General Games News - The Bear and Badger

b0r1s

Tell me Bob… tell me.

Diluted Dante

The problem is they didn't take into account the thermodynamics of those deep pockets.

Bob

My series x gets so hot I have to point it diagonally out of its cubby hole. The pain is real

hylian_elf

My PS5 is used as a secondary heater.

My Series X never gets hot.
(It never gets swiched on.)

LivDiv

I might get the Series S out the draw.

To look at because it's a good bit of design.

Moot_Geeza

The XboxOne S is my most used console because it has the TV apps on.

regmcfly

I see we have all been doing our reading

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LivDiv

Is it coming to Game Pass?

Moot_Geeza

Is it art though?

regmcfly

Real big Friday Edge forum vibes in here today

hylian_elf

I did an A-level in Witty Banter studies

Bob

https://www.eurogamer.net/why-xbox-believes-it-must-cut-costs-and-close-studios

Put simply, Xbox bet an obscene amount of money on a future that hasn't happened. The market has shifted under its feet and it's having to alter direction. And some of its teams are having to pay the price.

another good article from Eurogamer on the MS studio shuttings

hylian_elf

Not the first time, eh? They tried to disrupt the market with the Bone but that backfired didn't it and they backpedalled? Seems like they are too early with how markets are changing and trying to get in early or to initiate the change before punters allow it to.

afgavinstan

At this point I'd take Mattrick back, ffs

Paul the sparky

Imagine what this place would be like it it wasn't so Xbox centric?

regmcfly

afgavinstan wrote:

At this point I'd take Mattrick back, ffs

Sit doon

Paul the sparky wrote:

Imagine what this place would be like it it wasn't so Xbox centric?

You got your copy signed by Patrick King like me aye

Bob

I see what you did there.

monkey

hylian_elf wrote:

Not the first time, eh? They tried to disrupt the market with the Bone but that backfired didn't it and they backpedalled? Seems like they are too early with how markets are changing and trying to get in early or to initiate the change before punters allow it to.

MS turned up to the mobile market too late and it's haunted them ever since.

afgavinstan

If only they stayed the course with Zune we'd all be playing locally installed pc ports of games on our Xbox Zune X WiFi edition. Oh wait. Um.

monkey

Tempy wrote:

Nathan Brown talking clearly and concisely about this, as usual.

https://newsletter.hitpoints.co/261-dishonoured/

Two good quotes

So: how did we get here? This cannot be ascribed merely to capitalism, to the growth-at-all-costs rot economy on which the majority of recent game-industry layoffs have rightly been blamed. These studios are tiny relative to an organisation of Microsoft’s bulk. They do not even qualify as a rounding error at a company that, in the first three months of this year, made almost $30m an hour in revenue. This cannot even be counted as virtue signalling to the Wall Street set, because it is simply not meaningful enough. You’ve got to lay off in the five figures to turn heads these days; only cruelty on the grandest of scales is enough to move the needle, and of course Microsoft, and the Xbox division, have already done that this year.

Just back to this, I don't think the small size of the businesses as a reason why MS wouldn't get rid of them. Imagine how many small devs they'd be carrying round after decades of acquisitions if they didn't chop off the small bits that aren't adding anything. That their contributions to the business are a rounding error is an argument (from their POV) to getting rid rather than keeping them.

LivDiv

Its the reinvestment of going at it again for the next dev cycle and the risk it doesn't at least break even I think.
Its just not worth the hassle to them.

Its short sighted in my view, they've devalued GP and lost a lot of good will from their current customer base, but they clearly dont think that way.

The danger they are in is in the pursuit of growth they neglect their core customer who they need just get to 0% growth. Each current customer that calls it a day on their GP sub or Xbox as their console of choice MS has to replace with some new market.

Paul the sparky

monkey wrote:

Tempy wrote:

Nathan Brown talking clearly and concisely about this, as usual.

https://newsletter.hitpoints.co/261-dishonoured/

Two good quotes

So: how did we get here? This cannot be ascribed merely to capitalism, to the growth-at-all-costs rot economy on which the majority of recent game-industry layoffs have rightly been blamed. These studios are tiny relative to an organisation of Microsoft’s bulk. They do not even qualify as a rounding error at a company that, in the first three months of this year, made almost $30m an hour in revenue. This cannot even be counted as virtue signalling to the Wall Street set, because it is simply not meaningful enough. You’ve got to lay off in the five figures to turn heads these days; only cruelty on the grandest of scales is enough to move the needle, and of course Microsoft, and the Xbox division, have already done that this year.

Just back to this, I don't think the small size of the businesses as a reason why MS wouldn't get rid of them. Imagine how many small devs they'd be carrying round after decades of acquisitions if they didn't chop off the small bits that aren't adding anything. That their contributions to the business are a rounding error is an argument (from their POV) to getting rid rather than keeping them.

I can't help but feel like they're more than capable of restructuring and merging teams etc to keep the job losses lower while also helping out other areas of the business.

Like there's a buzz about Fallout right now, but with Bethesda busy with Starfield and Elder Scrolls before Fallout gets its turn again, couldn't the extra bodies go to putting in the ground work on the next installment of that? Or a remake of earlier games?

I know fuck all about it if course but it feels like there's a few options to consider before binning people off even if you feel you need to shut the studios down?

LivDiv

I was thinking yesterday that it would have been awesome to get Tango and their survival horror chops to make a game set in a Fallout Vault, you play as a Vault Dweller trapped in part of some sick experiment.

poprock

Apparently there are games on LinkedIn now.

No, I don’t know why either.

LivDiv

Was just looking at the Fable series. 14 years since Fable 3.
There have been poorly advised spin offs, mostly nearer the F3 release but still, 14 years. That was supposed to be a main Xbox IP.

LivDiv

Linkedin has 135mil daily users. GROWTH!

regmcfly

There's possibly a cruel self fulfilling prophesy about to happen. The Hellblade 2 guys are putting out their game in two weeks. Does enough of the audience go "fuck MS and GP" that they deliberately stay away, and then MS go "well this has bombed, bin Ninja Theory".

Syph79

The problem with that Nathan Brown quote is that, whether or not the Devs are a rounding error to a business the size of Microsoft, it's misunderstanding that Microsoft has divisions and if a division is perceived to be failing it is chopped off mercilessly. I'm sure we can all list products and services that Microsoft have dropped quickly after not living up to financial expectations.

The second problem is how you define failing, because by all stated in-house metrics HiFi Rush was considered a success. So by that logic it's the bigger metrics that are at play, which are ultimately not in the hands of the acquired developers - the growth of Game Pass and/or the Xbox brand itself.

poprock

regmcfly wrote:

Does enough of the audience go "fuck MS and GP" that they deliberately stay away …

Does the massmarket give a toss about any of this? Are we, as nerds who read gaming industry news, a minority who statistically don’t matter?

(I don’t know the answer to that, btw. Just pondering.)

regmcfly

So I was thinking that, but then I was wondering how much of a "mainstream" game Hellblade 2 is, but I don't know either way.

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