ZombiePie

As Schreier put it best, the context is that Xbox was told to either prioritize games currently in development or games that would be in development in the future. They elected to protect studios that had stuff in the pipeline for the future. I'm not saying I agree with it and if anything, this shows that the people calling the shots simply do not understand how this industry works, but it is context

The growing body of evidence seems to suggest that Microsoft's highest leaders felt the Xbox brand was falling victim to what has been plaguing overexpansion. Likewise, it also seems like MS CEO Nadella simply has buyer's remorse regarding the purchase of Activision:

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.

No, and the Forbes report paints an even more depressing picture. Arkane was in the process of building a case for an immersive sim and Tango was nearing a roadmap on a Hi-Fi Rush sequel. The projects did get presented to senior leadership, but they did not change anything as they "were years away." ZeniMax leadership sided with Microsoft because they agreed that their current structure was too cumbersome:

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.

Both Tango and Arkane released games last year and were looking to hire additional staff as they pitched new projects, which Booty and Braff suggested was the main factor behind their closures. Shinji Mikami, Tango’s founder and studio head, departed last year.

I can page @dtoast. As he explained in this thread, the engineers and managers made attempts to resolve the suddent return of the video issues.

@bigsocrates: are you aware that the work hours for the average salaryman are insane? The expected number of hours makes American look like it has EU labour laws. Japan has a forest and a bridge notoriously known as places where burnt out businessmen wander into in order to kill themselves, I don't think that's a stunning indicator of Japanese corporate culture, even if one CEO tried to save face over ten years ago.

Likewise, there should be a level of accountability directed at Spencer. If not now, when? You can't keep moving the goal post on when he deserves scrutiny over repeat studio failures and documented project mismanagement.

Also, yet again, I swear to God, if I see someone else share an Iwata anecdote amidst the industry layoffs, I am going to go insane. Sure, he would smile at the camera and seemed to get the industry, but he was acting IN ACCORDANCE TO NATIONWIDE regulations while operating a monolith. If he had the ability to fire people as freely as companies do in the USA and even most of Europe, he would have. You're a goddamn fool if you think Japanese corporate culture is "kinder" or less brutal or corrupt than what we experience.

Absolutely brutal. This is a murky time to be a non-mobile game developer in Japan. Kids do not give a shit about the PS5 in Japan and if they don't care about the PS5 the Xbox is getting barely a tenth of that attention over there. Nintendo partially investing in mobile games is still doing well. We tend to forget that Pokémon Go is a major money maker, though they don't fully own Pokémon. The Japanese PC Gaming market also exploded and ate the PS5's lunch.

1. Botany Manor

2. Peppa Pig

So... that final episode sure did piss a lot of people off.

@allthedinos: soooo... this Helldivers 2 account linking stuff and the Stellar Drive "censorship" nonsense claims from internet chuds might warrant nominations.

@bigsocrates: I genuinely think this topic warrants its own thread.