Microsofts terrible developer relations - Why Bizarre went third party.

[RAZurrection]

EDGE
A long-lived, successful and prominent independent developer with a strong relationship with Microsoft, Bizarre Creations' sale to Activision was a surprise to most onlookers. But from the inside, Bizarre wasn't so comfortable. "I think that PGR4 was the strongest Gotham game we did," says Chudley. "But towards the end of that project they wanted us to bring it in early, to chop six weeks off development."

Good luck finding a publisher who doesn't do this sort of thing.

 

and PGR4 undersold because Microsoft concentrated instead on marketing Forza 2.

Of course they did, it's the tool to eliminating Gran Turismo, it's not like Sony is going to promote a bigger ad budget to Motorstorm 3 than GT5 or Nintendo more marketing behind Excite Truck over Mario Kart Wii.

• Ensemble
• FASA

These were good closures, their output was low, the content ranged from good (Halo Wars) to poor (Shadowrun) and the overhead high (300-400 employees), plus moving away from PC developers allows for more expansion into consoles.

 

• Bizarre
• Bungie

Hard to say a third party was driven away, Bizarre was simply bought out, so Activision weren't going to allow them to make exclusives anyway.