Xbox is closing down Ninja Theory, the studio behind the Hellblade series, a source tells The Verge. Staffers were told on a call on Monday about the closure.
follow up to the last post just a few hours ago that they were negotiating with xbox. who knows what will happen to the other studios mentioned.
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had to say “Microsoft, guys, you’re sitting on a giant pile of amazing IPs and you have so many glorious studios. You’re sitting on a goldmine, folks. So why are you all so bad at this?”
It’s because they aren’t using enough AI. That will surely help.
As long as the AI helps me watch TV on the game box.
Monopolies buy competitors to strip them and bury them. Then there’s no competition for your mediocre games and lower quality for higher prices
Ninja Theory only have themselves to blame. Hellblade 2 took like 8 years to make and was a barely interactive ~5 hour walking sim.
Also there’s no way you can seriously believe that Microsoft have a monopoly in video games, right?
I can’t speak to Ninja Theory specifically but it is suspicious that all these studios they bought up slow to a crawl or turn out lower quality games after acquisition
Ms is in the top 3 revenues and those are significantly higher (>2*) revenues from the rest of the companies below the top 3
Being in the top 3 for revenue doesn’t make you a monopoly. Xbox is the clear last place in the console wars. You can’t be a monopoly from last place lol.
The studios they bought didn’t really change their release cadence or quality after being bought.
Hellblade: Senua’s Studio Shutdown
Hellblade: Studio Sacrificed
I fear for the future of Double Fine. Hopefully Microsoft will not be the ones that will end the Psychonauts franchise. :(
So uh, what’s that mean for Senua–the game that they literally just announced at their showcase less than a week ago?
During that event, Microsoft also revealed a new Hellblade game, Senua, and its future with this change is unclear.
From the article.
will be entirely AI generated.
I hope this joke doesn’t become true.
Senua’s Psychosis: AI Boogaloo
Will this be another Bayonetta 2 situation?
What is the Bayonetta 2 situation? (I know the game, just don’t know what the situation is.)
B2 was offered to multiple publishers and Nintendo showed up at the 11th hour to save the game from being cancelled. Setting up the Bayonetta series as a Nintendo exclusive mostly because everyone else was willing to let it die.
That series in general seems like a great fit for Nintendo. Contrary to the Xbox approach of buying up anything to see what sticks.
Turns out the shotgun approach is expensive and also yields minimal results. Shocker.
New CEO can’t stop Xbox from killing any studio within reach.
There’s speculation that Arkane will be shuttered soon as well
RIP to my hopes of another Prey title.
I’ve honestly been having some trouble getting into Prey. Don’t know why. It theoretically should be everything I enjoy in a first person game, but somehow I always turn it off after a half hour or so. I’ll keep trying because, hell, I paid for the damn thing. But yeah… It’s no dishonored (but what is really)
For me it took a few hours to get into. Once the station starts to open up and becomes less linear it gets really good. I really love how that games level design tells so many interesting stories in different corners of the station.
Good, now you know how we Prey original fans feel. First time?
(this is a joke, I like Arkane and hope they don’t get shuttered) (also goddammit why name it Prey when it has literally nothing to do with the original IP you still own? Bethesda you clowns)
Don’t cite the deep magic to me. I was there when it was written. I grew up playing OG Prey
Same here, loved that game. I think it was almost criminal that its sequel was canceled, especially as it was allegedly almost complete.
There’s a port of og prey for oculus quest. It’s pretty fun.
Didn’t those hopes die after that vampire shooter of theirs?
I did have hope that the executives and pencil pushers at MS which forced Arkane to make that mess of a game would have wised up after the success of recent immersive, story-focused, single-player titles to let Arkane do what they do best instead of forcing them to make a game chasing trends in an attempt to garner the widest audience possible even though the devs have no experience in makes those kinds of titles.
But alas, giant megacorp will be giant megacorp about it.
Well, she’s been bringing all her AI chums onboard, so I’ll guessing AI will save the day… /s
Aw
FUCK, I love those guys!
Don’t judge me, but I think their take on DmC is the best combats system in any action game.
o7
I low key prefer DmC over the others. The gameplay and music is just so good
Amen!
Actually, Doom 2016 felt strangly similar to me with it’s action, secret room keys, soundtrack, half-cartoon visual style and overall flow.
You just can’t beat a Noisia and Combichrist collab.
It’s such a good fucking soundtrack, one of my all time faves
Devil may cry 5 is the best for me. I think it was DmC but polished too a mirror finish.
I wish I enjoyed it as much, but the “hold trigger” swap was so good. I kind of get lost in Dante’s moves with the d-pad. Wish I could replicate the controls… maybe I should try again lol
I was so sad when they announced the acquisition couple of years back because I knew this was about to happen
DmC introduced a lot of gameplay elements to the series that I loved, but I think the way dmc5 builds on it is truly unmatched
gonna miss Ninja Theory o7
I guess the kinda games they make cost a lot of money and don‘t have the mass appeal to rake huge RoI in, still wish clearly talented studios like these could do their thing in a smaller scope under publishers that don‘t calculate MS kinda RoIs instead of just being closed down.
As ever, even if they make acceptable profit… they’ll never make obscene profit. So betting on a high risk, extremely high reward product will always be more attractive.
Lmao the AAA industry does not and has not taken risks in at least 15 years. They exclusively follow focus group and investor trends while turning down any innovation or risk.
Tell that to every publisher constantly flipping a coin on Live Services that are expensive, risky, likely to fail/underperform… but could make them oodles of revenue.
That’s trend chasing lol. They’re just trying to get their own version of things that already exist or if they already have a grade A live service then they create a template from that and apply it to literally everything they touch. They keep failing simply because they are too dumb to understand saturated markets not because they’re taking risks and falling short on something.
That is still explicitly a risk that they are taking. That risk doesn’t conflate to bravery, innovation, or a good idea. It is still a risk they take because either their new service flops and they write it off, or their new service makes crazy amounts of money.
Producing literally any product whatsoever is a risk, the term becomes meaningless when used in the way that you are using it.
I am just going to have to disagree with you, conflating the idea of risk with the things you’re associating it is not appropriate in my eyes. But we can leave it there at this point.
