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Breaking: Xbox is closing down Hellblade creator Ninja Theory

Ninja Theory took all the criticism of the first Hellblade game and threw it in the trash and then proceeded to take some pretty pictures while vacationing in Iceland/Greenland (wherever the fuck) for 6 years on Microsofts dime and then came back and made a 5 hour walking simulator. Job well done boys.
 
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LectureMaster said:
Imagine defending missteps after missteps - Bungie & Marathon, closing Bluepoint, Laufey and ND drought and not even needing to mention the previous disastrous GaaS strategy.

But of course mckmass8808, the protector of papa Sony will show up with "record high" profits,

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So let me get this straight. You're putting #SonyToo in the same boat as Xbox? Given everything Sataya and Asha have said over the last 2 weeks. So........we are supposed to ignore reality and just act as if only Nintendo is doing good? Okay....sure. :messenger_winking:
 
TheCrowsReaper said:
Microsoft are the worst thing that has ever happened to gaming. A true cancer. They are nothing but poison for our great hobby. Vile and disgusting, they are.
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Wrong. I had great times with Xbox consoles, especially with the OG Xbox and Halo, the 360 era and with the Horizon and Gear franchises, not everything is black or white. The Series X is also a great console, sold mine because all their games are on PC now.
 
mckmas8808 said:
So let me get this straight. You're putting #SonyToo in the same boat as Xbox? Given everything Sataya and Asha have said over the last 2 weeks. So........we are supposed to ignore reality and just act as if only Nintendo is doing good? Okay....sure. :messenger_winking:
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Sony isn't the same shitshow as Xbox, but a shitshow they are currently with their shitty outputs.
 
Hollowpoint5557 said:
Ninja Theory took all the criticism of the first Hellblade game and threw it in the trash and then proceeded to take some pretty pictures while vacationing in Iceland/Greenland (wherever the fuck) for 6 years on Microsofts dime and then csme back and made a 5 hour walking simulator. Job well done boys.
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Exactly. Fuck em. Nobody wanted that Senua shit.
 
RPS37 said:
Bro is Senua actually releasing or nah?
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Senua, you say?

What about...their actual hardware/ next-gen console?
Didn't they just send out a bag of goodies to the usual shills a few days ago, complete with a "Project Helix" card ?

Honest question, by the way - Kepler and HeisenbergFX both mentioned that the hardware is still happening, now, unless things have changed THAT fast, I genuinely don't know what the hell is going on anymore.

If you're closing studios left and right, putting more of your games on competing platforms and seemingly doing yet ANOTHER 180 on exclusives just days after teasing your (supposed) "exclusives", what's the target audience here?
Who exactly is this console supposed to be for?

I really don't understand what's happening, the strategy seems to change every few weeks for fucks sake and at this point it's becoming increasingly difficult to figure out what the long-term vision even is...
 
LordOcidax said:
Record Profits and at the same time:

-BluePoint games ❌
-Japan Studio ❌
-Evolution Studios ❌

And the list goes on… But hey, record profits…

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BluePoint Games, a good studio that I liked.....that never made an original game. Now you guys are treating them like they were Insomniac or Playground Games. Just stop it. Evolution Studios was released years ago. And Japan Studio was shrunken down. They weren't completely wiped out.

RafterXL said:
That's why people parroting the "record profits" are mostly useful brand idiots. When you actually dig into their "record" profits it's bleak as fuck. They're milking their current customers, aren't making new customers, and aren't selling games. When the majority of your profits are from subscriptions and MTX that's not a sustainable business model, much less something worth bragging about.
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Maybe you are the useless idiot for not understanding the numbers that you read. The literally are making new customers. We've seen the information that Sony has provided of how many people that bought a PS5, never had a PS4. We know they are selling many games lol. Again another lie. Understand they do sell 3rd party games for the PS5. It's not just only 1st party games. We all can acknowledge that Sony (aka Jim Ryan) made MASSIVE mistakes with GAAS games. Clearly that was a huge mistake.

So now making profits via subs and MTX are bad? LOL! You guys are incredible. And where did you think most of the profits for the PS2 came from? There were no subs and MTX in those days. You guessed it.......3rd party games! I wasn't bragging for Playstation, I was simply stating that making Playstation and Xbox equal here is STUPID. Only a numb nut would be a fool enough to think TODAY OF ALL DAYS, would be the best day to do that.
 
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Giallo Corsa said:
what's the target audience here?
Who exactly is this console supposed to be for?
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For people who are unsure/undecided what's next. People without destination, who blame the uber driver for the long trip.
People with empty wallets, people who struggle with basic maths, but still manage to count their jellybeans.
For People who believed in Spencer and the "next year" slogan, who are waiting here and now for the next year announcement.
People who believe exclusives don't matter to be inclusive.
People who buy gamepass and get mad when they can't find the physical disc they were sure about owning just to end up blaming their dogs for eating it.

So simply put, people who are non-visibly-retarded.
 
mckmas8808 said:
BluePoint Games, a good studio that I liked.....that never made an original game. Now you guys are treating them like they were Insomniac or Playground Games. Just stop it. Evolution Studios was released years ago. And Japan Studio was shrunken down. They weren't completely wiped out.
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The entire point of Bluepoint was to make remakes of games, smooth brain. Then Sony went and put them to make a fucking God of War GaaS. Imagina defending this shit. Some people are retards
 
Someone once said if you beat hellblade 2 twice, it would be solidified as game of the generation. Obviously Asha didn't take his advice.
 
TheLikou said:
The entire point of Bluepoint was to make remakes of games, smooth brain. Then Sony went and put them to make a fucking God of War GaaS. Imagina defending this shit. Some people are retards
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How about you learn that Bluepoint wanted to STOP making remakes! Read some more bro. They didn't want to be the brand that we feel in love with. They wanted to do something original. Yes, putting them on a GOW Live Service game was Stupid x 1,000! It's clearly one of the reasons Jim Ryan was fired. And THANK GOD!

But BP deserves some blame there too, for not trusting in themselves to be who they always were. Again, look.....it......up!
 
What? How do they show a game from the studio while simultaneous shutting them down days later?

Is anyone really in charge over at Microsoft?
 
That senua game had no combat and it was literally a bore fest. Whoever greenlight such stupid product is responsible for the downfall. They could have made a hack n slash rpg game something in line of dmc.
 
Their Devil May Cry was really good.

That club stage was phenomenal. The story was pretty amazing too. Would have liked to have seen a sequel.

Unfortunate that a bunch of grown men on the internet cried like little babies about it and we never got a sequel.

Easily better than Devil May Cry 1,2 and 4, not 3SE and 5 though, those are peak.
 
Senua is what Hellblade II should have been. Why did it take Ninja Theory so long to realize it? They can still release it, their budget for HellBlade was in 30M range which is doable. DMC was my favorite Devil May Cry game. Talented studio must survive.
 
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I warned folks back when MS was on a game studio buying spree.

NT literally made a video crowing about how selling themselves to MS was gonna get them all of this creative freedom, and what did it get them?

They made a Senua sequel. Announced another Senua sequel... and now they're being shut down.

Did anything REALLY change at all at Xbox between the Mattrick days and today? They're still the same hilariously incompetent game publisher who mercilessly kills every studio they acquire.
 
LordOcidax said:
Record Profits and at the same time:

-BluePoint games ❌
-Japan Studio ❌
-Evolution Studios ❌

And the list goes on… But hey, record profits…

btcsbIhUKgF2Iwyz.gif
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Record profits doesn't mean everyone gets to stay if they don't make a profit. But to fair, BluePoint was Sony's fault for forcing them to waste their time making gaas slop.
 
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M1987 said:
Why the fuck did they announce Senua last week just to shut them down?
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Same reason why Netease announced Gang of Dragon at The Game Awards knowing damn well that they weren't going to continue to fund that project: so that the studio in question could have "something to show" that might attract potential buyers.
 
Terrible. We need studios like this in the industry. Whatever MS.

Just a retarded company through and through.

Cant think of a single thing they've made aside from windows that wasnt a gigantic fucking flop. Its actually fucking crazy they're as rich as they are, with so many flops. Nothing but flops aside from Windows.

  • Skype had a fucking 20 year headstart on Zoom and got left in the dust
  • Their attempt to enter the cell phone market was a disaster
  • Their iPod alternative got destroyed
  • No one gives a shit about Xbox
  • Internet Explorer. Lmfao
  • MSN. Dead. How do you just let something that was so popular at one point die like that?
  • Kinect. Lmfao.
  • Literally no one uses Bing to search anything. Another irrelevant flop
  • Groove was supposed to be their answer to Spotify, Apple Music, etc... instead it was another fucking disastrous flop
  • Gamepass is not profitable
  • They bought Call of Duty/Activision and are still firmly in last place
Pathetic company.
 
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adamsapple said:
When You Realize Season 4 GIF by The Office



Bruh how are people honestly saying this?

Phil was keeping the studios afloat, the quarter after he left, the AI suites and Satya have started gutting them.

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-buying up studios only to turn around and be eliminated.

- allowing them to make tinkery games for gamepass that also led to their demise.

- making Xbox hardware unneeded which would Infact cripple Xbox developers.

And you know I'm not anti Xbox.
 
mckmas8808 said:
How about you learn that Bluepoint wanted to STOP making remakes! Read some more bro. They didn't want to be the brand that we feel in love with. They wanted to do something original. Yes, putting them on a GOW Live Service game was Stupid x 1,000! It's clearly one of the reasons Jim Ryan was fired. And THANK GOD!

But BP deserves some blame there too, for not trusting in themselves to be who they always were. Again, look.....it......up!
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Also, wasn't it reported that Bluepoint pitched the GoW live service game? It wasn't Sony who made them to do it, though they deserved criticism for saying Yes.
 
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
Also something else I wanted to mention real quick: anyone else realize that this bloodbath in studio closures, layoffs, cancelled games etc. is almost exclusively a Western problem, particularly in the AAA space?

Japan's going strong. South Korea & China are growing. The indie space is generally stable & healthy. It's almost as if all the bad shit is confined to Western publishers & studios. Once again, the Western games industry more or less chased fads and overinflated trends to attempt growing too big, too fast, and now everything's crashing down. Bad market practices, bad investment practices, bad market incentives tied to peddling socioeconomic messages that were not at all appealing to the vast majority of the customer base...everything (for Western games companies) is just falling apart.

I dunno how the Western AAA market as a whole recovers from this, and maybe it's a good thing if they don't. You still have some who are mostly impervious to this: Take-Two and Roblox are the two which immediately come to mind. But they are dwarfed by the sea of those who are highly compromised in one way or another.
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This is why I buy mostly Eastern games. The number of AAA western games I've bought in the last 10 years has fallen off a cliff as many of the studios and games I used to love have turned to shit or they've stopped making games for me as they chase a modern audience. Not surprised to see a lot of flops and studio closures. These studios need to be reminded of who their customers are and they need to stop chasing stupid trends and fads. I hate seeing people lose their jobs but a lot of the job losses are deserved in my opinion.
 
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