Xbox closing 4 Bethesda game studios

[wonderfly]

From the front page of AnimeSuperhero.com:

"Today’s Safety Tip: Don’t Let Yourself Get Bought By Microsoft"​

"Microsoft’s ownership of ZeniMax, the parent company of triple-A video game publisher Bethesda, isn’t going well…but it’s through no fault of Bethesda’s. Reports are coming out that Microsoft just shuttered the doors of four more studios under the Bethesda umbrella, studios they spent billions trying to acquire in the first place.

In some cases, it makes sense: Arkane Austin just delivered a dud with Redfall, In others it’s not only baffling but enraging: Japanese studio Tango Gameworks made a huge impression last year with the rhythm-based action game Hi-Fi Rush. Their star was just rising and they were destined to draw in a large crowd of fans with money. They’re the kind of thing XBox not only wants but NEEDS. And now they’ve been thrown away.

This has to be the dumbest thing I’ve seen all year, and I JUST saw Sony nearly strangle their biggest hit of 2024 to death with an unnecessary rule that would’ve cut off a large portion of its global customer base.

For quite a while, the Microsoft way of dealing with competition has been simply to buy it out. The problem becomes…then what? Microsoft has this tendency to buy studios and then struggle over what to do with them. Mind, this hasn’t been the case every time — when they bought Minecraft, they had the sense to leave it alone and keep it running as it always was."

Read the full article here.

 

[harry580]

Microsoft pulled a ea on the studios, its only matter a time before they go after activision blizzard divisions

 

[Marble]

According to Forbes, they're going after Zenimax QA testers and producers next, already offering them voluntary severance packages and apparently there are more to come.

 

[the_joker]

Supposedly, Hi-Fi Rush was getting a sequel, so it sucks for a studio to release a game that was well-liked only to get shut down even after delivering a hit. It's also odd that Microsoft would acquire these studios only to quickly close them down as one point in buying these studios is to give them some backing, and closing them down hardly supports that idea, so I wonder how Activision is now feeling about handing themselves over to Microsoft.