Slashdot Mirror
Game Studio Flight From Microsoft A Sign of Troubles?
Newsweek's LevelUp blog continues to produce some highly interesting material. Today they have up a look at the 'flight' of game studios from Microsoft's corporate umbrella. BioWare's purchase by EA distances it a bit from their cosy relationship with Microsoft, as does Bizarre's purchase by Activision. Bungie's departure from the company itself goes without saying. So what does all this mean? Is this a sign of troubles in Redmond, or just more fallout from the huge undertaking required to get the Xbox 360 to the position it has today? "For us, the flight of the Killer B's is a clear indication that Microsoft as a whole is still shell shocked not only by the massive losses in the Xbox division, but also more importantly by the poor showing of Rare, which has to rank as not only one of the Microsoft's least successful purchases, but as quite possibly the worst acquisition in the history of gaming. Microsoft paid $375 million in cash for Rare, and based on the modest revenues from its ensuing titles--a Conker's Bad Fur Day remake, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero and Viva Pinata--all they've got to show for it is that proverbial lousy T-shirt, completely stained with red ink."
What happened with Rare? I remember when Nintendo announced that it had let Rare go from 2nd party Nintendo developer to Microsoft exclusive developer. I figured that would be the "white flag" moment for Nintendo.
They took with them the underrated Conker's Bad Fur Day series, anything Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie (I think)... arguably the best games development studio behind Nintendo itself. What happened?
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
Was M$ forcing them to make new games vista only? and the game coders do not want to piss of people who still have XP.
Troll that you may be, I will respond anyway.
First, my non-fanboy credentials. I own an Atari 2600, Jaguar, NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, GBA, DS Lite, Genesis, Game Gear, Dreamcast, PS1/PS2/PS3/PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, and a fairly up-to-date gaming PC.
That being said, my 360 BY FAR has provided me with the most enjoyment and gaming time this generation. I myself haven't experienced a RRoD, however two of my friends have...and you know what? They got them replaced and continue to buy games for the system. Why? Because it's a fun fun FUN system.
The controller feels great and controls tightly (aside from the horrendous d-pad...but no system really has a decent d-pad anymore), the first party/exclusive games are fun and replayable , the graphics are fantastic on an HDTV (and still look damn good on an SDTV), and the interface is fluid and easy to use.
The hardware itself has it's obvious issues for some people, but overall it is a damn fun console and if mine ever went belly up, I would replace it in a second.
Living With a Nerd
One (potential) quarter of profitability does not come *close* to touching the $7B+ losses they have incurred over the lifetime of the Xbox project. From a business perspective, the Xbox has been a disaster for MS. The shareholders should be in revolt; MS has been pissing away *their* money, and the stock price over the last 10 years reflects that. I mean, a billion here and a billion there, and all of a sudden you're talking about *real* money, even for MS.
Silly? I'm just looking at the results of the forces which have been playing upon society and drawing conclusions which, yes, I believe do infer intent, though not probably from the standard sectors people might assume. --But wherever it stems from, the old patterns still work; Bread and circuses, and all that. And even in the event that there is no deliberate intent to dumb people down, the results remain the same.
Because the thing is, I DO enjoy video games. A lot. --As I'm sure I'd enjoy heroin were I to use it, but I choose not to because I don't want my brain to fry out and become mushy. Same with video games. Thousands of hours spent moving dots around on a screen with zero practical reward versus time invested in growing my own energies and knowledge? --The power structures of the world do not like people who refine themselves. Such people are much more difficult to control.
Although, 'superior' is certainly not a word I'd use to describe myself. (I've got a helluva lot of personal work to do on myself before I'd ever approach such arrogance, and if the work is done right, then self-importance should be bypassed altogether.) It is however interesting that you should pluck such a word out of the air. This suggests a something about how you perceive yourself.
-FL
Sure, the system gets the most play from you, but if it doesn't make the company boatloads of money like EVERY system Nintendo has ever made (outside of the Virtual Boy, which I think they broke even on). Investors tend to get a little pissy. They don't care if you personally like the system. They want MS to make them as much money as possible in as short a time as possible. MS, and Sony both keep fucking up, and I wonder just how much longer both will keep this game up. The crazy thing is the top competitor both companies want to beat is winning, by not competing with them!
I'm no fanboy either, hell I love the 360, but the gaming division at MS is taking on a ton of watter. Gota face reality that the 360 may just be the last console MS puts out.
What the hell are you talking about?
It is close to two years into the 360's life. Microsoft isn't buying ANYONE. They just let their entire first party line up of developers go multiplatform outside of their basket case of a dev Rare.
With break even on the hardware losses being pushed back year after year before the 1.1 billion dollar RRoD fiasco and multiple Microsoft execs having made it clear over the past few years that bleeding cash is something that will no longer be tolerated for the Xbox mess, Microsoft is no way in hell going on any tens or hundreds of million dollar gaming studio shopping spree.
Jettisoning first party developers is a preparation of an exit from the console biz. End of story.