In an absolutely stunning display of corporate head-assery, just a day after shuttering a number of smaller game studios their Bethesda banner, head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty has reportedly declared that the Microsoft gaming division is now seeking to turn its development attentions towards “smaller games that give us prestige and awards”.
As reported by The Verge‘s Ash Parrish based on information shared with her by an attendee, Booty delivered this comment during a town hall meeting with the division’s numerous employees held on May 8th.
Further, as relayed by Bloomberg‘s Jason Schrier on behalf of his own sources, while Booty did specifically offer praise to Tango Gameworks’ Hi-Fi Rush, a title which fit his forward-looking criteria to a ‘T’, he did not offer any additional information as to why Microsoft chose to shutter its dev studio, especially given their apparent desire for the exact results they’ve historically delivered – prior to the aforementioned rhythm-action game, the Shinji Mikami-founded studio was also responsible for developing The Evil Within, The Evil Within 2, and Ghostwire: Tokyo.
However, speaking to the overall studio closures, Booty reportedly did claim that they were done in order to allocate more resources to supposedly understaffed divisions, which he described as being spread thin like “peanut butter on bread”.
Schrier’s sources also informed him that in closing the studio, Microsoft also canceled a title that would have, again, delivered exactly what they were looking for: an unannounced-but-indevelopment-sequel to Hi-Fi Rush.
Notably, the above suggestion that Hi-Fi Rush was exactly what the company is looking is not just a matter of opinion, but one of literal fact.
Surprise released by the relatively-smaller Tango Gameworks in 2023, not only was Hi-Fi Rush offer players a brief-but-entirely-solid-throughout gameplay experience of roughly 11 or so hours for a budget price of $30, it took home five of the 26 total industry awards it was ultimately nominated for, including the 2023 CEDEC Sound Award, the award for ‘Best Audio Design’ at The 2023 Game Awards, the 2024 New York Game Awards’ Tin Pan Alley Award for Best Music in a Game, the award for Best Audio at the 2024 GDC awards, and the award for Best Animation at the 2024 BAFTA Game Awards – to say nothing of the various ‘Game of the Year’ lists it ended up making across both the media and individual players.
Ultimately, just how Microsoft plans to pursue its desire for smaller and prestigious title remains to be seen.
However, what is known is that with the closure of Tango Gameworks, the Xbox parent company has proven themselves to be, at best, directionless in their video game aims – and unfortunately for them, such perceived incompetency only serves to further hurt their reputational and market standing.
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