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Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Addresses Studio Closures: "I have to run a bussiness"
Bungie
Member
343 deserves it but Halo games sell well enough and not just the games but Halo merch, toys etc all sell well. Don't want to know what 343 has cost Microsoft though...haha
March Climber
Member
Replace Inafune's name with Phil Spencer:
graywolf323
Member
yep, Redfall sucked but the studio had a good track record & it wasn’t even a game they wanted to make (but Phil ignored them and didn’t just cancel it when they bought Bethesda which would have been the smart business decision)
then for all his talk about Japan he goes and closes Tango despite the fact they have had success and Hi-Fi Rush is the one game they’ve had that got critical praise lately, he’s just terrible at his job
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
Don't worry, the answer is to announce games that are mostly coming to other platforms. That should show them!
Kssio_Aug
Member
My sarcasm was directed to the fact that some people seem to think that running a division of a multi-trillion dollar company is easy, without even telling how "to run things better".
Yeah, no shit. Saying "do better" is always easy, but at least back it up with some ideas about the right thing to do given the circumstances for debate sake. Of course that the lay-off suck. I know it's terrible to everyone involved, and I hated that they did it to Tango and even Arkane Austin (despite their misses, Prey was pretty well received, I think they had tons of potential).
But we don't know what lead to said decisions. If the company made some projections that pointed they needed to trim the fat, and that these cuts would probably be the ones that would give them the less amount of loss, then what you expect that they would do?
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rabbity-thing
Member
Go on, teach him how it's done, sitting on your desk while eating some Doritos.
This type of "you can't do it either" argument is such a strange one. A person does not need expertise, nor the ability to do something better, nor even the ability to do something as well as someone else in order to criticize that person's performance. The ability to judge is not contingent on one's ability to one-up the one being judged. It likely helps, but it's in no way necessary.
For example, I can't play the guitar, but I know when someone sucks at it. I don't know how to direct a movie, but I can tell that the Resident Evil movies are terrible. And I can't run a multi-million dollar games division but I can confidently say that Phil's been dropping the ball.
BlackTron
Member
I love the Xbox is so back trend. It's always the same after events until reality hits once again
Xbox as a console is toast, but Xbox as a publisher is just heating up.
Edit: Because they spent 70bn
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
If MS never bought Bethesda, Tango would still be around and working on their next game. Bet.
U n i o n 0015
Member
Valedix
Member
clarky
Gold Member
Wild how they got everyone to sub to a spread sheet. Thats the genius move.Yeah, it ain't Xbox that is bringing in the bacon. It's Azure.
newtypepilot
Member
"I have to run a business, and I'm terrible at it. I backed myself into a corner with bad decisions which forces me to make even more bad decisions to save my own skin."
BlackTron
Member
In my opinion, I don't think closing Tango was his first choice. I think after buying all those studios/publishers, Satya stormed in and told him to clean house and laser focus on those big guns like yesterday. Basically that big purchase had the opposite effect anticipated, instead of allowing him to consolidate power, it took so long to happen allowing his failure to be dragged out that Satya didn't give a shit what his plan was by the time it was approved finally.
Of course he needs to take responsibility for the decision because it's his job, but I kinda doubt he personally wanted this.
Angry_Megalodon
Member
Every merger in every industry leads to massive layoffs. This is so basic that shouldn't need explaining. Phil Spencer lied in court and to the media saying that wouldn't happen. Yes, we know he's running a business, thanks for the explanation, Mr. Spencer, even the dumbest monkey in the jungle knew that MS is not a charity.
It turns out that running a business is not enough, he has to get profits while not harming the industry as he promised. He hasn't delivered on any account. The only thing he's good at is making people like you jump in his defense.
Kumomeme
Member
it took him this long to 'realize' that huh...
hopefully next time he mind his words everytime when want to say something. prioritize the bussiness first than blatantly throw promise after promise and say whatever people prefer to hear for sake of winning brief short online PR moment against Sony. he should not be scare to say whats important even if it end up as something bitter for people to hear. even if it end up align with their competitor. or just shut up if there is nothing need to say and focus on work out the actual output. people not idiot. proper clear explaination would help people to understand and would give rise to educated gamers which is better than having a blind evangelist fanboys.
hopefully next time he mind his words everytime when want to say something. prioritize the bussiness first than blatantly throw promise after promise and say whatever people prefer to hear for sake of winning brief short online PR moment against Sony. he should not be scare to say whats important even if it end up as something bitter for people to hear. even if it end up align with their competitor. or just shut up if there is nothing need to say and focus on work out the actual output. people not idiot. proper clear explaination would help people to understand and would give rise to educated gamers which is better than having a blind evangelist fanboys.
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Kssio_Aug
Member
I'm not jumping in his defense at all though. I'm just not claiming that I know better.
Not even a release year on it.
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BlackTron
Member
This dude did a better job from his desk while eating some Doritos than Phil Spencer on the clock.
Kssio_Aug
Member
I would rather see the end of 343i than Tango's. No doubt. Except that this would also lead to lay-offs, and that also would suck for people involved.
But they most certainly don't close 343i because it has the potential to make much more money to them than Tango, specially after the master mind behind it left the studio.
And didn't they recently make some changes at 343 too?
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Under Phil’s desk with their mouths full, making themselves useful for once.
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Saber
Member
I don't think people though otherwise.
But when you run up your business for more than 10 freaking years and still produce garbage-tier results, then thats really some very bad managment theres no defense for that.
Also why the fuck would people tell him how to run better? He is the one that is being paid to do this work(and alot btw), not them.
Kssio_Aug
Member
Because, as you said yourself coming to a discussion gaming forum and post a low effort comment is not good. Saying "do better" seems pretty low effort imo.
BlackTron
Member
To be fair, MS has trained its fans that it loves incurring losses to placate them, sooo
Saber
Member
It's not a low effort when he had 10 years to prove people were wrong dude lol
Ok I will say then, do your fucking job better.
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He needs to go--PERIOD.
BlackTron
Member
They did make changes at 343. I don't see the studio going anywhere because it was created by MS to work on Halo and they still need someone to work on Halo. If they don't like something they will just change what is going on inside the studio instead of replace it.
Kssio_Aug
Member
What he did to Tango sucks, there's no debate to that. But saying that Phil Spencer is objectively bad to Microsoft or Xbox as a whole, after he managed to convince them to invest so much money on the brand, that I can't agree with. Specially after today's very impressive event.
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Everyone at 343 should be sealed alive in a giant rocket and fired into the deep reaches of space
BlackTron
Member
Dude everything Phil should have done instead has been discussed ad nauseam on this forum already, and everyone is aware of it.
BlackTron
Member
Okay, but even if they did that, 343 would still exist and be making Halo.
It's like if everybody on the Windows team died, would they make a new one? They would just put new people in it, and still call it the same thing.
We need to accept 343 is the Halo Department at MS and there will be no "symbolic punishment" by closing it.
Radical_3d
Member
If you have to run a profitable business and your division declares record profits that year, what’s the excuse then for closing not even the cafeteria of the building?
BlackTron
Member
It was obviously a generic canned reply. Satya told him what to do. Therefore, "guys I have to run a business there's difficult choices and whatever"
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
BlackTron
Member
Managing a division of a trillion dollar company can't be easy, but it's a lot easier than running it without the trillion dollars behind you. Ask Sega.
Saying in one breath that they have a trillion dollars and in the next that they need to cut losses by closing the studio that delivered their biggest recent hit is nonsensical. Maybe we don't know exactly what happened, but we know management dun fucked up somewhere.
IMO this is really about Satya taking the reins from Phil after the acquisition because he was tired of waiting for results, so we have a completely new strategy that doesn't include Tango anymore. But even in that scenario, Phil was an idiot whose boss had to take over.
Laptop1991
Member
Except Xbox and gaming is not where Microsoft makes by far most of its money
VAVA Mk2
Member
If what we saw pans out, there's some good shit coming in the next year and a half.
The Pleasure
Member
Back from 1995
A.Romero
Member
I missed the event but I'm reading the threads about it and I agree. I don't own an Xbox but I'm GP sub and I'm a happy customer.
VAVA Mk2
Member
Most of the shitty people left (Bonnie Ross and Frank O'Connor). They are hiring up again as they work on Halo 7 and the rumored Halo 1-3 remakes. Rumor is Marcus Lehto (co-creator of Halo and Master Chief) is going to work at 343i and work on Halo once again...
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Don't think it was just one failure, Evil Within 2 sales figures from a Steam leak were pretty dire.
I don't know why they wouldn't eat the cost of running a studio that was producing well reviewed games, but as a pure numbers decision it probably made sense.
Kssio_Aug
Member
Exactly. So it seems to me they're fed up with 343 low performance and actually making something about it too. Which, in this case, definitely feels like the right thing to do imo.
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