During a town hall with ZeniMax staff on Wednesday morning, Xbox president Matt Booty praised Hi-Fi Rush but did not specify why the company had shut down the development studio behind it, according to three people who were in attendance.
Speaking about the closures more broadly, Booty said that the company’s studios had been spread too thin — like “peanut butter on bread” — and that leaders across the division had felt understaffed. They decided to close these studios to free up resources elsewhere, he said.
Booty added that the shutdown of subsidiary Arkane Austin, the longtime developer of games such as Prey, was not connected to the performance of its new multiplayer game, Redfall, a critical and commercial flop.
Before its closure, Arkane had been looking to return to its roots by pitching a new single-player “immersive sim” game, such as a new entry in the Dishonored series, according to the people familiar.
Jill Braff, head of ZeniMax studios, said in the town hall that she hoped the reorganization would allow the division, which also develops Fallout and Doom, to put more focus on fewer projects. “It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do,” she said, according to audio of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg.
“I think we were about to topple over,” she added
LivDiv wrote:Grubb saying Perfect Dark is a mess. Forgot that was something that was being worked on if I'm honest. The announcement trailer was 2020. Bad luck if you've got that on your E3 not E3 bingo card.
Fuck me. Maybe someone should have thought of this before you bought up half the studios in the industry. This is nothing more than gambling, with people's careers as a stake.Jill Braff, head of ZeniMax studios, said in the town hall that she hoped the reorganization would allow the division, which also develops Fallout and Doom, to put more focus on fewer projects. “It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do,” she said, according to audio of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg. “I think we were about to topple over,” she added
Paul the sparky wrote:Maybe it didn't sell well on PlayStation? It was one of the games ported over right?
JonB wrote:Fuck me. Maybe someone should have thought of this before you bought up half the studios in the industry. This is nothing more than gambling, with people's careers as a stake.Jill Braff, head of ZeniMax studios, said in the town hall that she hoped the reorganization would allow the division, which also develops Fallout and Doom, to put more focus on fewer projects. “It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do,” she said, according to audio of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg. “I think we were about to topple over,” she added
JonB wrote:Fuck me. Maybe someone should have thought of this before you bought up half the studios in the industry. This is nothing more than gambling, with people's careers as a stake.Jill Braff, head of ZeniMax studios, said in the town hall that she hoped the reorganization would allow the division, which also develops Fallout and Doom, to put more focus on fewer projects. “It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do,” she said, according to audio of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg. “I think we were about to topple over,” she added
MattyJ wrote:Town Hall is a big meeting of everyone in company where seniors explain state of company currently. Usually have ability for employees to ask questions. Basically like a town gathering in the hall to discuss the pressing issues.
Syph79 wrote:Monorail!
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