By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Machiavellian on 10 May 2024
Edit Thread
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 those things. It's now weaponized against him by every news outlet, and quoted under every new tweet made by an Xbox account. The reactions are much stronger and more widespread than they were with the other closures, to a large degree because of what they said.

If we assume this was Phil's idea or decision, do you believe he had any suspicion that he might 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.
In fact, the recent email from Matt Booty stated that they are now focusing more 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 180 after what they said a year ago with their whole chest makes me lean towards this not being their idea.

Yes, PR statements are supposed to shine a light on everything and its one of the reasons why most companies keep their mouth shut when it comes to the direction of the company because they never know when it will come back to bite them.  Phil is like Peter M in this respect.  He likes to talk and he loves to make these nice glossy feel-good statements and now they are coming back to haunt him.  You do not see statements from any of MS competitors because they are not foolish enough to put stuff out there that could end up coming back and bite them in the butt when they need to make unpopular decisions.

At this time, I really do not see a 180 with MS direction or even Phil statement.  I see a consolidation and a push to get Bethesda to move quickly in getting their best IP to market but it's not MS has canceled any projects that we know of at the moment.  Things still need to shake out so we will see what happens going forward but at the end of the day, what MS need and what they have always needed are consistent hits from their studios.  Nothing else really matters in the gaming entertainment industry because you are always measured on the game that drive customers to your platform and business.  I bet you one thing.  No one will care if the next couple years MS continue to drop nothing but hits because that is the measure for any of these companies.