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[SaucyJack]

Refer back to the acquisition announcement. Microsoft intends to be hands off.

Bethesda’s structure and leadership has remained in place .......



..... underneath and reporting in to Xbox Game Studios

 

[PnCIa]

The guy who wrote this article assumes that...
...we want Zeninax and xbox to merge more and more quickly
...that this is inevitable
...It's the only way forward
...we are all working towards a "brave new subscription based world"
...that the remedy for this mediocre game is more corpo oversight

Sounds like a big corporation shill doing his work.

 

[SaucyJack]

The pronouns still get me.

Pandering nonsense.

Indeed. Adds zero value, of all the things I might want to know about their leadership team why would it be that?

It's absurd

 

[Interfectum]

Indeed. Adds zero value, of all the things I might want to know about their leadership team why would it be that?

It's absurd

lol yup. Why do I need to know their gender? Should they also put their favorite food and favorite color in the box too?

 

[Heisenberg007]

The pronouns still get me.

Pandering nonsense.

My company once asked me to do it. I almost went with "He/Her/Them" and was ready to call anyone pointing it out a transphobic person

But the salary was way too good, and I was very new

 

[Gone]

Well, too bad. They should've stepped in.

 

[VAVA Mk2]

They're not blame free and they need to be more hands on with their devs.

343i was already proof of that.

 

[Dr_Ifto]

Cant be responsible for the success of Hi-Fi Rush and not be responsible for Redfall.

 

[Tsaki]

Obviously, but fair is fair, whether good or bad, the game was in development before the acquisition and things are tricky with mergers and acquisitions, if the new leadership comes in gung-ho and starts telling a team how to do their job, it usually ends up in disaster.

No. Microsoft management should be watching the game's development frequently and have a feel of the state it was in. They decided to show it off 2 years ago, imagine how it was then. The game still needs like a year of polish just to fix the technical issues. Redfall should have been shown to the world at this year's E3, not before, but as per usual, Xbox likes to promise games years and years in advance. The only reason it released now in this state is just to feed GamePass, since their last AAA game was in 2021.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Redfall doesn't even vaguely approach the quality bar expected of Arkane, and indeed, Xbox itself.

*cough*Crackdown 3*cough*.... Nuff said.

 

[Shut0wen]

Why is no one discussing the real reason behind this dud and it all lies with harvey smith, even if the quality was there this game is still incredibly average, after blacksite area 51 was released he blamed the average game on midway for not giving the developers more time while his employers came out blaming him for wanting to make an average game in the first place, not saying harvey isnt talented but

 

[Sethbacca]

Microsoft associated themselves with the game by marketing the shit out of it and promoting it as an exclusive. This is on top of this being an MS owned studio. Of course MS is involved with this. What a stupid argument.

 

[GHG]

Disgusting lack of diversity here.

Just a bunch of regular old he/hims and she/hers.

 

[Bernardougf]

I think you may be right. I found this Gaming Leadership Team chart (Jan 18. 2022) and expected to find Zenimax leadership alongside Matt Booty. But they aren't here.

Well the pronouns are well defined so it must be a stellar company

 

[Sorcerer]

Also is quite hilarious that seemingly Xbox's only involvement in this title was blocking it from releasing on PlayStation

I wanted this game to be good, I mean I have to given I've got gamepass till 2025, I need the drops to be worth something, sadly this was absolutely shocking, even worse than I thought it would be.

They cannot risk to even slightly misfire with Starfield, I wouldn't be surprised if they delay it again out of a panic.

It would be quite funny if Starfield keeps getting delayed till the end of the generation or saved for the beginning of a new one because Microsoft quite literally has nothing else to talk about. What happens after Starfield? Whats the plan for 2024 and beyond?
I think Microsoft is digging themselves in a hole trying to acquire studios when they can't even manage one. What's the point? Consolidate and stay focused on getting good games out instead of making this gigantic sprawling mess they cannot control.
All you need is 3 killer games a year, (two is forgivable if they are really great) with Microsoft money and resources they theoretically should be able to pull it off. Hell, maybe with their money maybe I could make some killer games with toothpicks and some glue and a 3d camera. LOL!!!

 

[Bernardougf]

Refer back to the acquisition announcement. Microsoft intends to be hands off.

Even if they are "hands off" is their choice ... in the end someone has to sign the checks and put their stamp on the game, and this is xbox/ms ... so hands off is cool to show that you allow creative freedom, but you are backing the people that work for you.. you cant hire/keep some incompetent hack give him/her freedom of creativity and wash your hands when shit comes out .... the shit came out the pipeline you bought and/or build, either way is yours now, it has your name .. no excuses

 

[Jerm411]

He can try, but most people are saying the same thing and he can't ban 90% of people in a topic.

The dude is probably seething like a motherfucker.

Oh for sure…they closed the topic at one point to go over a “bunch of reported posts”…

 

[Bernardougf]

It would be quite funny if Starfield keeps getting delayed till the end of the generation or saved for the beginning of a new one because Microsoft quite literally has nothing else to talk about. What happens after Starfield? Whats the plan for 2024 and beyond?
I think Microsoft is digging themselves in a hole trying to acquire studios when they can't even manage one. What's the point? Consolidate and stay focused on getting good games out instead of making this gigantic sprawling mess they cannot control.

The objective is clear.. spill as much "content" you can in your streaming/renting service .. for this you dont need quality control just enough numbers to put out products in a constant matter ... people act like is something new or that with games and MS would be different from netflix, amazon, disney plus ... quantity over quality .. its what many of us warned and didnt want stablished in this industry, thank god for the CMA blocking ABK aquisition and stalling this process for now

And on a addendum... the 0 marketing for a supposedly good game in HiFi Rush and all this marketing for this shit Redfall show how out of touch MS gaming division is, theres no sugar coating, some companys are completely in their bubble and cant see the market (disney comes to mind as one example) and MS is another.

 

[Moriarty1889]

The blame falls squarely on MS starting with Phil Spencer and Matt Booty. Between the two of them, their studios aren’t being properly managed. Booty should have been canned long ago as he is not up to the task and hasn’t been for some time. Phil doesn’t seem to have the drive in him to crack down on the devs and make sure they are meeting progress and deadlines. This just keeps happening over and over and will continue until someone is replaced with an individual capable of holding the internal teams accountable. Sadly, as always, these underwhelming games always fall under the ‘but at least it is free on Gamepass’ mantra. Gamepass imo has definitely lowered quality and expectations for xbox games. It’s a two sided sword. One that Phil and Co. have decided to die upon.

 

[scarlet0pimp]

If this is true then Xbox need to change their attitude to Bethesda. They should at the very least have a technical team who will go out and help all studios working on an xbox game and make sure that any console hardware feature that can be of benefit to that title is being used. So if Bethesda is not seen as true MS first party they need to be integrated more so they can release the best version of their games as possible.

 

[Gojiira]

Typical Xbox blaming everyone but themselves. There should be SOME fucking oversight. But then again their management is on par in terms of how terrible it is as EA and Activision so not surprised they take zero responsibility.

 

[brian0057]

People like to put the publishers on blast and, most of the time, rightly so.
But the developers also share some of that blame. I know we love to mock EA (because they deserve it) but when Mass Effect went from one of the best series in the industry to a joke, that was all Bioware.

Hell, it wasn't until The Stick of Truth that Obsidian finally deigned to release a game that wasn't a broke piece of shit. But for some reason, every single time, it was the publisher that was excoriated.

 

[TheGodfather07]

Total bullshit. It's got microsofts fingerprints all over it!

 

[DeepEnigma]

Please Understand™

and,

 

[HTK]

Redfall dropped the PS5 development and got delayed and still delivers this shitty quality.

Sure this was all in development well before Microsoft acquisition, but they were bought and they are owned by Microsoft so if it performs good or bad it will fall under Microsoft.

 

[fart town usa]

You better believe that if this really is the case; MS being so hands off to the point that something like this can be released to the public...the hammer is gonna come down and these teams are gonna be feeling the heat.

That's really the only option. Shake up team leads, cut dead weight. Find motivated, hard working people and let them have more oversight.

I'd also fire that guy at Arkane posting on Twitter talking about Redfall vibes while drinking red wine and how great it is to see the game on store shelves.

 

[Zuzu]

Phil seemed to take responsibility for Redfall in his interview today. He said they didn’t give resources to the Redfall team early on and they didn’t send the Coalition and Rare in to help them earlier to help with the 60fps patch. On the flip side he said that they’ve given lots of help to Starfield. So Xbox definitely holds some blame for this.

 

[Pelta88]

"Every game we ship from our teams is an XBOX game so we take full responsibility for it." - Phil Spencer

Stated emphatically in todays interview. It should end any debate but I'm sure someone is calculating some form of mental gymnastics to suggest otherwise.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Phil took responsibility today and mentioned that they didn't provide Arkane the support they needed (but have been providing that support to Starfield/Bethesda).

That basically debunks this article. We can all move on now.