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We're making this a Megathread post to keep all discussion about today's studio shutdowns in one place. Please do not make new posts about this topic. Thanks.
Links:
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1787835350745842153
https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-closes-redfall-developer-arkane-austin-hifi-rush-developer-tango-gameworks-and-more-in-devastating-cuts-at-bethesda
https://www.gameinformer.com/news/2024/05/07/xbox-is-shutting-down-arkane-austin-tango-gameworks-and-more
more: https://news.google.com/search?q=xbox
I was waiting for The Evil Within III 🥺
The horror game with rpg elements. I absolutely loved one and two. Sadly I think that’s all the evil they’ll allow within us.
Also Ghostwire, that one is a Masterpiece as well, This game is the prime candidate to become one of the Cult Classic
Too bad it was attacked to the bone by haters
I loved that game. 110%'d everything in the main story world, couldn't really get into the challenge missions tho. Would love to see another game tackle other cultures and their diverse mythologies and cryptids, Irish leprechauns, Norwegian trolls, etc.
I liked the vibe of Ghostwire, but after 10 hours, it became another collectathon to me.
It was a decent game but definitely not a masterpiece. The story wasn’t too interesting and the gameplay got repetitive. The graphics and character designs were top notch though.
There's still a chance it could happen, I'm assuming MS still owns the IP.
That said, it does seem unlikely. Which is sad, this my biggest disappointment with this whole thing.
I didn’t even think it was still a possibility. When they recycled the assets for the game to make ghost wire, I already gave up from there
Thats true.
TEW dies with Tango, let's be honest. Microsoft is refocusing on larger more popular IP. They said this.
I mean, you're right. But hey, I hoped for Half-life 2 Ep 3 for much longer than I should have.
I mean, it's possible
Microsoft shut down Lion Head after acquisition. So the fable series was done with
But now Fable 4 is actually in production and we've already been given sneak peaks/trailers/teasers for it.
Same here but no one bought EWI2 so don't expect it anytime soon Allan Wake 2 suffered the same fate..
"Arkane Austin has a history of making impactful and innovative games and it is a pedigree that everyone should be proud of. Redfall’s previous update will be its last as we end all development on the game."
I just love that they put these two sentences right next to each other in their statement.
So...those crazy people who bought dlc are really fucked now...
Apparently they said in there that they are going to release the stuff they promised. So maybe not.
No, they're going to refund the dlc.
no they aren't at this point because the studio got closed, owners of the hero pass will get something back but idk what
“One month of Gamepass ultimate free, don’t spend it all in one place.” -Xbox management
well... Prey was pretty good
Comment deleted by user
Wasn't that Arkane Lyon, and not Arkane Austin?
Bethesda sold to Microsoft because they were losing money with their publishing business. Microsoft made the mistake of not actually cleaning up their sub studios development and they released a bunch of underperforming or disastrous games. Now they are finally cleaning house. Tango, does suck though. Hi Fi Rush was excellent. This will probably lead to microsoft focusing multiple bethesda studios onto fallout and elder scrolls properties imho. Which they should have done years ago.
Whoa, whoa. Common sense isn't allowed on the internet. Seriously though, it took me reading 100s of comments to finally read a non-knee jerk reaction. I'm sure if either of the these studios were remotely profitable, they wouldn't be closing. Hopefully many of the developers will get jobs at studios working on games that will have a much bigger audience.
https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/1649431572137779203
Apparently they were happy with Tango at the time. Phil Spencer retweeted this.
Tango is definitely the one that hurts more, but I think them putting Hi-Fi Rush on other consoles shows it wasn't selling as well as they wanted. Maybe they didn't like how the studio has been operating since Mikami left?
It's the microsoft culture,
did it sell well? Yes.
did it break every record imaginable? no
no good enough for the shareholders, can it. screw that it's employees and the company made 20billion this year, bye.
It didn't help the game that it was essentially shadow dropped, wasn't it? No trailers, no announcements, no anything. I had never heard of it until like, a month ago.
Yea it’s been over a decade since the last Fallout & ES and it feels like we got another 5+ yrs to go before both release. That’s unacceptable. I understand Starfield but how was there not teams already working on the other two IPs.
Meanwhile, several fallout vets are sitting at two studios owned by MS, InXile and Obsidian, along with a few stragglers that I think ended up at Blizz. Considering the popularity of NV, it's insane they haven't created a team to make another spin-off a la NV. Hell, they can do it in AZ/CO/UT since it seems like the show has commandeered the NCR territories. Have it set around Graham and Caesar conquering the 87 tribes.
4 corners where I’m at would be so cool. Just add NM to the 3 mentioned.
Would it be that difficult to at least throw us a NV remake like RE4 while waiting? I could give a shit about ESO or F76
What a truly horrific thought.
Arkane Austin makes sense. Redfall caused an exodus of talent, it is no longer able to achieve anywhere close to its pedigree. Watch out Blizzard lol.
Closing Tango is fucking crazy though. Hopefully they are retaining the team that made hi-fi rush.
Where are they gonna send them? Do they have another Japanese Studio?
Fuck I didn't even think about that. Why would they close their only japanese studio?
From what people are saying: Shinji, the person, the studio was built around left, and after that the talent started to leave as well.
Oh well then close up shop I guess.
Xbox picked up enough talent famished studios with ABK.
Tangos higher ups left after hi fi rush
Ninja theory better have a hit with Hellblade 2. Sadly this is what will happen next.
Even if the game is a masterpiece, it likely won’t sell as well as they’d like.
Isn't it also a Game Pass game?
That might become a detriment to sustainability for these kinds of titles. Hi-Fin Rush was a fantastic game but even gamepass couldn’t save it.
And that was a AA game, not a AAA budget game.
The Game Pass experiment has failed. It must have. Go back to selling games proper and stick it on Game Pass a year later.
Marketing for it has felt pretty uneven, hopefully they'll sponsor some streamers to play it since that probably helped get the ball rolling with the first one.
I heard way more about H2 a year ago than I do now. The January direct event didn’t really build much excitement and I feel I haven’t heard about it since.. and I’m really looking forward to it so something is off here
Doesn't matter. Hellblade II is not a system seller. It will be a 9/10 that will lose money.
Hellblade 2 will most likely sell even less than Hifi-rush, it's a 8 hours long game that is day 1 on game pass.
as much as i love the original hellblade it was very niche and the new one isnt moving in a totally new direction. i think hardcore ninja theory fans will buy it but i think its unlikely that it sells gangbusters overall. im very worried for that studio
The game has been in development since 2019. If this game doesn't sell 15 million copies they will definitely close it.
It won’t even sell half of that since it’s on GP.
How can they have a hit when it's day one on gamepass like HiFi Rush?
HiFi Rush was a hit, tons of people played it, barely anyone paid for it directly because that's what Gamepass is for.
I really have 0 idea how they can gauge the success of a game when there's virtually 0 difference between a great game millions will play or a bad game nobody play when both are free on Gamepass.
In both cases nobody will buy them.
The important metric for success being used now is actual player numbers and engagement over time - and this includes time spent on mobile gaming. What titles are catching and keeping user attention. The cash covering developer time is already there (at least on game pass) so much of the pressure is off (from that perspective anyway).
I dont think a ton of people actually did play it though, at least not past the intro.
I paid full price for it on PS5 and that is me. I only defeated the first boss and stopped.
Microsoft has always shrouded their numbers since Xbox one era and Xbox live numbers. The only true numbers are for the shareholders.
"tons of people played it."
Okay buddy
30 fps hit
Tango Softworks made HiFi rush, how can they shut that down?
Gamepass and Xbox box exclusive for Year made it not profitable I assume.
It WAS profitable, unless xbox saying some months down the line that it was a success in every key measurement and expectations was just a straight up lie.
I think its safe to say "profitable" isnt enough for xbox. They expected Starfield to be another Skyrim or atleast another F3 and it fell on its ass and now everyone else has to suffer. Hi Fi Rush didnt make its production budget back every quarter? Great game, good works guys, Oops youre gone.
That’s really too bad, especially for those involved. Tango surprises me.
Arkane Austin really shat the bed
Xbox closing Tango Gameworks a year after Hi-Fi Rush is fucking disgusting.
Last year, Aaron Greenberg (VP of Marketing) at Xbox, had this to say: "Hi-Fi RUSH was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release."
Their reward?
You're fired, go fuck yourself.
Fucking disgusting.
I would hope they just moved the talent to another studio but yeah it is a shame still
I really doubt that, given that Tango is a Japanese studio and Xbox doesn't own many others.
They own zero others.
The lead creative behind hi fi rush left after they finished the game - most of the team left thereafter so there is literally no reason to keep it open if the only reason would be hi fi rush.
I think you're mixing up Shinji Mikami and John Johanas.
Mikami founded Tango and left last year. His involvement with Hi-Fi Rush was largely executive.
Johanas was the game's director, writer, and chief creative. He still worked at Tango until yesterday, as far as I'm aware.
Square announced plans to shutter Luminous Productions a MONTH after Forspoken came out lol
I mean yeah, but that game was raising red flags a year out and, by all accounts, massively underperformed critically and commercially. (I wouldn't know, I haven't played it.)
Hi-Fi Rush was GREAT, a massive critical success, was treated as a GOTY contender, and--though we don't have sales data, because it was a Gamepass game and most of those stats are behind the corporate veil--by Xbox's own words, it was a massive success.
That's what's galling about it, to me. Even if you win, you still lose.
This can't be right, I was told huge megacorporations devouring smaller companies was actually a good thing for the industry (/s if it wasn't obvious this was satire)
Tango would've probably closed already if they hadn't been acquired. Ghostwire Tokyo was a flop, and while HiFi rush was great, it didn't sell well
Yes but its their only Japanese Studio. If i where M$ i would just invest some money in there and keep it around. A Japanese studio costs significantly less than an American one. And while Microsoft actually has diverse studios (unlike Sony). Nothing is as diverse as Tango.
Personally i would have invested in a Hi-Fi rush anime and a sequel for everything, just make it game pass day one. But you can buy it on Playstation 5 and Switch 2. If that flopped, then yes maybe we can shutter the studio. But me personally would close almost any other studio before i Tango, if i was in M$ position.
4 console games, 3 of them action-horror, and their the last two games were financial flops. Not especially diverse or worth keeping around imo.