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Microsoft Closes Redfall Developer Arkane Austin, HiFi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks, and More in Devastating Cuts at Bethesda

Zheph

Member

okay but...
Screenshot-2024-05-08-104403.png


Season 5 Lol GIF by Real Husbands of Hollywood
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
I think the future of Game Pass is highly compromised... can MS actually kill it? at this point I think it is a possibility.

I guess they could just refund everyone for the time they have on their account.

I wonder at what rate though? Would they give money or store credit?

EDIT: I know you're not talking about the process, but it did make me wonder.
 
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Ryan McCaffrey has been pretty tough on Xbox in the recent past. I would be surprised if he didn't ask some actual questions

And I wouldn't consider him an Xbox "influencer" like many others. Even though he was the poster boy for console warring back in 360/PS3 generation

I disagree. His retort last year after RedFall debacle was embarrassing

“Phil is a gamer. The other two are not” i.e Sony and Nintendo.

I mean what the hell has that got to do with the end product? Sony and Nintendo have better market share for a start so what is his point? It’s like people have to be borderline subservient to these executives to be part of the Xbox community or something.

Look at Ybarra’s tweet yesterday, he might as well got the violin out dude.
 
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GHG

Member
Bro remember when those clowns were telling us that gamepass is sustainable and Sony are greedy to not put their games day one on ps+

History has not been kind to these people.

Everyone have a read of the first couple of pages of this thread:


People begging for them to follow Xbox into the abyss.

So transparent.


I've said it before, I'll say it again. It's leading to a reduction in net consumer spend. That's less money flowing into the the industry overall. From an industry health perspective that's terrible.

The only way this works long term is if volumes drastically increase in order to offset it (as in an increase in the number of core gamers, all of which ideally subscribe to one of these services). This clearly isn't proving to be the case based on console sales numbers, those are shrinking as well.

This is why you see xbox and Phil pushing cloud gaming as aggressively as they are and why they constantly talk about "billions of gamers". If this doesn't play out like they need it to they will actually end up making less money.

Sony following them down this path is foolish, and rightly so, Nintendo can probably see the writing on the wall so are staying well away from it. If unsuccessful the involved parties will need to pivot back towards a traditional purchase led business model, which will prove to be difficult after years of conditioning gamers into believing games aren't worth purchasing.

Sloth Tell GIF




What, this kind of pressure? :


The kind of pressure that results in executives losing their jobs?

The kind of pressure that results in first party games that released in the last 12 months being absent from monthly and annual sales charts all over the world?

The kind of pressure where your hardware is firmly in 3rd place across the world?

The kind of pressure that results in you needing to spend upwards of $80 billion in order to even have a chance of staying competitive?

Sounds tough.


Girl Wow GIF by Rosanna Pansino
 
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I disagree. His retort last year after RedFall debacle was embarrassing

“Phil is a gamer. The other two are not” i.e Sony and Nintendo.

I mean what the hell has that got to do with the end product? Sony and Nintendo have better market share for a start so what is his point? It’s like people have to be borderline subservient to these executives to be part of the Xbox community or something.

Look at Ybarra’s tweet yesterday, he might as well got the violin out dude.
He literally crucified Phil Spencer yesterday for previous comments of his. He will ask good questions, imo
 
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Unknown?

Member
Remember that daddy EA meme where EA takes his young son to the graveyard to shoot him? Time to update it to Microsoft!
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Let all agree that it was Gamepass that fucked the sucess of Hi Fi Rush and Tango Gameworks?
Really nothing to suggest that other than people seeing what they want to see. As much as I loved the game, it seems like it didn't sell that well on 3 platforms. Wasn't even played much on Gamepass apparently. Ghostwire was a PS5 exclusive and didn't sell that well either.
 

Pedro Motta

Gold Member
Really nothing to suggest that other than people seeing what they want to see. As much as I loved the game, it seems like it didn't sell that well on 3 platforms. Wasn't even played much on Gamepass apparently. Ghostwire was a PS5 exclusive and didn't sell that well either.
Hi Fi Rush had a lot more appeal to the masses than Ghostwire Tokyo. I loved Ghostwire, more so than Hi Fi Rush, but I understand that its more of a niche game.
 
Really nothing to suggest that other than people seeing what they want to see. As much as I loved the game, it seems like it didn't sell that well on 3 platforms. Wasn't even played much on Gamepass apparently. Ghostwire was a PS5 exclusive and didn't sell that well either.

What suggests it is that Microsoft has moved the goal post yet again to which MS studios have to now be self-sustainable, and gamepass as a model is now an obstacle for games like Hi-Fi Rush instead of what was touted by so many as a safety net.
 

cireza

Member
Would be great if this led to a mass cancellation of GamePass, the same way the Sony Helldivers bullshit led to all the reviews and refund requests. Not gonna hold my breath on that one though, Xbox fans seem so far down the rabbit hole on this that I doubt they'd reject Phil if he came around their house and fucked their dog to death.
Come on, let's not make a disrespectful generalization about Xbox consumers, especially when what you suggest they should do sounds quite unreasonable.

I think that a lot of Game Pass subscriptions were taken 1 or 2 years ago when there were really interesting deals. I am expecting this to naturally fall when these expire, because getting 3 years for 90$ isn't exactly the same as paying 15$ per month. I am never going to put that much money in any kind of subscription that's for sure.

But in any case, my subscription is paid for another full year, so I can't cancel anything and this is true for a lot of people. That's the first reason why what you say is not going to happen.

Second one is that these studio closures don't affect directly players short term. Nothing is being taken away from Game Pass, or from the planning until the end of the year. And a showcase is coming June. You can be sure that Xbox are going to announce things to reinject some energy into their business.

Many people here say that the consumers should take whatever decision fits them the best, without caring about brand loyalty or whatever, but suddenly when something happens that don't even affect their consumption (at least short term), they should sanction it ? These are unreasonable expectations.
 
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Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
What suggests it is that Microsoft has moved the goal post yet again to which MS studios have to now be self-sustainable, and gamepass as a model is now an obstacle for games like Hi-Fi Rush instead of what was touted by so many as a safety net.
The game didn't sell well enough on any platforms, regardless of GP. Tons of games on GP sell well and GP is not on PS5. It only accounts for 15% of the Xbox base, and a tiny fraction of the PC base. This wasn't even played on GP much and never ranked that highly. But if that makes you think GP caused it, believe what you want.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Rewind back to 2022 and the argument would have been that wouldn't matter, because of GP
I think if their consoles didn't tank and GP saw a normal amount of slow growth, that would be true. That's why I think the sub model is so compelling, because if enough people do participate it is a safety net. Starfield not moving the needle at all in terms of console sales was clearly the end. There is no safety net because they're going 3rd party. The reason people expect cooler and more niche content sometimes from 1st party is because of their ecosystem funding. That's going to be gone and they'll be contracting. GP may or may not make it, but they're probably planning for minimum 50% decline in subs since a lot of Xbox gamers will go to PS5 / PS6. They may be able to land somewhere around 8-10 million subs on PC, so their safety net will be much smaller. We'll see if they decide to keep it going or not.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Come on, let's not make a disrespectful generalization about Xbox consumers, especially when what you suggest they should do sounds quite unreasonable.

I think that a lot of Game Pass subscriptions were taken 1 or 2 years ago when there were really interesting deals. I am expecting this to naturally fall when these expire, because getting 3 years for 90$ isn't exactly the same as paying 15$ per month. I am never going to put that much money in any kind of subscription that's for sure.

But in any case, my subscription is paid for another full year, so I can't cancel anything and this is true for a lot of people. That's the first reason why what you say is not going to happen.

Second one is that these studio closures don't affect directly players short term. Nothing is being taken away from Game Pass, or from the planning until the end of the year. And a showcase is coming June. You can be sure that Xbox are going to announce things to reinject some energy into their business.

Many people here say that the consumers should take whatever decision fits them the best, without caring about brand loyalty or whatever, but suddenly when something happens that don't even affect their consumption (at least short term), they should sanction it ? These are unreasonable expectations.

Sorry, but bullshit.

You can stop using your GamePass subscription any time. Some countries even allow for pro-rata refunds:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb...riptions-38c81df4-10c1-f3eb-8d2f-b04f980c435f

The excuse 'I've got a good deal, so I'm happy' is the worst kind of self serving horseshit.

Companies like MS don't give a shit as long as they know you're still supporting them. And you're still supporting them.
 

Exactly. FTC can not fight those marxist and state supported corporations (here Microsoft). And a good deal of the judges in US are probably political activists, corrupt or both.

And yes Gamepass has a big part in this by devaluating all those games / IPs. Once reaching a plateau of subcribers they don't need anymore those small developers doing those AA games. What's the point? they know they won't gain customers anymore or sell those games traditionnaly as they taught their customers to play those games for "free".

I am not saying all those services are bad. But they need to not cross a line and do what Nintendo is currently doing or what Sony was doing with the old PS+ "free" games. The problem is the regulators (when there is regulation) often work in some way for the corporations.
 
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I think if their consoles didn't tank and GP saw a normal amount of slow growth, that would be true. That's why I think the sub model is so compelling, because if enough people do participate it is a safety net. Starfield not moving the needle at all in terms of console sales was clearly the end. There is no safety net because they're going 3rd party. The reason people expect cooler and more niche content sometimes from 1st party is because of their ecosystem funding. That's going to be gone and they'll be contracting. GP may or may not make it, but they're probably planning for minimum 50% decline in subs since a lot of Xbox gamers will go to PS5 / PS6. They may be able to land somewhere around 8-10 million subs on PC, so their safety net will be much smaller. We'll see if they decide to keep it going or not.

It woudn't be true. The only difference would be the illusion would have gone on for a bit longer. MS is still the same megacorp they've always been. Xbox was just allowed to live a fairytail for a bit before they had to participate in the american shareholder culture again which isn't compatible with any sort of "safety net model"
 
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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Would be great if this led to a mass cancellation of GamePass, the same way the Sony Helldivers bullshit led to all the reviews and refund requests. Not gonna hold my breath on that one though, Xbox fans seem so far down the rabbit hole on this that I doubt they'd reject Phil if he came around their house and fucked their dog to death.

The two are not comparable at all, one gives people a cheap and affordable way to get access to a large gaming library, the other was a move which would actively restrict people in 170+ countries from playing a game they already paid for.
 

tommib

Member
Would be great if this led to a mass cancellation of GamePass, the same way the Sony Helldivers bullshit led to all the reviews and refund requests. Not gonna hold my breath on that one though, Xbox fans seem so far down the rabbit hole on this that I doubt they'd reject Phil if he came around their house and fucked their dog to death.
Consumers have voted gamepass out already. That’s why Xbox is where it is. It will only get worse moving forward.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
So the FTC was right all along and those xbots on Era were disgusting fanboys pretending to be legal experts and pro-consumer advocates.

Shocking.
Not exactly. The FTC was worried that MS would become so dominant that they'd keep all their games exclusive and put PS out of business, resulting in less competition for consumers in console choice. In reality, they were in need of exclusive content so badly that they've collapsed their console business within a year - pretty much the opposite of what the FTC was saying. Spencer was on record saying they were folding it up if it wasn't profitable by 2027, but it didn't even last until 2025. And now PS has the high end console market to themselves, which the FTC supposedly didn't want.

They were right that people lost their jobs, but not for the reason they expected.
 
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Astray

Member
The game didn't sell well enough on any platforms, regardless of GP. Tons of games on GP sell well and GP is not on PS5. It only accounts for 15% of the Xbox base, and a tiny fraction of the PC base. This wasn't even played on GP much and never ranked that highly. But if that makes you think GP caused it, believe what you want.
The game was released with zero promotion. Twice!

Shadowdropped on Xbox Gamepass and tossed on PS5 in a press release + a cheaply-cut trailer.

Gamepass can be clearly attributed as a reason for Tango Gameworks' demise because MS catering to gamepass in that way is what fucked up what could have been their most successful launch. The game was ready for the Game Awards less than a month before release and they couldn't even be bothered to tease it.

Dumb management on all counts.
 
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