If they can port it to Switch 1 for more sales then sure, but at least have a Switch 2 patch. Then yes, I’d agree with that. Just don’t know how demanding their titles are and how realistic it is to have Switch 1 support, but aube it can be done.
Or have a separate dev do the ports, one that really knows how to optimize for Switch.
I hope the studio can be protected by Phil, but I doubt it with Amy calling the money shots
Amy and Satya give them financial targets, they do not handle day to day business decisions. They’re not culling devs or projects
Yeah… We know the target 30% :(. We’ve already seen the likes of Blacbird dropped, that was a project Phil was meant to be a fan of. Hold little hope that we will not see job losses in Ninja Theory or Double Fine
The initial reporting was some studios are given a 30% accountability margin. No clue what that means, it’s not every studio/game, though.
I get that you love going all doom & gloom but at least get it right.
You are relentless.
From my understanding Ninja Theory is safe because they can make money renting out their studio and equipment with their unique motion capture setup. Double Fine excels in smaller gamers with shorter dev cycles which Xbox seems more supportive of if anything. Like Grounded 2 has been seen as a great success. I mean even assuming the worst of things with a very strict and cutthroat 30% margin, both studios are fine with other ways to hit that (ninja theory and lower overhead costs (double fine). It’s the bigger studios and projects that play a riskier game. Like in the last round of layoffs the only actual studio closure was a studio that hadn’t released anything since being founded in 2018 with their project still being a year or more out.
You’re assuming everyone has a ‘cutthroat 30% margin’, when Schreier’s original reporting is that some studios and some projects have a ‘30% accountability margin’.
That that is, what it means? None of us know. I don’t understand why you’d jump to such a negative interpretation of it, outside of it being your default since you joined.
Reality seems to dictate that as long as you have a solid roadmap of content then Xbox is happy. Things cut have been those that were too far out/expensive or studios with nothing actively in development.
For me, I was just saying “in the hypothetical worst case scenario, these studios are probably still fine.” I think when the 30% number came out narratives sort of just wrapped around it. It gave a target for fingers to point at which everyone likes. Nothing really seems different though. Xbox is a for profit business unit under Microsoft; Microsoft wants them to grow with minimum wasted resources. I don’t there’s a single reason for anything that happens, but the underlying goal for all of it is “Microsoft want more money.” which is completely normal for any for profit business especially a public one with shareholders to whom it has a responsibility of raising the value of their investment.
Xbox hasn’t been anymore volatile or trigger happy with firings and studio closures than other big publishers and the rest of the industry. Not that it’s “good” that things have been as shaky as they’ve been. Going independent also doesn’t mean studios can avoid Financials. It’s interesting because I forget who but someone recommended Double Fine’s vlog series on YouTube and you can see the stress of being independent play out for them. It was looking bleak ahead of them being purchased by Microsoft.
Ultimately Financials tend to go over my head. I’m not a Microsoft shareholder to whom this information is directed at nor am I well studied in it. I think it all goes over a lot of people’s heads, but everyone wants a “reason” why XYZ thing they don’t like is happening. And often, because people are people and the internet is the internet, that reason drives engagement with spiraling and baseless deductions and so on. I think it is what it is. Hard for people to not be concerned at all, and I think for some people being negative is guarding against the surprise. Plus there’s that whole airplane crash thing. I forget the specific type of bias, but where people are more scared of Airplane crashes and feel like they happen more because it’s a made a bigger spectacle of when it’s reported. Even though cars statistically are more dangerous, they feel more “normal” so people move on. Microsoft is a massive company with a lot of eyes of them. It’s always a big deal when an Xbox studio closes (it’s made a bigger deal of than even when Playstation closes a studio) and because they employ so many people even small percentage layoffs result in large total numbers of job cuts (so it feels bigger even if there’s a lower percentage of layoffs than other companies). Their PR all feels part of the territory of being as big as they are.
Xbox has not been more trigger-happy than other publishers when it comes to cancellations and firings.
It’s hard not have a bit of gloom over Xbox; Many people outright rubbished the 30% madate, even Microsoft telling CNBC it wasn’t true, only for Obsidian to just recently talk of the 30% target.
I think Double Fine will be ok but I do have worries over the likes of Ninja. Not in terms of the studio closing but for job losses
It was a hypothetical that Fergus answered, no? It wasn’t even in the article, and again the majority of people who play video games have no idea about it or anything that those of who are fully tuned in hear.
Given Feargus Urquhart made reference to 30% means to me there’s an element of truth behind it . You don’t have to play video games or work for Xbox studios to know that usually when an Xbox game fails to performe the studio is either closed or there are staff job losses. Sure, you and jeans can make out thats being overly negative and yes, it is, but we’ve only had to look at how Xbox have dealt with studios like Turn 10, Tango Works, Arkane Studios I’m all for giving Xbox praise but also will take issue with Xbox when they mess up. For all my neativty Xbox Studios have produced more good games than either Nintendo or Sony combined SONY just had a shocking year and I can’t understand why the PS5 sells so much?
With luck, this year should be a lot better with plenty of top games coming, talk of new hardware and also more series consoles coming online
Where did he mention 30% in the article? As far as I see he never mentioned it or referred to it.
One of Microsoft's big Xbox studios is forging a new path | Windows Central
He said the games were not disasters. He also seems to put the blame on them talking about spending 7-8 years to develop their games and having them all launch in the same year. I think they will continue to work on them, and they will gain more engagement. The good thing is they seem to have analyzed where they went wrong and are making adjustments one of which is to develop games in 3-4 years.
30% was brought up by Schreier on Resetera I think? But the context wasn’t clear on if it was ‘yes it is 30%’ or ‘30% would make sense as a hypothetical’
It was taken from ironically enough bloomberg