Today, one day after Microsoft announced that it would shut down four of its games studios, Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, held a town hall to discuss the division’s future goals. “We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards,” Booty told employees, according to internal remarks shared with The Verge.
For some listeners on the call, it was a surprising goal: Microsoft had just shut down the Japanese developer Tango Gameworks, which was coming off the small, prestigious hit title Hi-Fi Rush.
Hi-Fi Rush, which was a surprise release last year, was praised for its innovation and charm. The rhythm action game featured music by The Black Keys and Nine Inch Nails, with an art style that evoked the hyper-stylized games of the PS2 era. Just four months after its release, Hi-Fi Rush hit 3 million players. During the 2023–2024 awards season, the game went on to win a Game Award, a Game Developers Choice award, and a BAFTA.
Here, I’ll translate - “We need an undervalued and underpaid studio that we own to pop out a viral sensation we can exploit the shit out of, who we will then treat exactly the same. Repeat ad nauseam”
Let it be known, of your company is being bought by big tech, start polishing that resume. You officially have max one year of employment, that’s how long it takes for the SEC to back down and not pay much attention. As soon as they’re in the clear, you’re out.
It should have legal consequences for the worlds most valuable corporation to just kill that many jobs
Oh it does, in the form.of huge bonuses for the idiots that decided it.
At least people should cancel their game passes.
I’m fucking tired of Microsoft, google and the whole shit we don’t need those fuckers anymore.
Yup, so don’t use them. Here’s what I’ve done:
- switch to Linux on my computers
- switch to Duckduckgo for search
- switch to Tuta for email
- switch to Gitlab for code
- cancelled Amazon Prime subscription
- using Grayjay instead of YouTube directly
And things I’m working on:
- switch to Linux for my phone - I’m ironically probably going to get a Pixel phone for GrapheneOS
- self-host LibreOffice Online or OnlyOffice to replace Google Sheets
- switch to Open Street Maps to replace Google Maps
- trying to drop all YouTube channels, switching to Nebula, Odysee, etc
Hardest one of those is youtube, youtube is such a central thing now.
Isn’t odysee the crypto bro one?
Yeah, and it’s currently in a weird form of limbo, so I’m hesitating a bit in asking my favorite creators to support it.
Basically:
- In 2022, a judge decided they were trading in unregistered securities
- SEC revised judgment from $22M to $111k, because LBRY ran out of money
- LBRY announced it would wind down, and in Oct. last year a Delaware court heard a lawsuit about appointing a receiver for Odysee
- Last month it seems a receiver was appointed, but not sure who
So, who knows what’s going to happen to Odysee. It seems they’re getting new owners, and they have a non-crypto fee chart, and hopefully that doesn’t change much because it seems pretty reasonable (creators get like 90% of the money paid for subscriptions, tips, etc).
Nebula seems more stable, so I’m starting there, but I’m guessing it’s easier to get creators to upload to Odysee than to join Nebula. We’ll see though. I’m hopeful that Odysee will come out of it as a stable service, because I’d be totally down to send my favorite creators some money through it.
Keep up the good fight. I’m still trying to get used to OSM.
But we need to sell the small innovative companies to someone so that the CEOs can get their payouts, don’t we?
The reason these companies are successful is anti competitive behavior and money, not genius. Granted, gates did good when he invented a universally adopted OS but since then, they’re just using their power to bully themselves to more money.
They desperately need to be broken up and I wonder when the rest of the world will come to that conclusion. I hope it happens before we get „privatized government“.
People defending megacorporations of any kind should be ashamed of themselves.
Gates did good when his mother who was in the board of IBM convinced them to use on their PC the OS made by her son
FTFY
OOF
I didnt know that. So from „young inventor in a garage“ to „privileged child gets everything in life because money“. Thats sad man.
🧑🚀 🔫👨🚀
the OS bought by her son
FTFY
I‘m sure you mean well but your link does not work to substantiate your claim. Can you cite or link to a specific part of the document? Assuming its not my phone thats making trouble. In that case I apologize.
For the link, under the section “Creation of PC DOS”
“In July 1981, a month before the PC’s release, Microsoft purchased all rights to 86-DOS from SCP for US$50,000.[3][10][11] It met IBM’s main criteria: it looked like CP/M,[2] and it was easy to adapt existing 8-bit CP/M programs to run under it, notably thanks to the TRANS command which would translate source files from 8080 to 8086 machine instructions. Microsoft licensed 86-DOS to IBM, and it became PC DOS 1.0. This license also permitted Microsoft to sell DOS to other companies, which it did. The deal was spectacularly successful, and SCP later claimed in court that Microsoft had concealed its relationship with IBM in order to purchase the operating system cheaply. SCP ultimately received a US$1 million settlement payment.”
All because his mother was on the board of directors? Now I understand why he wont give away his fortune. He isnt the saint everybody thinks he is. Its all marketing.
I mean, yeah… There’s no such thing as being an ethical billionaire.
Yeah. Try to tell that to anyone who is in that TV-watching-bubble. I have problems even conveying that musk is not a saint.
trans command?? dos is secretly based???
Maybe stop hemorrhaging money with GamePass. Like for example is paying Take-Two hundreds of millions to get GTAV on the service really a good investment. They could have funded hundreds of smaller studios with the money they poured into the service to just get a handful of triple A games on it.
Just stop trying to make game subscription service a thing. If it ever becomes successful it will just change the industry for the worse.
You’re right but let’s be clear here: Microsoft doesn’t care if it changes the industry for worse, so the only calculus that matters to the execs is whether it works
One correction: the only calculus that matters to the execs is whether it works for now. Whatever happens later is somebody else’s problem
I think the elephant in the room with Hi-Fi Rush is the cost of the licensing of the music, and how they have to keep updating that licensing to keep the music. Sure, Hi-Fi Rush already has generic music that can be substituted in for Let’s Plays, but it would be a bummer to play this in 10 years and have all the original soundtrack gone. Which is… likely what might happen.
Microsoft wants smaller games that give them prestige and awards that don’t come with complicated long-term music licensing issues that are pretty integral to the game itself since it’s a… music… game…
Anyway, that’s how I read it. A sequel would be just asking for more and new music to be used, creating a long-term licensing nightmare akin to what has happened to the soundtracks of the older Grand Theft Auto games. That seems… ill advised, for a rhythm game series.
Music licensing for games is so dumb. You’d think the studios would remember the Guitar Hero effect, where having your back catalog featured in a game introduces it to a new generation and brings sales and new fans.
If anything, they should pay the devs for the exposure rather than the other way around. It’s not like I bought Hi-Fi Rush for the music, but I ended up enjoying and seeking out a few tracks due to it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if licensing a song to a video game pays more than the fractions of a cent per stream you get from the bump afterward, and exposure doesn’t pay your bills.
My rate has just gone up if someone wants to hire me for exposure.
Apparently Rockstar paid around $5-10k per track for GTA IV, so it wouldn’t take much of a boost in sales to be more significant than the licensing fee income.
GTA is one of the few games where the value of exposure might actually be worth it during negotiations though. That’s getting up to doing the super bowl half time show for free levels of publicity.
No, but touring does and a bigger market for ticket sales is the best profit an artist can get.
They didn’t axe an entire studio because of music licensing…
New games with longevity in mind should only use public domain music.
The executive leadership needs the small game wins, it doesn’t need or value the people who make the small game wins.
Also in large organizations The power politics can actually be more important than the money. The executive who killed the small studio may be a different executive than the one who wants small well received games that build reputation.
Microsoft is kind of infamous for different internal groups working against each other.
It’s the reason why Shinji Mikami quit i think, dude just wanna make small non-spoopy game while training the next generation of game dev.
With them axing that many studio and focusing on “high-impact” title, whatever that mean to them, m$ basically squeeze themselves dry without 1st party game to support their console and their own store.
Does Microsoft still own the rights for Hi-Fi Rush or Prey after this? Cuz that would suck. I love those games and I dont think I can take it if they pushed out a half baked sequel…
Ofc they do
hifi rush was a great game, and of course that fucker microsoft has to ruin everything. just leave it to microsoft to FUCK everything up.
What a great way to motivate your other employees and show them that hard work is worthwhile and success is rewarded.
I’ll never forgive Microsoft for killing Ensemble Studios, and I’ll never forgive Sony for killing Zipper Interactive.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
For some listeners on the call, it was a surprising goal: Microsoft had just shut down the Japanese developer Tango Gameworks, which was coming off the small, prestigious hit title Hi-Fi Rush.
When rumors swirled that it wasn’t doing well commercially, Aaron Greenberg, vice president of Xbox games marketing, wrote on X that Hi-Fi Rush “was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations.”
“While there are titles we can’t announce yet,” Spencer said in the September 2023 interview, translated by VGC, “we are currently developing new games in collaboration with Japanese companies.” It’s worth wondering if that’s still the plan now that Tango is shut down.
Even the original Hades is climbing back up the Steam charts, breaking its all-time peak player count record just today almost four years after its initial release.
While we don’t know exactly what sales goals Microsoft had for Hi-Fi Rush, clearly there is a demonstrated appetite for this kind of game, with Tango Gameworks positioned perfectly to deliver it.
With Hi-Fi Rush, Tango Gameworks gave Microsoft just what Booty says he wants: a small, creatively unique, highly praised, award-winning game.
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