Xbox Closes Tango Gameworks And Arkane Austin - Luke Reacts

[@TevyaSmolka]

I am still pissed off and angry that tango game works got shut down because I love hi-fi rush it was a great game.

[@MrWizardGG]

Too bad we all just care dark souls-like games now 😮

[@TevyaSmolka]

@@MrWizardGG it’s not just that but it’s also corporate assholes not understanding the video game industry.

[@thebenc1537]

It was a bad game. It peaked at 6100 on steam. Thats horribly low. Another thing horribly low about the game - you can buy it for under $10. Gollum costs more! The game was bad. Only a slim minority wanted to play it. It sold so poorly that the studio deserved to shut down. Hi Fi Rush was not a hit. It was a massive failure.

[@thebenc1537]

@@TevyaSmolka Hi Fi Rush lost tons of money. What is there to understand?

[@ErgoDog]

Even Ghostwire Tokyo was super fun

[@Belligerennt]

Xbox is so incompetent at recognizing good talent. They’ll close down Arkane for a game that they were forced to work on that even had devs begging them to reconsider its development. They’ll close down their only Japanese studio that gave them their best game in the last two generations but they still have 343 industries over there being fucking worthless with halo.

[@DesignedByTaz]

Bingo!!! 🎉

[@bean-charlieartz3138]

It’s been reported that most of the staff that was at tango stayed even after Shinji left they just Layed off most if not all of the talent at that studio. The game director of Hi Fi rush (he’s a really passionate guy) took to twitter to express his anger. They were gearing up for Hi Fi 2

[@cmdr.jabozerstorer3968]

Luke's pretty much nailed it. Jason Schreier has released more information of today's Town Hall meeting and Matt Booty basically said they were shuttered because their next projects are a long way off (said to be Hi-Fi Rush 2 and a Dishonored game). As Ninja Theory likely won't have a project for a long way off, they could easily be next.

[@lutherheggs451]

They were closed because Microsoft DOES NOT CARE...Besides in reality NO you are not guaranteed to have a job for life and your employers is under no obligation to keep you. They did not care about the studios, they wanted to own Zenimax, they wanted to own Activision Blizzard and EVERYTHING that they own. All MS cared about were the IPs. Helen Keller could see at this point that Xbots don't buy games and Microsoft really wants to go third party publisher with all the properties they now own because Xbots don't buy games. Phildo Sphincter said himself that WelfarePass is not sustainable and not at all profitable. The trillions of dollars that Microsoft makes is on Windows, Windows related products and Azure servers for business. They've never made a penny off of Xbox and the shareholders have been pushing to get rid of the Xbox brand since the 54% failure rate 360 RROD debacle. But they can make money publishing COD, Candy Crush, Fallout, Elder Scrolls on every possible platform and MAYBE if Xbots are lucky they might make a streaming box next gen

[@JJJBunney001]

​@@lutherheggs451weird take but okay...

[@OneRandomVictory]

They've already announced there will be more cuts happening so I feel Ninja Theory might be dead in the water after Hellblade 2 releases.

[@divinitygaming8673]

​@@JJJBunney001 he's out of line but he's not wrong

[@ezetram774]

@@divinitygaming8673he hit the nail on the head tbh I should sell my series x get a pc and a ps5

[@juanjosedelatorre7644]

The game director of Hi Fi Rush is the same as Evil Within 2. John Johannas is an incredible director and a lot of people stayed with him.

[@F34RDSoldier805]

NGL this one actually pissed me off. Imagine how much better the game likely would have performed if they didn't shadowdrop it and actually gave it some marketing. Like why didn't they drop a trailer at the game show just before. It feels like MS sabatoged the game. It really feels that way. Also, i said it before and I'll say it again. Gamepass is going to keep hurting these studios. Gamepass is a poison to the industry as sub services are to the movies/show industry. These services hurt studios. It's so obvious, i don't know how people don't see it. And it's only going to get worse because they literally just spent $69 BILLION ON ANOTHER ACQUISITION...

[@heroicgangster9981]

Microsoft truly thought there was going to be a playerbase that would manage to pay for ALLLLL of the games that need to make back their budget every month. Game Pass is successful but not THAT successful where new games don't need to be sold anymore. And the gaming industry is raising their expectations practically every year.

[@thebenc1537]

Have you considered the idea that its not a good game? If it was a good game people would have bought it. You can get it for less than $10 and nobody is buying it! Hi Fi Rush was shit.

[@F34RDSoldier805]

@@thebenc1537 No i haven't considered that a great game is not a good game... But I am considering that you simply have shit opinions and taste in games. And also stupid to not understand how much a shadowdrop with little marketing at all can heavily negatively affect a games sales. If your conclusion is simply "Hi Fi Rush was shit", your not providing much value to any convo. Among the people who played it, it's practically uiniversally praised. Emphasis on people who played it, not some contrarian on the internet that likes to shit on things that others like.

[@justinlacek1481]

Microsoft just doesn't market their games at all. Hellblade 2 is about to underperform because of it.

[@aklu5872]

@@thebenc1537 User scores and reviews say otherwise, did you even play the game?. It's almost as if a game meant for an audience that isn't part of live service, battle royale , competitive, or super realistic graphics and cinematography won't sell as well in the current era of gaming especially with no extensive marketing to sell it. The only marketing it somewhat got is the reviews and that was literally it.

[@heroicgangster9981]

i really hope shinji mikami's new studio could manage to have some more room for Tango devs to be a freelance independent studio. Honestly, Hi-Fi Rush may not have had the best sales but I seriously doubt there wasn't lack of any chance of success. The game has overwhelmingly 20,,000 reviews on steam and for a shadowdropped release. I honestly think it had success no matter how lackluster the sales may be for the modern industry.

[@thebenc1537]

Hi Fi Rush peaked at only 6100 players on steam. Thats a massive flop. You can get it for under $10 and still nobody wants it.

[@jimmyv3170]

The low sales was because of Gamepass and zero marketing of it. Simple as that. It was always gonna have low sales. Nothing on Xbox sells except Bethesda games because their fanboys just won't accept the truth. The game would have sold better under Nintendo as a switch game.

[@JJJBunney001]

​@jimmyv3170 gamepass has its own metrics, it doesn't hurt the games performance

[@thebenc1537]

@@jimmyv3170 Whatever the reason, the game sold so poorly it didnt make enough money to keep the studio afloat. I dont think any marketing would have helped. Its a niche game for a small group of people. I can just speak for myself but when I saw it I didnt want to play it. Nothing about the game was attractive to me, especially the quicktime stuff.

[@nella544]

As a fledgling dev who is graduating my degree this June, I'm terrified of entering the game dev and design market. And im not confident in my skills enough to go indie.

[@rewpertcone8243]

You don't need to go full on Indie development, just try and make demos where your strengths are. If you can't do art, just worry on the mechanics and the code. If you can't do code, just worry about making a demo (walking sim probably) with a unique art style. These demos will help you get into a good company and not one like Activision blizzard

[@nella544]

@rewpertcone8243 ive already got a few good demos behind my belt, but no major substantial games yet

[@heavenlyvirtue8367]

A furry game designer? Lol

[@nella544]

@@heavenlyvirtue8367 A furry made the covid vaccine

[@AdamByDefault]

@@heavenlyvirtue8367 nonsense comment. The solo dev that made lethal company, the game that outsold call of duty modern warfare 3 last year was also a furry.

[@VioletElite4]

If Microsoft lays a finger on Obsidian..

[@Guru316]

Obsidian aren't going anywhere. They have Avowed coming, they are working on Outer Worlds 2 and Grounded is a big hit.

[@iedutul1]

@@Guru316outer worlds 2 not coming out , they working on Fallout spin off / sequel after the show. So they’re good.

[@jimmyv3170]

Highly unlikely because they personally bought Obsidian in 2018 while these studios they're shutting down were part of the Zenimax purchase for getting Bethesda. Obsidian is their only studio that can release games every 3 years.

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

Obsidian of today is nothing compared to the old Obsidian that made Kotor 2 and Fallout NV. Chris Avellone and others are long gone. Outer Worlds 1 was not even close to the caliber of Fallout NV. Not saying it was a bad game, I bought and enjoyed it but anyone can clearly see the same level of talent is not there.

[@Mojaveknight17]

Rip Tango Huge L Xbox

[@TeamRed96]

Closing Tango Gameworks is so disappointing...

[@belltolls1984]

Screw Microsoft and Bethesda for how they handled Arkane Austin. Prey was amazing and there should have been a sequel. Bethesda forced them to name it "Prey" which confused gamers with the Prey from 2006. Arkane wanted to call it "Psychoshock". Game was never given a chance by either Microsoft or Bethesda. Then Microsoft forces a studio that just made an immersive sim to make a BS online game that nobody asked for. Horrible managment from both companies; no wonder 70% of the team left; I would have left too. Such a tragedy.

[@JJJBunney001]

Microsoft was nowhere near involved, that was years before the buyout happened. Also that was arkanes last good game, nearly 8 years ago. Everything since has been bad, reviewed badly, sold terribly or all 3. Are you really surprised?

[@diplomatic.haircut]

This sends the message that any given executive will shut your studio down and upend your life if keeping you around is even *mildly* inconvenient.

[@Jacob-hk6to]

Let’s just be honest here. Microsoft has no Intention of absorbing these companies and fulfilling their promises to create great games with them. This is feeling more and more like the merger was intended to corner the market.

[@Natec_k]

Maybe part of it is that they were easier to drop because both studios were just in the pitching stage of their next games (dishonored 3 and hifi rush 2)

[@TihetrisWeathersby]

I just hope Prey and Dishonored aren't dead, Those were my favorite IP last generation

[@theLonelyLemnn]

I believe in the Xbox leak last year Dishonoured 3 was stated to be in the works.

[@grimly105]

Prey may be dead, but I dont see dishonored being killed off. I just dont think prey did that well unfortunately. It is a great game though.

[@WVRLORD]

Dishonored wasn’t Arkane Austin

[@WVRLORD]

Austin team worked with Lyon on D1 but once split they made Prey ( a great game) and Redfall before 75-80% of their team left due to issues with development on Redfall.

[@iedutul1]

@@theLonelyLemnnby the team who made Redfall… dishonored 3 is cancelled

[@SteadyAscension]

This is one the better takes on this. Everyone is very reactionary but your analysis was right on

[@heroicgangster9981]

I hope Tango Gameworks manages to become independent someday. Microsoft is at the bottom out of the 3 console champs when it comes to raising their talent. The modern gaming industry is just very grim rn when it comes to games that aren't making the AAA profit numbers.

[@Leo_Mauro]

I´m 40 and i play video games since i was in my mom´s belly. But im always learn something from Luke. Tks brother.

[@captainp367]

I feel bad for the workers at Tango....

[@northseaempire2964]

I think they will do either 4 things, work at other Bethesda studios, create their own studio, join Shinji Mikami, or work at CapCom for Resident Evil.

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

11:11 Tameem Antoniades the founder of Ninja Theory left the company a few weeks ago but neither Microsoft nor Ninja Theory mentioned anything about it on Twitter. Almost all the times, when a founder leaves a company the corporation that owns it says some PR tweet about how they are happy of the founders accomplishments and how they are grateful at what they have done but nothing was said. Maybe something went down between Tameem and the Xbox executives like Spencer

[@julio1148]

You also didn’t mention that the reason is to create capacity for investments in the Bethesda’s major franchises, which to me that reads like “we don’t want a new fallot and ES every 10 years”

[@ezetram774]

I just beat hifi last week smh I wanted a sequel a Netflix anime I don’t trust Microsoft at all then they say we need smaller games that win awards they suck at managing their ip and they’re is no direction imo

[@KantFromEC]

What dirt does Todd Howard have on Microsoft that stops them from axing starfield support and forces them to pass on Fallout to a third party.

[@thebenc1537]

Starfield had a massive player base. Hi Fi Rush topped off at 6100 on steam. Thats its peak. It sells now for under $10 and still nobody wants it. The game was a huge flop. Starfield sucked but it had a much much larger player count and sales numbers.

[@toshtao1]

@@thebenc1537 Starfield is great and only getting better. 8 out of 10.

[@thebenc1537]

@@toshtao1 Umm nahh. But nice try at trolling. Youll get better at it, just keep trying.

[@JJJBunney001]

Stanfield is a terrible game that sold and performed well on gamepass and pc, HiFi rush wasn't exactly a banger

[@toshtao1]

@@thebenc1537 So because my opinion is different from yours I'm trolling? Look at the reviews and say that again.

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

hey Luke I love you but you got this wrong and other youtubers have already mentioned it. When Mikami left Tango he didn't take anyone with him. He even said when he left that he made sure the studio would be ok without him. When some xbox fan posted on twitter that the studio got shut down because talent left some Tango dev actually responded and told him no one left with Mikami.

[@WVRLORD]

I really liked Hellblade but I picked it up heavily discounted.. I don’t think the sequel warranted a 7 year wait and my hype wore off, unfortunately I have a feeling it will underperform in the eyes of Microsoft especially factoring in Gamepass.

[@JJJBunney001]

Gamepass isn't a black mark against a games sales, they have internal metrics for that

[@captaindestruction9332]

Microsoft will 100% regret closing Tango games. Regardless of who still works there it was a recognized game company that they could’ve used to leverage more Japanese talent by poaching from Sega, Square Enix, Bandai Namco etc. to create a varied Japanese hub/studio. Regardless of projects and how far their next game was it was a huge mistake to get rid of them. When people want variety other than what Western game studios offer it will hit home.

[@NoNamoono]

Luke with his arm forward looks so 3 dimensional wowowowow

[@michaelh4227]

Imagine if this is Microsoft's way at getting back at Shinji Mikami for outing out of that interview for RE 4 Xbox exclusivity 20 years ago.

[@adrianojv409]

"my understanding"... based on ?...

[@ZerotheeHero]

Sucks for Tango, they released 3 games and they were all really good games, then they had the one just ok game with the Ghost game thats name i forgot. As for Arkane Austin, i dont know what happened during the development of Redfall but it was a extreme drop in quality that even brought bad PR towards the xbox brand even tho it was Bethesda failure, so them getting shut down at least is understandable tho still sad. Tango tho, xbox failed there like have with Rare for decades now

[@lutherheggs451]

Evil Within SUCKED and it flopped, Evil Within 2 SUCKED even more than the first game and flopped harder. Ghostwire Tokyo was OK at best. HiFI Rush was in development years ago and shelved by Zenimax, it was also finished as a multiplat game before Microsoft bought Zenimax and shelved HiFi Rush until Phildo Sphincter was desperate to put out a game on WelfarePass

[@JJJBunney001]

​@lutherheggs451 not sure what your problem is but insulting these people and products is just weird. Game pass is an amazing service

[@northernseeker1822]

Tango Gameworks is rising star with not enough attention. Microsoft messed up

[@timjfads]

3 trillion dollar company might have some financial wiggle room

[@jimmyv3170]

I believe Microsoft did this not becauae of saving money (trillion dollar company) or low sales (nothing on Xbox sells) they just didn't want these studios to begin with when they bought Zenimax. They wanted Bethesda, ID, Machine Games and their ips etc not these studios. They let them finish out their contracts with Sony for Deathloop and Ghost Wire Tokyo while letting them finish out on stuff like Redfall and Hifi Rush that they were already making beforehand. It's why no one working for Xbox ever flew out to these studios to check out the status of these games because it didn't matter how good or bad the games would be. These studios were gonna get shut down regardless.

[@JJJBunney001]

What? Games sell on xbox, that or releasing on gamepass

[@captaindestruction9332]

Few corrections. Microsoft is a company VALUED at 3 trillion not a company with 3 trillion. Even still they want to save money, id probably say Microsoft goes out of its way more than smaller companies to save money to satisfy investors. As for sales their games when good do sell well on the Xbox platform(PC and console). I do agree that it was probably settled a long time Go that they would close down certain studios when the time was right. Probably gave them some room to see if they had any good ideas or anything worthwhile to keep them around and decided to cut them.

[@northseaempire2964]

True, they just want to finish competition.

[@dem0nfr0g39]

I know everyone is saying that Arkane almost deserved to be shutdown after Redfall.. and I want to push back a bit on that. Arkane wasnt even really given a chance to release a game under Xbox. Redfall was 2/3 done at the time Xbox bought Zenimax, devs were hoping that Xbox rebooted the game to single player and they didnt, and even Phil Spencer said that he did not support Arkane the way he should have. Arkane Austin has almost no way to avoid their fate, and that is really sad considering all the lies Phil Spencer has told us. If Todd Howard tells us sweet little lies then Phil Spencer tells us ugly big lies

[@nate6382]

Imagine your gaming community says hey Microsoft can we get some 1st party games and so Microsoft buys out Bethesda and Activision and so on to get lots of IP and nuked 80% of toys 4 bob's so on yet now after buying all these studios they still aren't dropping game's much with everyone you've bought

[@noahsullivan9018]

Tango Gameworks was murdered!!!

[@rjproduction486]

Hifi rush flop in xbox because it was released first in a "dude bro" console. If hifi was first released in ps 5 with decent marketing, I bet it will sell pretty good!

[@alexramirez4110]

What you do is hire talented people (actually talented not checklist people) back to a studio like Tango by saying "you wanna make Hi Fi Rush 2?" Because the first game did very well the sequel (as long as you hire actual talent) will also sell very well, closing the studio completely is brain dead end of story, even Arkane could have been kept, fire the bad, hire some good with the promise of making a Prey type game, own up your mistake for pushing Redfall on them and go back to the studios roots, you WILL NOT increase profits by pissing of the customer base closing down these studios

[@gingerwhale871]

I think this sets a very bad example. Like, you’re allways one bad game or one exec away from being closed. And I think it’s debatable wether arkane Austin would have stuck with Red falls course until release, if XBox overhead had not pushed for it.

[@august3777]

This is the kind of stuff that leads to unionization.

[@hectorosbornerodriguez9683]

Love your analysis. It sucks. But off course there’s a resin behind and it wasn’t just an Xbox decision. Love when people take some time to analyze and not just jump to the hype of the news and scream

[@daywaster1382]

Sooner or later XBOX will figure out, Game Pass is not viable. It's probably hard to justify all the $$$$$ spent paying the everyday bills for every studio they owned, just hoping that every game they put out will worth the 4 - 5 year commit that most games require. Spending all the $$$$ on rent, payroll, benefits, And just everyday cost. Just to have most of them "Red Fall" when they come out. They should have just left these companies alone. What did you really think was going to happen when a giant corp. buys all of these smaller companies to try to win a game the lost years ago(XBOX1).

[@switchboy2320]

Phil spener needs to be fired

[@mattyb584]

I just can't anymore with this fking company. Years of defending them, years of buying their products. Well not anymore, it isn't much but I'm canceling gamepass.

[@nikolaig1]

Its looking bad right now 😕

[@Anonihmus2567]

Microsoft becoming ea oof

[@BlueBloodPenn]

From the outside Xbox are in a dire situation right now. Completely understand why they might close studio even if we never want to see it, but at the moment Xbox feels like it's dying. Any big releases they have are way off and there isn't enough good smaller hits to build any kind of momentum. I honestly think that this summer's showpiece event is one of the most important in Xbox's history as they need something that is going to raise some kind of positivity but its going from bad to worse at the moment.

[@JJJBunney001]

These companies havent put out well recieved games in a while. Hifi rush had plenty if hype from reviewers but nobody played it, arkane games havent popped off sonce... Prey, in 2017? Its not that microsoft is dumb or dont care, they reallocated resources to more optimistic projects

[@seanbyrne2179]

Naughty Dog got rid of crunch by just not releasing any games🙈

[@jaxsonburch-eo1vz]

Last of us 2 came out in 2020. It hasn’t even been 5 years. You know, the average time it takes to make a game? Their new ip, if the rumors are true, is not far away either and we know it’s their next game since they just got an idea of last of us 3 recently. Skyrim released in 2011, that’s 13 years ago and if Elder Scrolls 6 is years away then it will be almost 20 years since that game came out. Fallout 4 came out in 2015, if Fallout 5 is coming after Elder scrolls 6 then that would probably be around 2030-2035. That would almost be 20 years too. That’s ridiculous. Cyberpunk took 10 years since its announcement, and so many other studios take way longer than 5-6 years to make a new game. Naughty dog released a major sequel not even 5 years ago, canceled an online game, are working on a new ip, and released a remake and remaster in the same time that Bethesda released 1 game. A bad game too. It hasn’t even been 5 years since last of us 2 and we’re already hearing rumors of their new ip being announced at the upcoming PlayStation showcase. Sit your ass down.

[@seanbyrne2179]

@jaxsonburch-eo1vz I know man. I'm just grateful that we have 3 versions of the last of us to play and 2 versions of the last of us part 2 to play.....

[@jaxsonburch-eo1vz]

@@seanbyrne2179Yea it’s almost like there was a version for every generation, wow. 🤩 One second people are complaining about how companies don’t care about game preservation and they can’t play their old games, and the next morons like you are hating when a studio keeps their best titles alive and well. You know Shadow of the colossus got a ps3 remaster, ps4, and a remake? Whats the difference with that? God of war 3 has a ps3 version, a ps4 version, and a remaster. Mass effect has had many remasters through out the years and then they made a remastered collection. It’s barely any different. Halo has one for every game. All Nintendo does is reboot and remake old games. Stop being an idiot and start thinking for yourself. Or maybe don’t. Maybe that’s why everything you type reads like a Reddit post.

[@jessewoodyard5709]

Xbox is a fucking joke man, I have zero faith in Microsoft anymore.