I'm not yet convinced that Phil Spencer agreed with this decision, mainly because of how it contradicts the language Xbox had from a year ago, and because the level of distrust this has caused among the community reflects so poorly on him.

Even what they said yesterday, after the closure, sounds completely opposite of what they did.



At least the lead director of Hi-Fi Rush seemed to think so.

CEO's don't always agree with the decisions made by the suits above them. Because they can lose their job over it when they're made the scapegoat if things turn sour.

I'll see what his initial statement will be, and maybe that will give a hint to whether or not he tried to push back against this. I don't think he will outright ever blame Microsoft though. But it doesn't really matter either way, because if he doesn't hand in his resignation in protest, he may as well have agreed to it.
Do I expect him to do that? Not really. But I'll give him a chance to speak his mind before I write him off.

What mandate have any of you heard from anyone that these decisions were made from above Phil position.  The only person above Phil at this point in time is Satya.  Phil does not report to anyone, but Satya and you have not heard, seen or witness anything from Satya on any decisions on MS gaming.  This is why I am pretty much certain everything and I mean everything is from Phil.

I am never under the illusion the public appearance of a CEO level person is the same appearance they are internally when doing their job.  While people want to believe that Phil would not make these decisions without some external force making him do so, there isn't any. People want to blame Satya but even during all the emails and correspondence during the ABK acquisition, you never heard a peep from him.  All emails and decisions were made by Phil.  

Bethesda is just second to get the treatment but let's not forget that ABK was first. What pretty much make me believe everything is from Phil is because of all the emails during the ABK acquisition.  None of them showed that any decision made were lorded down from anyone else but him.  If anything from the moment he got into his position, he has maneuvered MS to exactly where they are today and that include from the purchase of BGS, ABK and him being promoted to head of MS gaming, to MS gaming now being one of the bigger players in MS revenue stream.

There is this belief that Phil is a nice guy but I have worked with many nice guys who lead departments and divisions to CEO of a company and none of them were shy about making decisions that were unpopular just because it's going to piss some people off.  Until I see otherwise, there is nothing so far I see that is not totally coming from Phil with no external pressure than him moving towards his own strategy of what he feels MS gaming is going to be for the future of the company.

You guys really need to divest yourself from PR statements that are always made to shine a positive light on everything.  None of those PR statements mean anything when it comes to large corps like MS, and you do not get into a C level position being weak to making decisions that were made by Phil and his team.

From MS financials, it's clear that a change needs to be made.  The issue is that people believe that someone is making these decisions and then telling Phil what to do.  I am saying that Phil has looked at the industry, he has looked at where MS gaming is at including Xbox and all the other studios they have purchased, and he made the decision that this is what is needed to make sure that MS gaming can continue to thrive.

The difference with myself is that I never get emotional over this stuff because I know I just do not have enough of the data.  Meaning that we all just knee jerk and get into our feelings about certain decisions but never really know the full extent why they are made because a lot of times we just do not have the full clear picture.  I have no real opinion yet on these decisions because I do not have full details on the whole story.  We may never get the full details but one thing I am sure of is that everything is from Phil.  We just do not know the full details as to why, but I doubt he was forced but instead came to these decisions because he felt they needed to be done and there is no better time than now.

Phil *may* be to blame, but his bosses (yes multiple, the board is also above him) are *absolutely* to blame.

We can assume generals are the reason soldiers are operating the way they are in a war, we can't assume colonels are the reason as they have considerably less control.

Phil is a colonel. Don't let the fancy CEO title fool you, he is not a practical CEO. He's essentially a USA secretary of whatever level, seemingly powerful, but can't do anything the president doesn't sign off on and *must* do whatever the president says.

We have confirmation from the FTC trial already that Microsoft.

A. Is starting to demand that Xbox Gaming reaches the same profit margins as other Microsoft divisions.
B. Is unwilling to subsidize the business any further.

Just because Satya didn't pop up in emails much, doesn't mean he does absolutely nothing, he's the frigging CEO of Microsoft but Satya also has people to relay his commands for him, Amy Hood the CFO of Microsoft, Tim Stuart the CFO of MS Gaming will report to her and Phil. Either Satya will enforce his decisions down himself or Amy will do it for him.

I mean Phil shares blame too but equally, Satya shares a lot of blame too, I'm not sure why you would try to absolve the CEO of Microsoft of any responsibility but also get call out those who are apparently doing the same with Phil and again, Phil does share the blame, but Satya will be the one to demand cuts, Phil will then decide on what is cut.

Satya has long had a reputation of being cut-throat, massive layoffs aren't something he has been shy about, shortly after taking over as MS CEO he ripped through Microsoft with layoffs, shutdown an entire division (later said he regretted it, Lol). He is known as being a ruthless businessman, far more than Steve Ballmer and maybe even Bill Gates, of course investors love him for that though.

Technically, Amy Hood would be Phil's boss too and Phil has mentioned multiple times about having strategy conversations with Amy and Satya. Phil even spoke about Amy Hood being a pretty tough boss during the FTC trial. Just cause they aren't permanently on email like Phil and Matt, it doesn't mean much at all, Sarah barely spoke in emails too, doesn't mean she does nothing.

And Satya's emails are probably the ones that MS lawyer wanted to protect the most.

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.

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...

It is also true Microsoft ain't doing any different from the rest of the industry which is an absolute mess right now.

The main reason they're getting more criticism is because Tango's closure specifically and all their statements over the years, the closures and comments which followed have completely contradicted everything they've been saying and destroyed trust in them.

If Tango wasn't closed, sadly, this would have blown over in about a week.

Former Epic and Blizzard Veterans Join Forces to Create Lightforge Games™

=/ If veterans can't even get funding then what hope do others have. I've a feeling half of these "veteran establishes new studio" are going to close over the next few years before they even release a game.

Also, tweet aside for everyone. Can we just stop for a second and look back at HiFiRush...
Be honest with yourselves, if the game would not have been om GamePass; would you have bought it?
I would not... and I frankly do not know anyone who would have. This game was a nice surprise for a GamePass exclusive at the time; but frankly; it would have probably sold very poorly (and the sales on the Play Station Five probably confirmed that which helped Xbox to make the decision).
I'm not saying the game is not good or anything, but it is definitely not a big seller and if anything GamePass gave them the chance to get some visiblity before the real test on PLay Station which probably did not do very well.
I don't know, that's my two cents, and really based on some assumptions, nothing really to back it up; but that's how I feel about it.