diffusionx
Gold Member
Ninja Theory will be shut down in the next year or so.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Games Industry Reacts to Tango Gameworks Closure: "Why?"
I'm gonna be that asshole guy, only TEW 1 and 2 sold decently, and it was a slow burn with lots of sales by that point, Hi Fi Rush despite having been a sleeper hit of sorts, only had like 6k players on Steam at its peak, and that was at its launch week, it needed to do much more than that. Grounded was made by a fraction of people and 6k is the daily playerbase with an all time high of 31k.
Monolith Soft doesn't do crazy numbers, but Nintendo doesn't do major sales either, so they are mostly sold at full price selling 1-2 million copies, far more profitable than Hi Fi Rush, and one of the reasons why Nintendo has huge profit margins.
Last edited:
ChorizoPicozo
Member
even sooner if the game is a critical miss.
ARK1391
Member
I give them till the end of 2025. There is no way they live to release another game after HB2.
The truth is more likely just that MS doesn’t want the difficulty of managing a Japanese studio. They probably don’t even know where to start with it. Do they have any other subsidiaries in non English speaking countries?
HiFi Rush isn’t really relevant to the decision, that’s the sunk cost fallacy. What matters is what they would expect to happen in the future and I think Phil and the MS management know their limits.
HiFi Rush isn’t really relevant to the decision, that’s the sunk cost fallacy. What matters is what they would expect to happen in the future and I think Phil and the MS management know their limits.
FunkMiller
Gold Member
It's clearly not profitable. Phil's endless cock ups have ruined its capacity to make money, and once that happens to a subsidiary, the sharks from other departments start circling. They'll carve up Xbox into whatever they think they can still squeeze money from, and dump the rest. This is the start of that.
Last edited:
Magic Carpet
Member
Reminds me of an old movie from the 80's
Richard Pryor had to spend 30 million dollars and have nothing to show for it in order to inherit 300 million.
He wasn't allowed to tell anyone why.
Richard Pryor had to spend 30 million dollars and have nothing to show for it in order to inherit 300 million.
He wasn't allowed to tell anyone why.
Killjoy-NL
Member
Because it's pretty much dead as far as being a platform-holder concerns.
All that's happening lately is the reality-check for some.
Jinzo Prime
Gold Member
intheinbetween
Member
The writing was on the wall once Mikami left
RoboFu
One of the green rats
But, but, that would mean the board has to take a 500k pay cut each for the year..
I've seen it first hand more than once. It's sickening.
RoboFu
One of the green rats
He already knew.
Punished Miku
Member
It is funny how much shit people talk about MS ever spending company money outside the gaming division like it would literally be cheating, nonstop for years. But then immediately criticize when they don't float the gaming division anyway. Just makes no sense really.
GHG
Member
Well there are 75+ billion reasons why they can no longer float the gaming division.
Hope all those Activison games on gamepass have been worth it. Oh wait...
NoLootBoxDev
Member
DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
MS is trying to steal the “worst company in America” championship from EA
Red5
Member
MS as a whole is up but I doubt Xbox division is performing as expected. Spencer probably killed these studios to cut down on costs and make Xbox look more profitable instead of using the talent he bought to make games that sells. Idiots never learn.
saintjules
Member
The Evil Within was one of my favorite games and a good break from Resident Evil. Sad that we may never see a 3rd entry.
AmuroChan
Member
I empathize with what he's saying, but unfortunately that's not how business works. One highly profitable division in a company isn't going to act as a shield to protect another division out of altruism.
Punished Miku
Member
Japan Studio put out lots of great stuff, like The Last Guardian and Gravity Rush 2. And I literally said "but even worse." But thanks for the cool lecture.
TidusYuna
Member
My thoughts exactly.
near
Gold Member
I don't think MS wants the difficulty of micro-managing any studio, period.
bender
What time is it?
Okay, Leslie.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I'd put money on them and Obsidian being shut down within the next 12 months.
bender
What time is it?
Microsoft could, and should, put Obsidian on another quick and dirty Fallout project. The writing might not be as strong as NV, but people eat up anything of passable quality with the Fallout name attached to it and maybe they could get it out by season 2 or 3 of the show.
bitbydeath
Gold Member
Shots Fired!
-Michael Douse (Publishing Director at Larian Studios)
joeygreco1985
Member
To see the team that put out such a joyful, beautiful, and quality game like Hi-Fi Rush get kicked out the door is beyond disheartening. Like what is the barometer for who gets to keep their job anymore when making quality games isn't good enough?
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I know they knocked out NV in 18 months, but times have changed a lot since then. It's going to take at least 5 years to work on a new FO from scratch. It's also worth considering how many of the people who made NV are still at the studio? Can current Obsidian still make something as good as NV?
They're last few games haven't been that great either, certainly not to the same standard as NV. If Avowed is shit and/or flops, Obsidian are getting the old yella treatment.
bender
What time is it?
Didn't they knock out the Outer Worlds (Wilds?) pretty quickly? Even with a long development cycle and absent of the show hype, Fallout still does numbers. Microsoft need to figure out a way to get Bethesda on a better tick (TES)/tock (Fallout) cadence. If nothing else, just remaster NV.
mayham2199
Member
It's possible they stick around to do the PS5 port. After that....
Punished Miku
Member
They'll get a Marvel IP after Hellblade 2.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
There was a leak a while ago that Fallout 3 and NV (as well as ESIV) are all being remastered, but I have no idea how true it is.
They should have had the remasters ready for the show.
SaturnSaturn
Member
All those japanese trips phil put in and coutring devs for years, just for nadella and co to destroy everything in an instance lmao.
more focus on fewer games, only AAA and no diversity in the portfolio it seems to me is that path forward that xbox will take.
more focus on fewer games, only AAA and no diversity in the portfolio it seems to me is that path forward that xbox will take.
Last edited:
Wildebeest
Member
Obsidian used to be renowned for rushing blatantly unfinished games out of the door, because they were always on a knife edge of the business surviving. They were carried by the writing of people like Chris Avellone, who could bang out engaging work to deadline like a machine. Outer Worlds was a long development compared to old Obsidian and relatively polished, but some noted that the writing seemed insipid and not as funny as it acted like it was.
Last edited:
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
What sales? Everything is "free" on GamePass.
Wildebeest
Member
Based on nothing but rampant speculation, I guess that Microsoft sniffed out staff being systematically poached and decided it wasn't worth the hassle to keep open.
H-I-M
Member
It's funny how the Xbox division is 'healthier than ever' 'everybody is winning' 'record revenues every quarter', yet they keep closing studios.
Make it make sense baby!
Punished Miku
Member
This had nothing to do with my post. Everyone knows Xbox division is done and they're going 3rd party. Some people called it much earlier but pretty much everyone had agreed by February of this year.
Little Chicken
Member
Sorry, but that motley crew of soap-dodgers would be the first people rushing to twitter screeching "poor me, stop" if people were making assumptions online about business decisions they were making, so they shouldn't be throwing stones, especially the ugly one.
Last edited:
Post pandemic problems probably we'd never encountered before, it's still in effect and we don't know when it will end.
Isa
Member
Seriously, MS is giving me flashbacks to EA and all the companies they've butchered over the years. I swear these corpos are giving me PTSD. It all just reinforces my investment in other systems lately and exiting Xbox's. I've already been through that turmoil in the 80's-90's.
