Microsoft & Xbox reports reveal reckless Activision Blizzard acquisition & failing Game Pass gamble

PATREON: / yongyea
TWITTER: / yongyea
INSTAGRAM: / yong_yea
TIKTOK: / yongyea
SOURCES
1: www.theverge.com/2024/1/25/24...
2: / 1787837929332601189
3: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tango_G...
4: / 1649431572137779203
5: / 1691846131548913781
6: www.theverge.com/2024/5/8/241...
7: / 1788393770372776016
8: / 1788408831241785593
9: / 1787837804287860886
10: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkane_...
11: www.gameinformer.com/news/202...
12: / 1788131213519077496
13: / 1787860542398300383
14: www.geekwire.com/2024/microso...
15: / 1787856772897861925
16: www.ign.com/articles/microsof...
17: / 1787863267538289135
18: www.videogameschronicle.com/n...
19: / 1787849921455931428
20: / 1787843489285460035
21: / 1787839601266069959
22: / 1787849804023775661
23: / 1787923966616813619
24: / 1787894632577114298
25: / 1787843776234336526
26: / 1787847302649917634
27: / 1787910524316889100
28: / 1788298433922482319
29: www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...
30: / 1788314223594152288
31: / 1788299893326373145
32: www.theverge.com/2024/5/8/241...
33: www.videogameschronicle.com/f...
34: / 1787871172765299151
35: / 1788508504308810010
36: / 1788616416456818821
37: / 1788228177845715408
38: / 1788358330744013023
39: kotaku.com/xbox-phil-spencer-...
40: / 1787914959541911727
41: / 1788414778253123985
42: www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-...
43: / 1787855320204837116
44: / 1787868941705998809
45: / 1787880006083019217
46: / 1788330050514743485
47: www.videogameschronicle.com/n...
48: www.eurogamer.net/state-of-de...
49: gamerant.com/fable-developmen...
50: www.polygon.com/22533819/ever...
51: / more_details_about_the...
52: gamingbolt.com/contraband-has...
TOP PATRONS
[BIG BOSS]
- Devon B
[BOSS]
- Charlie Galvin
- Gerardo Andrade
- Michael Redmond
[LEGENDARY]
- azalea

[@YongYea]

Microsoft and Xbox's reckless spending spree combined with their misjudgment of Game Pass growth led to cherished Bethesda studios such as Tango & Arkane Austin paying the price and may very well screw over other smaller beloved and creative studios that Phil Spencer promised would be nurtured. This is such a travesty. PATREON: www.patreon.com/yongyea TWITTER: twitter.com/yongyea INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/yong_yea TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@yongyea TOP PATRONS [BIG BOSS] - Devon B [BOSS] - Charlie Galvin - Gerardo Andrade - Michael Redmond [LEGENDARY] - azalea

[@That_One_User_314]

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

[@gardyion2869]

Major Xbox L

[@QuestionMarking]

Pretty sure at this point the wider internet is just looking at Microsoft like that fish from spongebob and going: "Hey pal, you just blow in from stupid town?"

[@That_One_User_314]

KZbin keeps deleting my comments :(

[@tomatomaki]

Thank you Chong Yue for the awesome news.

[@ArmageddonD11]

CEOs are paid massive salaries to "captain" their companies, yet when they steer them into a storm it's everyone working under them who drowns while they sail away in a golden lifeboat.

[@urazz7739]

Yep, that's for the whole stock market as a whole. CEOs and the rest of the corporate executives get to get away with their massive mistakes and still make their bonuses, while anyone at the lower levels of a company should only be lucky to keep their jobs.

[@hypocriticalsatire3966]

When the system is kinda built by them, ofc they give themselves the most ridiculously extravagant pay and golden parachute

[@RichSmithson]

All publicly traded companies too. The same CEO's just go from one company to another.

[@HumuMuu]

@@urazz7739this is why I think there should be laws in place that makes these bozos accountable. We all know they only care about shareholders and short-term profits. Why are we even allowing them to make decisions on things they have 0 knowledge about other than “oh this existing thing has market potential. Let me bleed it dry and then move on to the next cash cow.” If your fucking company isn’t doing well because of your dumbass decisions, your paycheck should take the hit. Not employee livelihood. So sick and tired of corporate greed.

[@thehouseofhoops]

It pays to be part of a Satanic network.

[@baconski2858]

Microsoft saw one of the worst trainwrecks in history and went “I can do one better”

[@TheRedRaven_]

Xbox saw*

[@budkin]

@@TheRedRaven_This is all Microsoft.

[@CoOlKyUbI96]

Microsoft to Microsoft: “Hold my beer”

[@The_Primary_Axiom]

Remember Xbox one ? Who needs games when you have a media center. They were showing movies, shows, entertainment center, and people are like does it play games? 😂 😂

[@TheRedRaven_]

@@budkin You need to direct your anger over at Xbox, Microsoft is chilling at a stable 3 trillion in market cap because of Windows, “Xbox Studios” or whatever their brand name is, needs to be addressed accordingly, it’s a subsidiary brand. Edit: Since y’all don’t get it, Phil Spencer is CEO of “Microsoft gaming”(Xbox), Satya Narayana Nadella is CEO of Microsoft. Crazy I have to explain something so obvious 😂

[@jpteknoman]

The more I see things like this, the more I appreciate the genius of Gabe who kept Valve private and safe from these shenanigans.

[@calamaty2007]

Indeed. Steam is not perfect but it certainly is doing a lot better than Microsoft and Sony

[@ououkuaipao]

steam is winning by doing nothing

[@chaosdirge4906]

Microsoft is looking to buy steam.

[@theMaxTero]

I think we need to keep saying this and keep repeating: a videogame crash is coming. The way that shareholders are CEO are handling AAA gaming is unsustainable. Please be aware of this. Also there's a lot of disgruntled devs who are starting to change industries altogether because it's NOT worth the hassle. It's RIDICULOUS that you get fired and lose you job because you SUCCEED but you didn't succeed to the level that the CEOs/shareholders wants.

[@quinntonhuffman5260]

These corporate clowns thought game pass would just infinitely grow, forgetting that humanity has a finite population.

[@darksteel78]

It's the Facebook access problem at a smaller scale. The stock market wanted to see that user growth every quarter. At some point you run out of people with access to the Internet. Zuckerberg even pushed getting more folks Internet access to meet expectations, launching satellites and drones to beam the Internet to remote regions. All those projects were canned and I believe game pass is headed down the same road.

[@RazielTheUnborn]

Finite population, finite people interested in game, and finite people interested in specific games.

[@I_Ruby_I]

As well as finite funds, and yet there's talks they want to increase game pass prices AGAIN

[@PookaBot]

Yeah and in general the subscription model doesn't work for everything. Not sure it's even working for video any more...

[@HelloKittySGTC]

Yep even windows Microsoft has hit as wall, same for Meta Facebook. They've ran the well dry.

[@senpairyujin]

I remember when Larian Studios refused to be bought out by Microsoft. It was the right call to make. Stay independent because if you aren't at the level of... Say rockstar your livelihood isn't guaranteed.

[@russianFB7442]

Thank Godness. Imagine bg3 if Microsoft had control.

[@lareolanKFP]

Who said Rockstar is special? They'll shut it down same as any other studios. These decisions are clearly not being made on any creative, financial, or logical basis.

[@joaocardoletto]

BG3 would have been converted into a Diablo-ish multiplayer extraction hack and slash and Larian would be closed right after the flop.

[@sexypixels988]

Lol Microsoft disrespected Larian by offering 10 mil for the whole studio. No sane person would take that deal. They probably made hundreds of millions of $ from bg3 alone

[@williamsullivan4640]

Moon Studio also refused a Microsoft buyout. FYI they are the ones behind both Ori games

[@AegixDrakan]

I am so freaking mad. Tango deserved better. It's completely stupid that despite making insane profits, they still shut down a studio that had a *success.*

[@samgriess438]

they will destroy this company like everything else they touch

[@eddiefraser4373]

There is no such thing as enough profit

[@AegixDrakan]

@@eddiefraser4373 Yup. :( The Investor Economy is never satisfied. It always demands more.

[@samgriess438]

@@AegixDrakan the stock market must be brought to a end its a corrupt casino for the elite whenever the little guy wins, they wont let them cash out, but if the big guy is losing... the shut down the casino.... its literally rigged to steal money from the general population

[@MinersLoveGames]

Having Johnny Silverhand in the background for a story on how corporate stooges have yet again screwed over many, many people is sooooo fitting.

[@SoulAtParadise]

i thought xbox wanted more JAPANESE games and devs? but instead they shut down a JAPANESE studio and took away everything from them.

[@hafirenggayuda]

Tbf, Shinji Mikami already leaving it while bringing most of workers there. It can be said Tango is an almost empty studio. Now looking at this, I feel Mikami knew what about to come after Microsoft buying and make some preparation

[@HelloKittySGTC]

Did you think companies wanted Japense games these days, hell they are censoring them left and right. Whoever told you that lied, or gave you a half truth.

[@LUCAS420BLZ]

Sony would have done more with them

[@TommyDeonauthsArchives]

Yeah, I'm as baffled as you are...

[@Thesenuts1992]

@@LUCAS420BLZyeah like they did with their Japan based studio… shut it down. Don’t trust any of these corporations. They’re only interested in raising the bottom line. Nothing else

[@Offroader210]

For five minutes, Microsoft. Could you not be yourself? *FOR FIVE MINUTES?!*

[@kaydawgy1999]

"ehhhh.... best I can give u is 3"

[@SavanBerry]

2 minutos... Tómalo o déjalo.

[@twinmal]

Lol nice

[@NeocrimsonX]

Even wesker is more generous.

[@pizzagamecube2564]

@@NeocrimsonX”7 minutes. 7 minutes is all I can spare to play with you.”

[@Reneblade]

A washed video game company buying another washed video game company for 69 billion is corporate America summed up perfectly.

[@johnhicks4369]

Don't worry capitalism is falling . Badly I might add. Read the news. Food costs.. minimum wage increases ... Country's going to hell and the rich will fall. People will rise up... And wise up

[@anon556]

So the third most successful game company in the world (almost second right behind tencent) is washed up? You do know microsoft isn't just a game company right? Keep smoking that crack brother 🤙 act/blizz makes 8.1Billion dollars per year with a growth rate of 13.1%. This was a great financial investment that will have a large and long return. Update your definition of "washed up" your subjective opinion doesn't determine the health of a company. Their increasing revenue says you're an idiot.

[@ethandtheangryenglishguy8253]

All of this and the fact that Microsoft had been invaded by SBI sums up why Toys for Bob became indie.

[@ououkuaipao]

they re buying king, blizzard is just a side dish

[@kagenotatsumaki]

Remember when the internet was cheering Microsoft for buying all these Devs? Some of us tried to warn them...

[@youtubechannel4792]

I thought I was going crazy. Everyone was sick riding Phil and Xbox like crazy. I thought I was crazy because I just seen very obvious problems that would come from this

[@thelemetric]

man anerican mcgee alice were the days…

[@johncrowley3322]

Tbh we were all expecting someone to buy out EA and essentially save half the industry (primarily sports titles and sims). Everyone thought these were just the initial moves to start a games development cold war arms race but somehow ea survived. Ultimately acquiring Cod from blizzard, Elder scrolls and Fallout with the buyout of Bethesda is a good move just a bit ambitious. Bethesda has seen the benefits of Microsoft connections with the tv series. Cod was on a good path a few months ago but its obvious Microsoft doesn't give af about game developers. Mtx and lootboxes are too strong keeping Ea alive and leading to the destruction of indie or small devs.

[@daksans6764]

I was one of them

[@MnemonicDK]

@@johncrowley3322 I thought the Fallout TV series was planned before the MS buyout?

[@MG-zx8jn]

Microsoft wants every game to sell millions of copies, but they also want Game Pass subscriptions to increase every quarter. You can't have both and expect unlimited profit.

[@gamesmovienation3516]

I don’t think they thought it through sure game pass is good value but your right they can’t have both

[@sammiesmith3454]

microsoft makes more than enough profit

[@marceachucarro8834]

​@@sammiesmith3454 Microsoft probably does, Xbox doesn't.

[@Willow4526]

Yeah they don't understand gaming at all, let alone are paying attention to what their customers are living through, like we've seen cost of living increase pretty much globally, it's harder for ppl to afford food let alone a full priced game, so obviously with game pass existing ppl are going to opt for the thing that, depending on country to country, only costs like 2 full games for an entire year access to potentially hundreds of new games each year. Personally until like a year or two ago I've never used the wishlist feature or focused on only buying when games go on sale, I've had no choice but to start using them bcos money is such much more precious to survival. Practically tho even if things get easier I'll still be doing this, I've played more games than before bcos I'm finding all these little gems or just able to try something I'd never buy before. But yeah we're poor out here Microsoft, you can't have it both ways.

[@EmpShaddam]

Well last year there was an article about Phil Spencer spending 23 weeks doing nothing but playing video games he earned 180 some achievements and put himself within the top 5% of the Xbox players not 23 days now 23 weeks

[@icehour6568]

Blizzard: You've saved us from bobby kotick, you have freed us! Phil:Oh i wouldn't say freed, more like under new management.👌

[@urazz7739]

Or lack of management. A lot of Xbox's problems is a result of them not really keeping an eye on their studios, especially the troubled ones that they bought. I mean, if it was me buying these studios, I'd be evaluating them first and then firing the idiots that got those studios into trouble in the first place.

[@Buttz2Buttz]

@@urazz7739 Yes, thank you. Phill needs a new job, dude couldn't manage to take the trash out let a lone manage a company. And that indian dude (can't remember his name) that is Head of Microsoft now needs to go too, guys a jag. He's more concerned about sending jobs to the middle east and turning Microsoft software into malware. Had to get a new comp twice now from the updates bricking my laptop. The most recent wiped my drive after updating.

[@goofballjim6167]

More like no management if this shit keeps up

[@GHOSTSTARSCREAM]

@@urazz7739 You must be fun at parties to think that Xbox would've been capable of over-looking their studios in the first place. They havn't been capable to over-looke their studios since Halo 4/Forza Motorsport 5

[@Lord_Thunderballs]

​​@@GHOSTSTARSCREAMThe Xbox 360 era was their peak (Not taking into account their RROD issue). It's been downhill since.

[@spectacularspidey28]

I remember the first time I heard Sony say that this was not sustainable, and it made me wonder if we would ever see the outcome of that statement and here we are

[@relaxedleisure4766]

American companies tend to be extremely shortsighted compared to non-American companies (except for Chinese companies, they have the same tendencies as American companies, but for a very different reason).

[@jarrodeaston6373]

Yeah. They were right all along.

[@MonkeGeorge]

@@relaxedleisure4766 The top % of American companies are global conglomerates, and parent companies, and shareholders to many corporate subsidiaries around the world... The global elite aren't somehow different in other parts of the world, they're practically colleagues. Lets go ask Dubai and Japan how their working class are doing? How about consumer exploitation? This isn't a nationalist issue.

[@relaxedleisure4766]

@@MonkeGeorge It’s not a nationalist issue (I’m a right leaning American, I’m a pro-money capitalist), but it is unfortunately a cultural one. American public companies tend to be more shortsighted because Americans tend to have low attention spans. In a nutshell, the problem is mostly with American investors…

[@MonkeGeorge]

@@relaxedleisure4766 Who or what you identify as has no bearing on your take not being an objective truth.

[@Zwizard247]

Proves that no matter how many awards a game gets, companies only care about money, not how good your game is

[@DaOrr]

This is exactly why Nintendo just laughed Microsoft out of the room when they tried to buy Nintendo back in the early 2000s

[@pieropalle]

Nintendo is easily the worst company out of the 3, their scandals simply don't make it out of the cult-like community around their (shitty) platforms.

[@dudette2x]

@@pieropalle Exactly, I don't know where this Nintendo are the "good guys" mentality came from.

[@connormclernon26]

@@dudette2xthey aren’t the good guys, but they’re the least bad when it comes to employee treatment compared to Microsoft and Sony. Their crappy behavior is directed towards emulators and people trying to do things with their games. I would remind you that Satoru Iwata and his entire board took a pay cut twice in order to avoid laying off employees.

[@IshayuG]

@@connormclernon26 Exactly this. Nintendo has always seemed remarkably stable and a friendly place to work. Were I to make games and were I to live in Japan, which is an unlikely combination I admit, I would love to work for Nintendo. Microsoft, whose offices are literally down the street for me - never in a million years. The only awful thing about Nintendo is their stance towards emulation and backwards compatibility.

[@TheFirstCurse1]

​@@pieropalleYeah they've done some horrible things but they make great hardware and have amazing games. Nintendo and Sony are miles ahead of Microsoft right now and have been for like the past 10 years.

[@sureberferber9101]

Microsoft: "Make Awesome Game = You Lose Your Job Anyways" Devs: Seems legit. 😐

[@deoxysandmew2162]

Devs: "So... whats the point then?!"

[@daniellacomb917]

IF UR A DEV START UR OWN COMPANY WITH BLACKJACK AND.HOOKERS, FUCK THESE CORPORATIONS

[@maxmikester8185]

Microsoft: “To make me rich while I sit on my yacht and pay you nothing.”

[@MobileDecay]

There's nothing you can do to make a Karen(Microsoft) happy. 🤔

[@yautl1]

Guess they're right here with the rest of us in late-stage capitalism hell.

[@ambds1975]

[old lady yells at cloud] Companies used to make a product and sell it to customers. Customers got a good/service, and the company made some money from it. Win/win. Public companies are still providing a good/service; WE are the goods and the investors are the customers. The actual 'product' no longer matters in the slightest. We let other industries do this to us, and the digital goods companies realized they could leverage it to the sky without actually having to produce any physical items. They are minting money off pixels, selling our attention spans. Thank God for the indie companies.

[@Jayninja13111]

So in a nutshell. Xbox messed up. The dropped 70 billion dollars. Thinking that Starfield and Redfall were going to sell gang busters. And that Gamepass was going to continue to go up in subscriptions. But. Starfield (weither you think it was a good game or not) isn’t selling like Skyrim. Redfall was a complete bust. And Gamepass has plateaued. Only thing that is productive. Is the popularity of the Fallout show. But your not getting great value for the games their. Because they have been out for years and are cheaper priced. So there is literally 0 to show for that 70 billion purchase. Therefor, slash everything little that’s not swinging that bill’s needle. What a monumental screwup.

[@Chas-OTE]

The disgusting salary of CEO's have to go. They're practically paid an entire dev studio's salary worth of money and they just sit around and make stupid decisions.

[@HasekuraIsuna]

It should really be law that your salary cannot be more than 10x the salary of your lowest paid full-time employee. If you wanna earn those millions, you gotta raise the floor too.

[@cezarstefanseghjucan]

@@HasekuraIsunaThis needs to happen. You can be a genius, but without your team, most if not all of your dreams stay in the drawer.

[@lukeedwards7677]

Thing is that those insane salaries would be tolerable if they reflected actual contributions to building up these corporations' developmental capabilities - mass layoffs are the exact opposite of that though

[@ewjiml]

@@cezarstefanseghjucanthey did a study that compared a $1 million CEO salary and a $20 million CEO salary and found that higher salary does not equate to higher productivity. It’s absurd.

[@SpoopySquid]

CEOs' combined salaries + bonuses must be tied directly to the lowest paid employees.

[@dragontemplar4561]

Microsoft: We need a foot in the door to get into the Japanese market. Also Microsoft: Shoots said foot.

[@DIYisntDead]

Proceeds to slam said door against it's own foot until it's nice new shoes were ruined and it's foot was severed from it's leg.

[@hunteraegir6598]

More like blew it off with a shotgun, without Tango, they have absolutely zero ways to enter the Japanese market again, no Japanese studio is gonna want to join up with Microsoft after this fiasco, not like there were any that were willing to before they pulled this, Tango was all they had (And it was a really good in as well, Tango was a super talented studio), corporate decision making absolutely blows my mind, its like their entire job is to make terrible nonsensical decisions

[@dragonsontv4412]

They didn't just shoot it, they blew the dang thing off. With 'hopefully' no chance of reattaching it. Be sadly, we all know it will be...

[@vugolol]

I kinda saw it coming when Shinji Mikami left the company last year to be honest. We don't know what was going on internally, but I can see a loss of leadership especially when he was the founder and the visionary for the company just causing a downwards spiral.

[@sophieedel6324]

Gaming in Japan is almost strictly Mobile. Xbox/PC gaming barely exists in Japan.

[@maniacmatt7340]

If paying for a game means i don't own it, piracy isn't stealing.

[@VampiricDragon666]

I'm for piracy for preservation's sake. The removal of "The Crew" didn't kickstart any movement like YongYea boasts. It just made piracy more appealing to a wider audience and added more wood to the fire. Now it's really gonna move.

[@goreflame1665]

That's why I download my movies and TV shows

[@LeeFox1337]

To be fair Redfall and Starfield are great examples of why you should NOT pay for gamepass.

[@SharpsPanda]

To be fair. We all told Microsoft that we didn't want them to continue with the same work place harassment as Activision-Blizzard and they listened. You can't be harassed at work, if you no longer work there. Real Monkey Paw of you Microsoft.

[@chrisrakow9745]

Be careful what you wish for! 😅

[@thecousinbellic]

LOL

[@lenowoo]

Truly monkey paw situation

[@danieljohn9257]

If you told me Microsoft made a deal with the devil or a jinn, I would believe you.

[@silversobe]

They should be banned from buying another studio. They seriously wanted to buy Nintendo. They are a menace!

[@donovanblackwelder4301]

Didn't they literally get laughed out of the room when they tried?

[@zordoneltar5571]

Yea that was 25 years ago…

[@donovanblackwelder4301]

@@zordoneltar5571 I thought so.

[@jneff6456]

If they try again, you can bet there'll be a massive outcry from gamers/consumers demanding the justice department shut that shit down.

[@daniellundberg9225]

They should be forced to divest the ones they already own. No one who owns a marketplace should be able to sell products on that same marketplace. That goes for Microsoft/Xbox, Apple, Amazon and your local supermarket equally. It creates absolutely perverse incentives.

[@fracturedraptor7846]

This is like when I worked at Rite Aid's warehouse for fifteen years. About two to three years prior to their announcement of declaring bankruptcy they were on a kick of finding any way to get rid of veterans so they could hire new people and pay them less. Eventually they did it to me. They kicked out a power producer who knew how to do every job in the building, who could drive every lift in the building, so they could hire some kid who not only doesn't want to work and actively fucks around all night ... but someone who has nowhere near the level of experience to do what I could. Which in turn cost them even more money because productivity goals weren't being met. Gaps couldn't be filled in other departments when there's call outs so they suffered. That building was a gigantic shit show anyway. The outbound manager got fired because he allowed an entire Christmas season shipment to stores to rot in the hallways AND in a ton of trailers in the lot. I'm talking come summer time the shit was still at the warehouse. Transportation ( who handles things going to stores ) was a utter fucking mess. They had one guy who knew how to work the system and never had him train others so when he retired they were thoroughly fucked. Companies are ran like dog shit but it's the low level workers who end up getting pushed out, not the suits who made the terrible calls to begin with.

[@gothimaya2776]

It’s only about control now, not creativity or community. None of the industry leaders actually care about games anymore, and the burden to save the hobby we love and cherish is on the devs and players who still care and won’t give up the only thing that makes us happy.

[@natheria4933]

no consequences, no accountability, no punishment.

[@ThePlayerOfGames]

Punish with your wallet and your data. Don't buy from them, don't use their platforms.

[@nabieladrian]

​@@ThePlayerOfGamesB-But COD! But Diablo!

[@maniacmatt7340]

Corporations never get held accountable. No wonder they dont care about the little people.

[@Megamean09]

I canceled my Game Pass today. I actually really like the service, but my morals won't let me support the company anymore.

[@gamesmovienation3516]

I canceled 4 weeks ago it’s downhill from here

[@breezygibson22]

Facts I canceled mines today too

[@Thesenuts1992]

I cancelled over a month ago. The catalog has been stale as of late. Plus i tend to purchase games I enjoy, regardless of it.

[@lorenzoenciu6565]

saw ur comment so i just had to as well. i didnt even use that much anyways. it was more for small dev support

[@Astral_thee_God]

Damn, if more people could be like y’all, we’d probably have a decent gaming industry 😂

[@kieronmckay4276]

This is why if you’re a private developer and you think being bought out by a public company will help you financially…it’s a death sentence not a windfall. Deal with the issues of development without seeking to take money from a public company because it will only ruin the studio and your games.

[@docnotL]

Remember when Xbox fans and basically the whole gaming community were excited about Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard? Everyone saw it as something positive that would bring some good change to the company... I never understood why, what positive has ever come out of Microsoft buying a studio? I remembered when Microsoft bought Rare, a company that only made gold before Microsoft and then instantly when they were bought they made flop after flop, the entire company was focused on making awful Kinect games and 'Xbox Live avatars' at one point. Microsoft bought them in 2002 and they didn't make a succesful game until 2018 with Sea of Thieves.

[@Eaglescout60]

You know things in the gaming industry are nuts when EA is not the most hated publisher. How have we gotten here?

[@deoxysandmew2162]

Greed.

[@TyrantWesker]

And it's not like EA has gotten any better or anything, they've just quietly maintained their usual level of evil while others are running around lighting puppies on fire.

[@janky477]

It does feel like every month comes into a new story that puts another publisher at the bottom of the list. Activision with the Sexual Allegations, Ubisoft with Star Wars Outlaws Prices, Sony with HellDivers, Gamefreak with Dexit, it just never ever ends.

[@theLonelyLemnn]

They pretty much shut down the Dead Space 2 Remake so people are still pretty pissed lol

[@minisculex3]

because we dun get enough of helldiver player fighting back situation and letting all hell loose in console area

[@dennis_duran]

Not to mention Tango was basically the ONLY Xbox studio that released a smaller critically claimed game in recent history. What’s the alternative? Starfield?

[@sophieedel6324]

What critically acclaimed game? Hi-Rush was a 7/10 game to me. Metacritic has it at an average score of 8/10, which I think is a bit generous. The game was fine, but "critically acclaimed"? no

[@Duckman_Drake]

⁠@@sophieedel6324 firstly, the metacritc is at 87/100 and 8.9/10 averages, which is much closer to a 9/10 average on both counts. The game won several awards, got several 10/10 ratings from journalists, has a 97% positive rating from users on Steam, and is the best received Xbox Published game in over a decade. If that’s not critical acclaim then what is?

[@natmarelnam4871]

@@sophieedel6324 ok hater.

[@sophieedel6324]

@@natmarelnam4871 ok fanboy

[@emanuelefieni7876]

@@sophieedel6324 87 on xbox, 90 on PC, 89 on PS5 to be precise. and user reviews is 8.9. Were does you 8/10 figure comes from? Looks closer to a 9/10 to me

[@BlueBoxRevan]

7:40 Small Game Studio: I thought you said you weren't going to kill me! Big Brother Mega Game company/'Terminator': "I lied."

[@xRoyalChefx]

The end of this video was very touching.Thank you Yong for your great content

[@jameshardwood8027]

What boggles my mind by the strategy of “we gotta focus on the more bigger franchises” if you dont let studios create new IPs there wont be any new big franchises. This is like a company firing a new hungry worker cause they want to give the jaded uncaring senior worker a raise

[@nathanlevesque7812]

The strategy is to cannibalize other companies to inflate the stock price. It's the private equity playbook. I guess Microsoft sees less value in making games, kinda like how McDonalds is technically a real estate company.

[@manimaljack6368]

So basically they bought Activision/Blizzard but they couldn’t afford them. Got it 🤦🏾‍♂️

[@flvakang8547]

Nah, it’s the fact that they can, chose not to do so

[@sammiesmith3454]

they're a multitrillion dollar company, they could afford all of it

[@Kyugorn]

Heaven forbid any chairmen take any pay cuts from their dozens of millions of dollars...

[@404maxnotfound]

They rival amazon in size they can buy out like 20 Blizzards and it would barely make a dent in their profits.

[@angeloluna529]

Looks like Microsoft spent all of their gaming budget on these acquisitions and now they have no budget to make games.

[@XIII_Lightning_]

The idea they thought Gamepass would make up for what they’ve spent on buying out studios is f***ing laughable. Absurdly f***ing laughable. I’d be happy about this news if it wasn’t at the expense of talented devs losing their jobs.

[@johncrowley3322]

Not really the sheep love mtx lootboxes and subscription services. I would have bought and will buy game pass if they guarantee full access to my xbox games library on pc, without needing to turn on my xbox I'd buy it. They're just not creative enough

[@nikobocce3035]

From all the cuts throughout the industry you have to wonder if the ceos and executives are expecting a recession Q3-Q4 this year

[@pocket_item]

The most f"up thing is that all of the Tango games are still on sale but not of that money is gonna go to the actual people who made the game, only the suits ._.

[@IndyMiraaga]

Someone hand me my eye patch...

[@John-Stark]

@@IndyMiraaga *Eye patch is on a hook* Here you go matey

[@ThePlayerOfGames]

That was always the case OP, unless you self publish your money is going to the publisher. Residuals and royalties haven't existed in any meaningful form for about 50 years.

[@animelytical8354]

That's quite sickening to think about. It's generally the case, but to shut them down so you don't invest in what you own but to just own he creation is crazy

[@shinren_]

They do "supposedly" get bonuses lol but not always i bet ​@@ThePlayerOfGames

[@CeHee123]

I only just beat Hi-Fi Rush 2 weeks ago and was doing the after game gates. They had one of the best new ips in years, and despite having over 3 million players, they thanked the team and fans by shutting Tango down and guaranteeing there won't be a sequel. Thanks for nothing Microsoft.

[@The_Primary_Axiom]

Now, just imagine if they would’ve sold that game at 30 bucks to 3 million people day one. Instead, they put it on game pass people sign up for nine bucks and then cancel month later. If Gamepass was a great idea. You would see Nintendo and Sony doing it. Because they have way better exclusives. But they don’t because putting your games on their day one is a terrible terrible idea. I always said they should sell their games physically and digitally then put it on game pass several months later. But what did Microsoft do? They stopped selling physical games entirely and put their games on gamepass day one 😂 I don’t know who making these stupid decisions over there. But I know they were stupid when they decided to release the Xbox series X side-by-side by the series S and then said we need parity mandates between the two. That’s when I knew Microsoft makes terrible decisions.

[@kirara2516]

I was going to buy the game on Steam after my friends told me it was there, as I can't afford an Xbox system right now, but now I can't justify getting it knowing the dev team who made it what it is won't get their cut and the CEO's will take home the profit.

[@chiquita683]

I had got a refund when I saw the woman on a man's body

[@chiquita683]

​@@kirara2516developers don't get a cut, they have salaries

[@onebear6504]

Salaries & staying employed, rn they're fired and whether their salaries are actually paid in full is also a different matter​@@chiquita683

[@volt8ge]

Netflix and Disney+ and other subscription services don’t understand that there is a ceiling when it comes to subscription growth! Especially with all the drama in the gaming and movie industry. The censorship, the politics, the lack of good story, 💩 filled battlepasses, $70 games that are not complete at release… the suits do not get this!!!! Thus the game and movie industry WILL fall!

[@Shadohz75]

Yep. This is an issue I saw with our company "giving away" our ancillary products with flagship purchases. The number crunchers up top said we were underperforming. During one of our company meetings where all the big wigs get to talk forever then they open the floor to the peons to complain for 2 minutes at a time, I explained to the CEO and suits that our B-teams were being cut for underperforming but that it was THEIR fault that it was. I told them to give away the older editions for free (the ones that don't sell well anyway) but do a per-sale for all first editions. We were already being undercut by your sales team who hated a subscription model because their ability to make a commission relied heavily on their ability to sell custom bundles to clients. It isn't just the money-grubbing executive suite. Everyone has their own selfish reason for having particular business model to keep their job. We were selling alot of standalone sales to smaller firms but the Sales were bundling our product with other sells to larger firms so we ended up spending more support time and dev resources on people who were underpaying for our product. Of course the suits didn't see it that way on their one-line spreadsheets and bar graphs. They eventually reached a grand bargain that handcuffed Sales to only give away so many copies but the rest had to be standalone. This only encouraged more piracy by our clients that we finally attacked with a universal licensing manager but that's a different story. What I'm saying of sorts Microsoft shot their own selves in the foot. They've got two competing purchase models - three if you count MTS. My personal-professional opinion is that older titles should on Gameplay. People who can't "afford" games aren't going to join your sub-service and they are going to pirate it or only buy one/two games a year. They are also the ones most likely not to buy a game when it first drops at the highest price. They'll wait for it to go on sale or given away. The goal ultimately is the get the most money out the user/players when it initially drops. Alternatively the sub-service could only offer the base game of new releases but again why open that door.

[@stephentejada2769]

No no no, you misunderstand. They "need" games like Hi-Fi Rush, but with the return of investment of Call of Duty. Preferably every year, with an ever growing profit margin, and with an ever decreasing budget and time for production.

[@cmdraftbrn]

at this point they might as well make their shitty A.I. make their games.

[@deoxysandmew2162]

​@@QuantumChristThis reminds me of that episode of kirby right back at ya! where Kawasaki made a "meal" for 1 dollar, called "thinwich". Its a bread sliced so thinly, its literally transparent. Long story short, waddle dees didnt liked how they were underfed, so they revolted.

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

"Decreasing budget" lol lmao even

[@Napoleonic_S]

Move away from capitalism then?

[@minisculex3]

@@cmdraftbrn i believe that what every game industry is leaning into, ubisoft is already doing a ai npc talking etc etc, or ai doing game art

[@nixxie119]

So if your goose doesn't give you a golden egg, you butcher it. And if it *does* give you a golden egg... you still butcher it. Hmm...

[@deoxysandmew2162]

"gives you a golden egg in a rapid speed after sheer intimidation." CEO: Still too slow. Slaughter!

[@atteranenforcer5263]

You know... That's actually how the Golden Egg fairy tale went. Owners of the golden egg laying goose literally GUT the goose in a greedy attempt to get at its 'real treasure' only to get nothing. Haha.

[@nixxie119]

​@@atteranenforcer5263lmao yeah I guess that is true 😅

[@vorpalrabbit4927]

Saw a graph of the explosive growth that Microsoft had during the Pandemic that sprung an epiphany - the fiduciary obligation says that have to try and make more money year over year. But you can't maintain that kind of growth, lockdown's ended and we're not gonna be getting any more stimulus checks. So what's the easiest way to make it look like you're not drowning in debt? Freeing up your personnel liabilities. This whole thing is just the audience getting a look behind the smoke and mirrors thatlarge companies use to obscure their fuck ups and slavish responsibility to the shareholder.

[@jmjedi923]

Microsoft: spends BILLIONS aquiring studios Also Microsoft: closes them Man they really could have avoided this...

[@ca_kay]

You know what one of my dreams is? And a pretty big one. I want to be an MMO publisher and buy IPs back, and treat them with respect. City of Heroes, S4 League, Free Realms, Wildstar, Tree of Savior (which is about to die), and so many more. I've seen so much misuse and mismanagement. I know I would do better. It's incredibly sad.

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

That's one way to end competitors I suppose.

[@rruiz9510]

Why are they surprised that subscriptions have slowed down. We are in a F@#$ recession . No one has the money for multiple subscriptions.

[@crystalwater505]

Bingo. Out of touch management is all there is to it.

[@nabieladrian]

In the most brutal yet honest sense: they really didn't know the rest of 7 billion people have no money at all! We're closer to homeless people than any millionaire. They really think all of us could "Give up Starbucks" as if we all have that in the first place. That's how detached they are.

[@hhjk377]

Kind of hilarious that game pass is hurting sales when we’ve been told by publishers, console owners , and developers for years that selling games the old fashioned way is no longer sustainable.

[@zid9611]

Both are true. So many game are make. That it's hard to get all the eye on you at the same time to buy that new game at the same time. But putting on gamepass mean it cheap. So everyone that is remotely interested in it. Will get the pass. But as it lower the amount they gain. The players will dip after. Never buying it at all. Cuz they have played it and move on.

[@gamesmovienation3516]

Microsoft’s problem is they can’t have Both and that’s what they want Their is companies that do gamepass type subscriptions but that’s their main focus so it works but Microsoft’s focus is wanting both high rate of subscribers but also high sales of the very games on game pass.

[@SuperSmashDolls]

Funnily enough Sony got this right. They said outright that they're not putting first-party games on PSPlus day one *specifically* because it would hurt sales if everything was just a subscription. Windowing is a good release strategy. Dumping everything on Game Pass isn't. But a lot of companies want bigger numbers (look at how many gamers we got paying for Game Pass) to engineer stock price hype.

[@michaelbarnes9699]

Multiplayer gaming has killed the gaming industry, period.

[@DrizzyJones1]

GamePass was destined to fail. People saw this coming but somehow the high paid executives didn't. Sony and Nintendo saw it. People were making comparisons to Netflix but games and movies are different. Movies are available to all who pay, GamePass for 1 was only available on Xbox (&PC), but not Playstation and Nintendo which means they were cutting off the largest player bases. There's literally graphs of subscriber growth x price and when you get to that saturation point, to still be profitable you either need to drastically increase prices or expand market. As you see now Xbox has no other choice but to go 3rd party and that's partly bc of the acquisitions. Xbox made their own grave.

[@lleom7838]

That Matt Booty quote is literally that Eric Andre meme; *Shoots the guy multiple times (Closes down Tango Gameworks) *Reloads gun *Shoots the guy multiple times again (Shuts down Arkane Austin and two other game studios) Xbox: "We need more small and prestigious games."

[@noskillzdad5504]

Shutting down Tango Gameworks makes ABSOLUTELY no sense, from any point of view.

[@almalone3282]

Unless Microsoft lied about how successful Hi-Fi rush really was. What I mean was Hi-Fi rush was great for game pass but not for direct profit.

[@inuclearpickle8628]

@@almalone3282it was successful but why buy anything with gamepass

[@tehSunBro]

It may have been a great game but thanks to multiple reasons, nr1 probably being gamepass, it made no money. If your job is to make money, and you don't make money, you get fired. Microsoft is setting up everybody to fail thanks to gamepass, because they take away a huge revenue source, and expect the devs to make money anyhow.

[@dominick951]

The game didn't make a profit because it was on game pass. Really not that complicated

[@tehSunBro]

Well, Microsoft is obviously expecting games to make profits despite being on Gamepass. Gotta start those microtransactions or be axed.@@dominick951

[@blankko84]

It's funny Sony fought tooth and nails against MS buying Activision and that very same acquisition seems that's gonna be the the end for Xbox consoles, I see them in around 5 years following on Sega steps

[@aaron_osborne]

The nonsense has grown to a monstrous extent. Quality doesn’t matter anymore at Xbox; it is all about ungodly profits.

[@mediawatcher9225]

Remember when iwata took a 50% lower paycheck so that no employees would get laid off? Why couldn’t the Xbox execs do the same?

[@budderk1305]

they could, but they do not want to, and who is gonna make them? Us peasants ?

[@pyrrhicvictory5844]

They were too busy outfitting that slimeball Bobby Kotick with a golden parachute

[@codezero7981]

because they don't care

[@williammullinax6130]

I have my issues with Nintendo but at least the CEO at the time took some responsibility for the mess he created. Most CEO's would just lay off a few thousand employees and give themselves a pay raise.

[@tiaan8551]

just dont mistake Phil spencer with the executives

[@AdmiralBison]

This is a NEEDED wake up call for all workers and consumers. F*** all the corporate shareholder greed and go independent studios. The rest *UNIONIZE* against these corporate giants.

[@SecretMarsupial]

Keep spreading the message. But careful, youll start getting your messages auto-deleted too

[@AdmiralBison]

@@russianFB7442 been noticing for several years the moment I was old enough to recognize corporate greed and workers fighting for better pay and power.

[@the13thjoker]

Yeah but without this company and shareholder, where do you think they will get money to build their game ?

[@JasperOosterveld]

Exactly. Unions and regulations ✊🏼

[@JB-qu8pv]

This is why governments need to block sales of smaller studios to large greedy ass corporations

[@Tarble9000]

Good videos. Good work Yong!

[@MyNameIsBucket]

Swen Vincke: "you can't fire your veteran devs, you will regret this" Microsoft: "watch me hit this drive"

[@TheThreeDGrasshopper]

Agh ya beat me to the punch w the Swen Vincke reference. Darn hygiene/showers. +1

[@Akeyins]

"It's all about the quarterly profits" indeed...

[@PHOENIXDEMON6]

Somehow these Ceos still have millions on salaries.

[@MyNameIsBucket]

they're vampires, padding their pockets at the expense of everything else. if you think there's a way out of this besides NOT GIVING THEM YOUR MONEY, you're delusional. unfortunately there are too many oblivious gamers who only know brand names and can't wrap their heads around the simple concept of NOT buying the next diablo or elder scrolls.

[@deoxysandmew2162]

Leeches fam. Parasites of the industry.

[@abdullahnadeem1823]

CEOs take the money and not put any into their business, boeing is a good example, where they would engineer half assed planes that would explode in mid-air The CEO will take the money and help out their friend who got them that position. They even killed off the Boeing whistleblowers

[@404maxnotfound]

Exactly that's why I don't agree with the article Yong showed. Like they are Microsoft they could spend a good amout of extra billions in games accustions and still have enough money to give a pay raise to the executives. This is just pure greed wanting the executuve bonus to be even larger.

[@JonySmith-bb4gx]

Microsoft wanted to acquire Nintendo

[@richardpell]

Closing ID would be absolutely insane. A tragedy for the industry as a whole

[@SchwererGustavThe800mm]

If they only wanted COD, WoW, Candy Crush, Fallout & Skyrim. Why tf did they purchase the entire fuckin' publishers instead of just the rights to these titles?!

[@SourRobo8364]

Probably wasn't willing to sell. So they bought the company.

[@Eskolol]

This is the type of shit why cdpr and larian are trying to stay as far away as possible from these publisher monopolies. The remaining dev studios at MS should pretty much do a Kojima, quit and start a new studio and let steam handle the publishing.

[@LordBob0619]

Toys for Bob (Crash Bandicoot and Spyro devs) are way ahead of ya as they recently went indie. (also no I'm not a Toys for Bob dev despite my name)

[@Uzarran]

That, or buy their studio back, like what Saber did recently when they split from Embracer.

[@Sawyer1982OAC]

“Games on GamePass badly miss their sales goals”… Well, no sh*t Sherlock! Who would’ve thought ?

[@odenmora7574]

It’s almost like these companies forgot we went through a worldwide pandemic and never recovered because our government is trash. The normal before COVID is not the normal now. Everything keeps getting more expensive but our pay remains the same. Microsoft is just adding to an overall massive problem that we’ll see the repercussions of real soon Making number go up for the illusion of profit is not sustainable… The games industry has to make a massive change if it wants to survive And companies like Xbox will get a major wake up call…

[@samkenna4102]

I don't remember the full reason why one of the UK watch dogs flagged the original acquisition of blizzard by Microsoft but they deserve an apology at the very least. They tried to warn that it would be too big and monopolistic, people argued that it would be too big but not monopolistic. Now it's too big and it's a blight on the industry.

[@PaulTheFox1988]

The CMA's original concerns was about cloud gaming, which seems a quaint reason for concern given what we're now seeing I had concern when I heard about Bethesda, and even bigger concerns when acti-blizz was being bought, but i and others like me was laughed at and told we're idiots and that MS would make everything better. Looking at where we are now, I wish the CMA had stuck to its guns and other countries had backed us up, cause this buyout has done nothing but hurt this industry and it's already up s**t creek to begin with

[@silverdamascus2023]

I told people that they should not celebrate Microsoft buying ABK, not only Microsoft has a bad track record, but it doesn't need to be Microsoft, companies buying each other is terrible for customers. They called me a crybaby envious Sony fanboy, even though I don't even play on PlayStation.

[@IndyMiraaga]

I was an Xbox gamer for the longest time and the same happened to me, I literally had a Spartan from Halo as my pic at the time...

[@JonTheVGNerd]

The moment Microsoft bought Blizzard, they basically sold their souls to the devil.

[@jessicaavery1080]

I'm an Xbox and PC gamer and was saying the same. Getting absorbed into the gelatinous cube is never a good thing. Luckily at least my friends agreed. We tried to be hopeful we were wrong, but looks like we were right sadly. Creativity is dead. Long live Creativity...

[@crystalwater505]

Gamers are very fickle individuals and don't really critically think at all. They wanted Microsoft to buy up Sega, Capcom and Square Enix. I was cringing extremely hard when I saw people wanting one of the big 3 to buy studios. There are too many ignorant gamers that have no idea how bad monopolies are. It's really quite fascinating how ignorant gamers are really.

[@urekmazino6800]

Only Xbots celebrated that nonsense lol

[@HH-hd7nd]

Swen Vincke's speech from the GDC was never more true than now. How did Swen say it? "Greed has been fucking this whole thing up for so long, since I started I've been fighting publishers my entire life and I keep on seeing the same, same, same mistakes over, and over and over. It's always the quarterly profits. The only thing that matters are the numbers, and then you fire everybody and then next year you say 'shit I'm out of developers' and then you start hiring people again, and then you do acquisitions, and then you put them in the same loop again, and it's just broken... You don't have to. You can make reserves. Just slow down a bit. Slow down on the greed. Be resilient, take care of the people, don't lose the institutional knowledge that's been built up in the people you lose every single time, so you have to go through the same cycle over and over and over. It really pisses me off." First, the Tarkov situation. Next - Sony's huge blunder with Helldivers. Now this Xbox B S. Always the greed, always the quarterly numbers.

[@cezarstefanseghjucan]

The difference is that Swen Vincke is a human, the rest don’t deserve human treatment.

[@ruorick]

Sven is a beacon light. Rather go the longer slower route and start small and stay independent. Cannot trust any single one of these money bag danglers, they all come with a blade in their sleeves.

[@HarbingerYT]

The problem is that investors and shareholders are lost in the fallqcy that "infinite growth with finite resources is possible" and have CEO's at gunpoint.

[@fuzzythoughts8020]

RIP to Arkane Austin, they made some of my favorite games ever. Prey was an absolute masterpiece.

[@MrWulf81]

A few days ago I canceled my game pass subscription and I now highly doubt that I will ever renew it again.

[@duyanhpham1978]

I can’t even imagine how absolutely demoralizing it is for aspiring game makers and developers to feel right now. You work in a company, spending 3-5 years hoping your game will one day be beloved and your career will be secured. But it has been proven that even if your game is great, your work and your livelihood might still be in jeopardy.

[@ca_kay]

Not to mention they're banned from working in the industry for at least a few months because their no competition clauses were still active.

[@Endor2001]

Well, they decided to go into that type of work force, that's on them. I don't feel bad at all.

[@Liar]

@@Endor2001Lacking empathy for the working class. Nice!

[@mrpunedangle7875]

They’re not acquiring the studios to nurture and build talent and support them. They’re buying to build their IP catalogue. “Let’s make a sequel to blank. Good idea, we’ll hire contractors to build that team that way when they’re done we can let them go” They just want a piece of the pie of all the “big titles” EVERY TIME they’re made. Screw em, we are at the cusp of an era of blossoming Indy titles/studios and I’m all for it!

[@zulerisgaming8523]

Only problem is not everyone likes these indie games how many indie games are like fallout, halo, helldivers, doom, etc and are good? As of right now indies are just flavor of the month games like amog us or lethal company and palworld. These games start good but die off within like 2 months.

[@TheGhostFart]

@@zulerisgaming8523 terraria and stardew valley are both in the top 50 and top 10 most played games respectively on steam right now what do you mean indie is just flavor of the month?

[@HunterAnsorge-ok9jk]

THE ONE PIECE! THE ONE PIECE IS REAL!!!!

[@ParagonOblivion]

​@zulerisgaming8523 Stardew Valley, Minecraft (which was independently made back in the day), or Terraria? Hollow Knight, Undertale, Cuphead and Hades? There are heaps of indie games that are well worth playing, and that people have found enjoyable long past their first year. I'm not going to say every indie game is excellent, but I don't think I could say every AAA game is either. And I certainly can say some of the games you listed have had absolute shit entries that would have killed off their studio if they weren't held up on a pedestal by their past greatness and more money than common sense. I'd also say yes, there ARE plenty of shovelware indie games that were made to be streamed for a month, fall off everyone's radar and fade into obscurity. But that doesn't invalidate that indie games can be as good/fun or straight up more so than any AAA franchise, and are worth investing in.

[@nodansland303]

I've been a skeptic of Microsoft's spending spree for years. Clearly they are buying a catalog to fill a service and IPS to milk. Anyone who thought they were benevolent overseers that would nurture their purchases was deluding themselves.

[@Mitrashi]

I hope these creative studios can break away from these greedy, heartless big publishers. I hope they are able to stop giving them these beloved games. If possible, indie is the way to go. The big publishers don't want art. They only want money and they want it now

[@TwinOpinion]

So heartbreaking.

[@maurocontreras9628]

Sony be like. Ohh we thought Microsoft buying Activision-Blizzard will break us, but it broke them instead.

[@AbodiMelass]

You are right 👍

[@ca_kay]

Sony is also failing right now.

[@connieellerbe-maycock7115]

Sony having their own problems right now.

[@TheGUNSLAYER7]

​@@ca_kaynot even a remotely close comparison . Controversy over a singular game PSN account implementation vs. a company shuttering various studios , some of which provided great titles very recently. Not even remotely comparable.

[@AlexanderMacAoidh]

@@ca_kaymaybe but not this level of stupidity by Microsoft.

[@nukataco]

The biggest insult, 343 survived.

[@ShadowWolfQc]

Yes lol meanwhile 343 is still in charge of Halo after 4 giant fuckups and a shitty tv show.

[@IndyMiraaga]

343 is barely even the same company it was two years ago. They fired almost all of the upper-level staff. The guy running Infinite's live service (which has been doing way better than it was prior, even if it was a low bar to surpass) is the guy that led bringing MCC to PC and fixing it. Given MCC was pretty solid after it was fixed, hopefully 343 will go in a better direction from now on.

[@hamstsorkxxor]

​@@ShadowWolfQc The tv-series is actually unrelated to 343i, so they are not related to that specific failure.

[@IntrusiveThoughts838]

Yeah yeah number company bad brainlet halo take as usual we get it go back to tearing each other apart will you? At least that’s a tad more entertaining despite you factions having genuine common grounds a third of the time

[@RoyMatzem]

The only reason is because they started with the Bethesda side first

[@ZZ-cr9pz]

It's about money not rewards, it's clear a game like Hi-fi didn't cut it for MS. Talented devs will always have a place in the gaming world.

[@MrTehNoms]

So we gon forget how Hi-Fi Rush had ZERO marketing? Maybe more people would have bought it if more people looked forward to it

[@sethboyle90]

2024 feels like the worst year for gaming and we are only halfway in for the year lol

[@thesidneychan]

Fellow Muta subscriber spotted!

[@kevingame3198]

I feel like another video game crash is inevitable

[@princeofddr]

And when 2023 was one of the BEST, release wise at least. What a shitshow.

[@Gundamman]

​@kevingame3198 Oh yeah, this whole thing has been a big ass bubble.

[@setsers1]

Just skip us to December already...

[@Twitchyx7]

The tragedy is when the game industry tries to fix itself, usually by a group of devs breaking off from a larger studio to go do their own thing with their own vision - to fix the issues of the megacorp games. Then that studio becomes successful, gets bought out and ran/gutted into the ground with the same shitty executive decisions that made them form a new studio in the first place. The suits are the bottom line worst part of the industry, and it's not even close.

[@zid9611]

That why they should never sale out. And stay independent.

[@deoxysandmew2162]

Exactly.

[@silverwing5254]

Basically what happened with Respawn games.. X(

[@Mufflee]

12:21 REALLY?! 😂😂 snuck that in there on the rant

[@michaelboyes5849]

The thing to remember is that M$ still owns Hi Fi Rush and Tango's other IP's. So we'll be seeing ActiBlizz putting out Hi Fi Rush 2: Super Pay to Win Edition starting at $130.

[@paulcadogan4940]

This is what happens when instead of selling games, you put them on a subscription. Who knew that Gamepass was going to be unsustainable? Oh yeah, everyone

[@92Looneytune]

Microsoft saw the "big success" of MoviePass and jumped all in on its idea.

[@getampt22]

Everyone I know jumped in on it. I saw it for what it was very early on. I have never and will never sub to Gamepass.

[@nathanlevesque7812]

It relied on shortchanging developers and now it's an excuse to cannibalize them in order to boost the stock price.

[@dawsynasay4841]

It’s mostly been journalists who propped up GamePass as being the next best thing. If it was truly as awesome as they say it is, then the subscription numbers would be higher. Majority of gamers don’t have time to play most games that release every year

[@ZEROisthenumber]

Streaming games is awful because you have no control over what you play and how long you can play it. I will always seek out to buy and own physical games as long as it's an option. It baffles me that more people don't see the problem with not owning your games.

[@SuperEarther]

greed will ruin this planet unless people stand up and fight back

[@beeeazy9818]

Greed is good. Keeps Phil nice and thicc

[@mightypancake2211]

or you know enforce antitrust laws when a company starts aquiring such large shares of market... offer some protections from large companies swooping in and buying large swaths of other small companies

[@SuperEarther]

@@mightypancake2211 i know america has weakened these laws but in japan they are much stronger

[@user-fje4ztx46no86]

The people who supposed to enforce these laws are in bed with these CEO s.

[@SuperEarther]

@@user-fje4ztx46no86 so true

[@Max-kw2mx]

Simply thank you for your voice in this industry… it is difficult nowadays and especially knowing we re not saving lives but rather should celebrate a great form of entertainment and creativity

[@jasonkruse3796]

Xbox promises games, Xbox delivers mediocre exclusive experiences and studio closures....*sigh* this is exhausting. It's almost like the gaming industry wants to seppuku themselves

[@SageVallant]

Sources indicate that gamers are not comfortable with not owning their favorite games.

[@Darkherojl]

Gaming companies, remember this: if M$ comes to you with an offer you buy you…DON’T

[@mickypain2959]

Sadly, the ones suffering from a studio closure are not the ones that approved the earlier buyout…

[@Rhino1931]

Good job Phil!

[@DarthHawkGaming-dz8dj]

Never ever sell your IP or studio to a bigger game studio. They will fire you and keep everything you created.

[@gabrieloviedocasanas4977]

Meanwhile all the CEOs' pockets get heavier with each lay off

[@PurpleValkyrieMD]

Remember this all of you who were rooting for the Microsoft acquisition of Activism Blizzard and Bethesda. Companies should not be allowed to grow too large and just buy up all the competition. It's bad for so many reasons for us consumers.

[@sophieedel6324]

At this point is seems unlikely companies like Apple, Google or Microsoft can grow any further without the rest of the world starting to demand their piece of the tech pie. These companies are way too big and they control way too much.

[@Gershelf]

The Blizzard one came a lot from the perspective of desperation. People wanted Kottick to F off, and had hoped Microsoft would do that, and put things back in track. A follish hope likely, but I can see where it comes from.

[@zterrans]

I remember being the rain on the parade for a group who were happy about that. In almost every case they were strongly anti-monopoly, but because xbox was basically giving them "free stuff" with gamepass, they were happy as hell about it.

[@fladagreat]

Bethesda and Activision along with all these other developers are the ones who sold themselves out. They saw what happened with EA the last 20 years. They should know better. Not saying it's acceptable, but it's not like they didn't sign up for itm

[@Stanosuke]

Exactly why anyone who was cheering on a multi-trillion dollar corporation is an idiot.

[@tarael86]

This is like Eric Andre killing Hannibal and then looking at the camera while saying "who killed Hannibal?"

[@gfear24]

Bottom line is that both Booty and Phil Spencer need to be removed IMMEDIATELY if XBox wants to have any hope of a future. When the companies and dev teams, not only don't trust you, but, CAN'T trust you, the products will suffer greatly.

[@J-zf4eh]

Sony: Gets trashed on for Helldivers 2 PSN account link. Phil foaming at the mouth: "We can top that. Guys!! Pack your bags!!! We are shutting down your studios!! There's the door!!! And make sure everyone knows!!! HA!! Beat that, Sony!!" *Phil passes out*

[@christopherlewis6915]

Sony this Sony that. Bru the decision was reversed. It's over. An account link and the closure of 4 studios are nowhere near even remotely comparable.

[@dementedscientist109]

@@christopherlewis6915 It MAY be reversed, but the many countless of players that got booted can NEVER get back into to the game. Soon the Auto-matrons WILL take over Super-Earth! 🦾🤖🗣️🗣️🔥🔥 Thank you Boss Sony! 🕺

[@tanjt]

He tried to defend ms by another way😂​@@christopherlewis6915

[@J-zf4eh]

​@christopherlewis6915 I get what you're saying. But the point of the joke is the sudden and abrupt business decisions of these corporate maniacs. No one expected Microsoft to suddenly shut down one of the few recognized studios, such as Tango Framework, then a division of Arkane Studios, because Microsoft couldn't admit they screwed up and decided as a "business decision" to shut down and leave those employed and now unemployed to scramble to the next available job. And with the Sony scenario, it has passed, but it just happened the past weekend, not last year. They almost just screwed tons of players, and with them having a 3rd party access leaves those vulnerable to data breaches with the track record Sony has. So there are a lot of factors with current and past events that gamers are fed up with. History tends to repeat itself. And Sony limited just access to Helldivers 2 still delisted in 177 countries despite Sony's PSN U-turn. Sony's PSN requirement is gone, but Helldivers 2 is still unavailable to buy in non-PSN regions

[@TheFirstCurse1]

This comment made me laugh so hard. I love imagining Phil Spencer foaming at the mouth while screaming this. Like he just full on sprints as fast as he can into Arkane Studios and screams this at them.

[@AshnSilvercorp]

"I'm gonna buy stuff and do nothing with it." -Disney -Microsoft -Google -Warner Bros -Sony etc. Meanwhile at the FTC: **snoring**

[@GeorgeMonet]

Considering how Disney ran Star Wars into the ground I think not doing something might be for the best for the thing that was bought.

[@danny90099]

Sony paid 3 billion for Bungie still confused me .

[@blackrahk2037]

​@@danny90099 Like, "For what!". Destiny was dying already. Made no since.

[@lenowoo]

​@@blackrahk2037the decision is based on excel spreadsheet

[@ViRiXDreamcore]

Disney at least still let those things grow.

[@piotrmajewski5978]

How there are still people in this world who trust corporate PR and mainstream TV? Even if they say "good morning" I look through the window to check if there is not middle of the night outside...