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Breaking: Xbox is closing down Hellblade creator Ninja Theory

Giallo Corsa said:
What ?
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Black Boy What GIF by NoireSTEMinist


What?
 
Jesb said:
They made their bed going from heavenly sword to this depressing series.
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It really is depressing. I didn't even touch the second one because it looked like a melancholy mess, just depressing as hell. Most people don't want to play a game with the character spazzing out about their sad mental disorders for 5 hours.
 
I think that Microsoft bought Ninja Theory on the premise that they were going to be their answer to Sony Santa Monica.

Instead, they got a studio obsessed with telling the same story over and over again with worse gameplay and longer development times.

They should have been shut down after the second game underperformed.
 
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violence said:
Apparently there was around 5 million PlayStation users and the game sold around 1 million in 8 months. I guess the issue was how much they spent on the game. It deserved another shot.
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All I could find on Google was some indication that it topped out around 1.5 mil, but didn't break even.

Though both of those things could also be bullshit so who knows
 
simpatico said:
Yeah but if you were serious about playing it you could have just played it on PC. I had no idea it was even 30fps on consoles. That's more of a technicality.
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As it happens today, most PC players had hardware that provided somewhat similar (or worse) performance to contemporary consoles and only a tiny percentage of PC players had hardware to perform considerably better than in console.

I mean, today yes 5090 exists but the average PC player doesn't have that. Similar scenario happened back then, with the difference that in the PS3 days most PC ports of console games did suck.

I went to check it now and yes, seems the PC version of this game allowed you to cap it at 60fps (if your rig was capable to achieve that, obviously) or even to unlock it. But also there were complains about experiencing some weird fps issues when unlovked that I assume they fixed over time, at least in the PC version of the Definitive Edition.
 
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yurinka said:
As it happens today, most PC players had hardware that provided somewhat similar (or worse) performance to contemporary consoles and only a tiny percentage of PC players had hardware to perform considerably better than in console.

I mean, today yes 5090 exists but the average PC player doesn't have that. Similar scenario happened back then, with the difference that in the PS3 days most PC ports of console games did suck.

I went to check it now and yes, seems the PC version of this game allowed you to cap it at 60fps (if your rig was capable to achieve that, obviously) or even to unlock it. But also there were complains about experiencing some weird fps issues when unlovked that I assume they fixed over time, at least in the PC version of the Definitive Edition.
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DmC ran very lean for its day. If it launched today, it would be like something that still runs fine on a 2070.
 
LordOcidax said:
A video gaming forum celebrating the closure of a gaming studio…

bN1GZNRKf1uu96hz.gif
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for every bad game studio that goes away, the market fills the demand with a better one. why should ideological freaks get handsome salaries destroying the industry? these are the types of people that have been ruining gaming and hiring their activist friends to poison the industry with woke slop.
 
HoodWinked said:
for every bad game studio that goes away, the market fills the demand with a better one. why should ideological freaks get handsome salaries destroying the industry? these are the types of people that have been ruining gaming and hiring their activist friends to poison the industry with woke slop.
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Clap Applause GIF
 
Had plenty of time to make something good that sells. Weird passion projects like all this Senua crap and whatever Mara were sinkholes. HB 2 bombed, so why the hell there would be another Senua game doesnt make sense. Funny thing is the game that probably had the most gameplay of all (Bleeding Edge) probably got the worst reviews out of all their games. So it goes to show what happens if they try to make a game with actual fast paced gameplay.

But lucky for them, MS kept them around for 8 years. This studio would be nowhere without their funding.

Time to get a real job boys. The gravy train is over. But dont be surprised if somehow NT survives where another company scoops them up. I can see another big company buying them and using them as a dog and pony show studio for good graphics.
 
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Pedro Motta said:
They haven't really been making "games" now have they?

Now they were finally making a game and get shutdown. This makes no sense.
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They're probably making a game now, because Phil or Booty went to them and said. Ok, you need to make a serious game now.

Then Asha came in and just looked at the numbers and she's going to cut the low hanging fruit.

I've done it before at work, it's the easiest thing to do when entering a new role.

Doesn't matter what they started etc. the boss came in and looked at the numbers and they must have been the studio making the least money with most money spent.

Simples.
 
DenchDeckard said:
They're probably making a game now, because Phil or Booty went to them and said. Ok, you need to make a serious game now.

Then Asha came in and just looked at the numbers and she's going to cut the low hanging fruit.

I've done it before at work, it's the easiest thing to do when entering a new role.

Doesn't matter what they started etc. the boss came in and looked at the numbers and they must have been the studio making the least money with most money spent.

Simples.
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Yup.

It's always harder to fire people the longer a boss is at the company because they get a combo of complacency, too chill and fam friendly and comfortable.

That's why in many job roles, people rotate. Not just because the person actually wants to but the company wants to rotate them around so they dont stagnate and get too chummy. Account managers and buyers are a good example. They often rotate accounts and categories because the companies (both supplier and buyer side) dont want them acting like best buddies where they've known each other for 10 years doing half assed business.

Twitter is a good example. I dont use it or have a log in, but by the looks of it it seems to run fine (although at the beginning there were all those rumblings about it performing shitty, bad algorithms etc...). But now I think it runs ok(?). Musk fired like 75% of the company. Google check says it went from 6000 to 1500.

So what the fuck did the other 4500 people do? And each guy was probably what? $150k/yr on avg?

That's the thing about tech. It's easy to hide behind a desk, get paid and that person or chummy manager says to execs..... "Ya, we need this employee". All the while who knows what he does because there isnt a direct linkage between work. The guy is sitting at a desk all day where who knows how long it takes him to finish something. On the other hand, there is a very easy link to hiring people for an assembly line job or a restaurant because you can literally see them in action and the output in product and service. You dont need extra workers doing nothing standing behind other workers with nothing to do.
 
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What the?? These things are planned in advance. Why would you let them show the game then shutdown the studio right afterwards. Bizarre.
 
Varteras said:
If anyone is surprised or doubtful of this, you either have the memory of a goldfish or are willfully ignorant. This is Microsoft.

They announced Perfect Dark. Went silent on it for years. Showed off a gameplay concept trailer. Then canceled it and closed The Initiative.

They closed Tango Gameworks after they released Hi-Fi Rush. An award winning game. Then, right after, started talking about how they needed more games like it.

And how could you forget Ensemble Studios? The makers of Halo Wars who got closed down RIGHT BEFORE THE FUCKING GAME RELEASED!

This kind of shit is right up their alley.
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How is it not obvious that the same people don't make these decisions? The management tries to be nice as is the culture. I don't think Phil Spencer would have closed Hifi studio if it was in his power but all the coddling leads to financial faliure. Then the boss looks at the spreadsheet, sees the money going away and announces their closure.
 
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Danny22 said:
How is it not obvious that the same people don't make these decisions? The management tries to be nice as is the culture. I don't think Phil Spencer would have closed Hifi studio if it was in his power but all the coddling leads to financial faliure. Then the boss looks at the spreadsheet, sees the money going away and announces their closure.
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Jesus, dude. That's one hell of an attempt to ignore the history of a company. It doesn't matter who was in charge or why the decision was made. It all still came with the Microsoft and Xbox logo stamped on it. It was all outwardly strange.

And now, in addition to those three instances that I mentioned, we have a new doozy where they allowed a game that they weren't planning on even supporting to be shown off at their showcase. Just to close the studio weeks later because they couldn't sell it.

The point of my post, which everyone else got but went right over your head because you were eager to be an apologist for a company, is that there are enough examples of what Microsoft and Xbox have done in the past to not doubt that they would do something like announce a new game and then immediately shut its studio down.

This talk of financial viability and why things had to happen is irrelevant when the point was never about whether or not they should close a studio. It was about not ignoring the history of closures and how wild some of them have been with this company for different reasons.

The fact that we found out that they had already made the decision to close Ninja Theory yet still showed their game off AFTER I made that post completely vindicates my point. No one should have doubted that that could have easily been the scenario. And it was.
 
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