th round of layoffs, cancellations, and closures since the ABK close with no end in sight.

 

[NastyPasty]

Struggling to keep up with the impact of the latest round of cuts. Is this right?

• Perfect Dark cancelled and Initiative shuttered
• Everwild cancelled
• Contraband (probably - trailer pulled)
• Zenimax MMORPG "Blackbird" cancelled
• Team 10 (Forza Motorsport) gutted
• Romero Studios 2nd Party FPS - funding pulled
• Headcount reductions across the board

 

[Scrawnton]

Didn't they make a promise or some such to the FTC to not layoff people as a result of the acquisitions?

Everything in the legal system and testimonials has to be the truth at that time. If "at that time" they had no plan to lay people off, then they didn't lie or do anything wrong.

Honestly, the FTC messed up by going for a "block the entire merger" approach instead of permitting it with stipulations like not laying off x amount of employees. The U.S. government could've done a much better job at overseeing this merger but they did a horrible job at it.

 

[LordCBH]

Guys….Microsoft has lost Jez.

Why Microsoft's enshittification of Xbox, Surface, and even Windows itself — are all by design

With Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood placing unrealistic expectations on Xbox, Windows, and others — the damage is becoming increasingly untenable.

www.windowscentral.com