How at risk is a studio like Ninja Theory going forward after this? Cause Hellblade 2 isn't exactly gonna be a huge seller. Morale at these studios is gonna reach an all time low now which is just gonna exacerbate any development issues.

Xbox Series had a significantly better start than the Xbox One image wise but for the past couple years that advantage has been going away and after this the image of the brand has to be even lower than it was at the mid point of last gen which is quite a shame after there was a decent amount of optimism for it back in 2020-2021.

Damn, that sucks so much :(

Well Taneem the co-founder of NT left. Similar beginnings to Tango. So NT could likely be next.

They better not close another studio anytime soon. Ideally there will be a big gap until the next one.

....and it was at a time when they badly needed a hit, or something to make them look good.

This is how they are repayed for their hardwork, that was actually a critical hit.

I am only surprised by the fact that people are surprised.

As a corporate entity, Microsoft has no conscience. Every single performance review is equivalent to the sword of Damocles hovering in the sky. Understand, too, that a moderate success is often equivalent to failure when the context is budget share and return expectations. That is the reality of belonging to a multi-trillion dollar company.

"Good" can easily be "not good enough."

That aside, the cycle of corporate cannibalization is well established in the gaming world at this point and will continue to be the norm. Smaller companies will continue to attract the attention of larger companies, who will carve them up like a Sunday turkey while they pick out the juicy bits and fling the rest into the disposal. Promising IP will continue to be mismanaged or pushed aside and forgotten as the people who made them special to begin with leave to form new companies with new IP and begin the cycle once more.

But, hey, the next time is going to be different, right?

Which is why I can easily understand reason to cut Arkane Austin.

Sony has come out and said, they are fine with only 3 out of 10 games, being big success stories, that then partually pays for the others.
I have a hard time imagineing that Tango, wasn't atleast profitable for them.

So closeing them down because profit margins are slim, while they make good games (critical reviews, player reviews), that MS needed at the time.
It feels like such a blow.

Software sales notably expanded when PC is taken into account which both MS and Sony now support. AA and AAA games cost more now to develop, but prices have also increased especially in Europe, and Sony games are retaining their prices much better than a few years back without selling less. Can you refer me to where it was shown that SM2 needs to sell 10 million to break even? Last I heard, the game cost $300 million (does the figure not include marketing?). Should generate profit at 5 million give or take.

But more importantly, why do all games have to be some highend AAA anyway? Low-mid budget AAA don't cost nearly as much as SM2, and AA cost even less. Helldivers 2 is considered AA and it "only" cost $50 million to make. Nintendo is killing it with medium budget games. And a crap load of indies, A, and AA games are more successful than anything AAA from Microsoft. Microsoft's own Sea of Thieves (not to mention Minecraft lol) is probably a lot more successful than the bigger Halo Infinite.

Higher development costs are more than cancelled out by games simply selling a lot more and averaging at higher prices in many cases. Availability on PC also greatly helps.

Surprised the usual "pro Microsoft buy everything " dont post here. I dont fucking know why they boight all this shit to chew and take a dump