Happy 343i released a statement that was much needed. Well time to see if this new 343 can deliver on games,

These people upset that 343 is still developing it are fucking weird man, Lol.

Bonnie Ross is gone, Chris Lee is gone, the entire Campaign team is gone, 343 has been under completely new leadership since 4 months ago, under the leadership of the guy who saved TMCC and Infinite's MP side has improved a lot recently but there's people still mad that it's still being made by 343. What more do they want? Lets move Pierre into a studio called 434! It's totally different!

Anyway it feels like this is a studio reboot, having to rebuild it from near the ground up, unfortunately 343's issues timed with Microsoft's layoffs which gave Microsoft an easy excuse to just blanket fire the entire Campaign team in one swoop rather than replacing employees slowly overtime or moving them to other positions in XGS.

I don't think Pierre would have done mass firings, I think he would have carefully changed things in the studio overtime and streamline some management, maybe replace a few people, but unfortunately Microsoft was looking for layoffs and 343 has just majorly fucked up so Microsoft took the most extreme course of action.

It's a shame, I loved the Campaign and there's a lot of talented people in there, although it wasn't without its issues, notable no Campaign Co-Op or Level Select until a year after launch and a lot of other things promised but never delivered...Wish we could have kept the Art/Story/OST team at least as those were very strong aspects.

There's a former 343 employee who has been trashing 343's former leadership on Twitter. He specifically noted that the Multiplayer leadership team was great so that seems to imply he's dragging either the Campaign leadership team or the overall studio leadership team. Found it a bit of a surprise considering I thought Campaign was better than Multiplayer.

Maybe the Campaign Leadership/Overall Leadership was causing issues for the Multiplayer team though?

I think the unfortunate thing is, 343 has fucked up, quite badly. There's no doubt that Infinite has probably been a big flop for Microsoft, so they're probably looking at it in financial terms as well, they've got to double down on the thing that can make them money for now (Multiplayer) so that explains why they didn't fire the Multiplayer team as well, if they did, Infinite would have to be shutdown and 343's studio would be practically empty.

They're probably going to try to get Multiplayer in a better spot first, in a financially healthy spot, before rebuilding the Campaign team.

I propose we rename the studio to usher in a new era

some suggestions

- 343productions
- Bungie2
- The Halo team
- That dead horse
- Microsoft research and development 1
- 117 industries
- That fortnite guy has a game studio
- Killzone tried but I did myself in

Lol.

For real, they may have to rename it, they could fire everyone except the janitor and rebuild the entire studio from scratch and people would still scream "SAME OLD 343, THEY'VE HAD ENOUGH CHANCES"

The name does have a negative connection associated with it though and I'd think a name change would be nice but I suspect the new moan will be "343 TRYING TO HIDE WHO THEY ARE BY CHANGING THEIR NAME" Lol.

Always was weird to name themselves after the psychotic evil robot though, Lol.

Xbox OpenCritic Prediction League - 2023 Edition

Thread is open and damnit I already want to change my Goldeneye score

It's hard to work out if it will have more people hating its gameplay/graphics or a lot of nostalgia reviewers who will overlook those flaws.

Almost every title I played on Rare Replay from the 90s/early 2000s played awful by todays standards and I don't think Goldeneye will change that.

Goldeneye 007 HD is probably going to play awful but will reviewers ignore that?

My fellow JRPG peeps on Xbox, rumor is Ys 8 and Disgaea may be coming to Xbox soon. 

Don't care much about Disgaea personally, but hopefully Ys 8 performs well, if it does perform well we should get Ys 9 and 10 as well, and maybe also Falcom's latest Legend of Heroes story arc, Kuro No Kiseki (Trails in the Dark). Doubt the previous Legend of Heroes story arc will hit Xbox though, Trails of Cold Steel, it is 5 games long as it's a bit late to port a whole 5 game story arc to Xbox. 

I'll end up grabbing them all.

is Nick from xboxera still the source of the rumors or did someone else mention them?

I think it's just Nick so far, and he is kind of sketchy track record wise, so definitely take it with a grain of salt. 

Source? And I'd play them. Ys is a better series than Trails any day as well. Way more grounded story with more likeable characters. I still doubt they will come. Falcom and ther hate b!ner