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Imaginedvl on 10 May 2024
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Hiku said:

That's the thing about PR. It's supposed to shine a positive light on everything. This would very obviously have the extreme opposite effect once the closures happened, and he didn't have to say that. It's now weaponized against him by every news outlet, and in any tweet the Xbox accounts make. The reactions are much more widespread than they were with the previous closures.

If we assume this was Phil's idea or decision, do you believe he had any suspicion that he would close down Tango a year later when he made statements like that? I don't.

So it seems something drastically changed in between then and now that lead to this.
In fact, the recent email from Matt Booty stated that now they are focusing on "high impact titles" by sacrificing the lesser ones, so we know for a fact that their strategy about nurturing creativity with Gamepass has changed to a notable degree.


But one year is a relatively short span in time to go from "Hi-Fi Rush is a hit in all key aspects", to closing them down. Especially when things proceeded as planned with those games. And when they've been clamoring for a foothold in Japan, or for a game to review well in the past two console generations.

This is not just a feeling people from the outside are getting looking in, but numerous industry veterans have spoken out about believing this was decided from the very top, and why. Here's one example, who worked at both Microsoft and EA.

You mentioned how the emails from the court documents gave you the impression that Phil made all the decisions at that point.
And that doesn't contradict what's presumed to have happened here. This change presumably happened after Xbox became responsible for the $68 Billion aquisition of AKB (coupled with the cost of Bethesda, etc).

Before then Xbox was "barely a rounding error on Microsoft's books", and they let Xbox manage itself for the most part. But this crazy amont came with more scrutiny from Microsoft.

I've never owned an Xbox, and have no interest in the "goodguy Phil" narrative.
The sudden 180 after what they said with their whole chest, doesn't seem like it's going according to plan.

Using a tweet from someone as a reference does not make it real or more credible. This "ex" Microsoft/EA PR (so not having any idea about numbers behind the curtain) guy comes up with a theory (and other people are going to jump on that wagon, too, probably), and it will become a narrative that some people want to use when talking about why Microsoft did that.

Also, acting like those studio closures are something really bad and that Microsoft (or Xbox) is doing something terrible when this is happening all over the industry is a kind of double standard. Just because Xbox (or Microsoft) is big, it does not mean that they have different rules to follow. 

Xbox is a LOB and they have their own numbers/targets/revenues... etc... And a lot of people right now are coming up with all sorts of shit about why Microsoft did that (one funny guy even said that it was for short term profit which is very unlikely); or that Xbox is terrible (or Ph. Spencer) for doing that when in reality, this is pretty much expected at some point with so many studios.

You may argue that; without the acquisition this would not had happen, I would argue that it would probably had happen anyway. Two of those studios are clearly not very successful (and we can see that even without knowing the detailed numbers based on their sales or other obvious public things); and one of them (Tango) worked on 2 games, one was not successful at all, and the other one while being a bit successful (or at least, surprising) probably did not generate a lot of money... Including on the "other" platform... What do you expect at the end? Microsoft to keep throwing money instead of focusing a bit more?

And that GamePass theory—because it is just a theory from people who "want" to believe it—about how having the game on GamePass is not considered at all when setting up sales targets—do you really believe that? 

It seems to me that a lot of people (gamers, etc.) who have no real idea of how businesses are run are coming up with that sort of stuff and really believe it in the end. I'm not saying that those big corporations are perfect and are not doing any sneaky shit, but at some point people need to stop thinking that they are dumb as fuck to do not be able to do simple math (like accounting for the sales that are not going to happen because of GamePass)... Or even better math than those people who have no ideas what are the internal numbers to start with.

There is also a bit of difference between not putting anything in the way of creativity (like the post from Ph. Spencer) and letting a studio bleed money. I definitely have no way of knowing why they decided to close Tango, but in the end, posting a tweet from Spencer about not pushing back on creativity has nothing to do with business decisions. And if anything, Microsoft showed very well that they are letting those studios try stuff... But if it does not work and they are losing money, they have to answer at some point; this is not a kinder garden...

Last edited by Imaginedvl - on 10 May 2024