Game Studio Flight From Microsoft A Sign of Troubles?
Posted by
Zonk
on Monday October 15, @03:13PM
from the watch-out-for-the-stingers dept.
from the watch-out-for-the-stingers dept.
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."
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Game Studio Flight From Microsoft A Sign of Troubles?
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Bioware? Bizarre?
(Score:3, Insightful)Re:Bioware? Bizarre?
(Score:5, Insightful)If they go platform neutral that's a large blow to Microsoft's Third Party development and the release of Bungie is a huge blow to Microsoft's internall developed games. Overwall it reflects poorly on the 360s continued success. It might be a blip or it might be the first signs of major trouble in Microsoft's games department.
To put it more bluntly, the idea is that if Microsoft were on the ball and interested in developing first part titles for the 360, they would have kept Bungie and bought both Bioware and Bizarre. As it is now, they are leaving themselves very much at the mercy of their third party games developers. Hoping that they will stick with the Xbox line of products. If the PS3 ever surpasses the Xbox in sales (I know, not terribly likely at this time), they could end up royally screwed.
Re:Bioware? Bizarre?
(Score:5, Informative)Nintendo has lots of development companies inhouse and exlusive ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_developers [wikipedia.org] ).
Even Sony has been pretty consistent about maintaining worldwide developer studios ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment#Internal_organization [wikipedia.org] ). Leaving aside studios like Insomniac Games (Resistance:Fall of Man, Ratchet & Clank Series) who have "Close ties" to the studio.
MicroSoft has a much smaller stable of inhouse (and related) development companies ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Games#In-house_studios [wikipedia.org] ). They also have the split focus of providing games for the XBox 360, and providing games for Vista (though this is not mentioned). Any decrease in the inhouse development obviously puts more reliance on outside development, and as more and more games (especially from developers like EA) go cross-platform, its those in-house developers that help provide differentiation between competing products (all else being equal).
Don't dis
(Score:3, Funny)(Last Journal: Saturday October 13, @03:05PM)
That's the only reason my boy swaps the XBox on, in place of the Wii.
We are a market of ONE!
The story behind Rare?
(Score:3, Interesting)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?
Re:The story behind Rare?
(Score:4, Interesting)(http://thoughthead.com/)
When Microsoft bought rare, all they really bought was the name and some semi-popular franchses. Honestly the games they've made for the DS have probably made MS more money than the Xbox branded stuff they're put out. I'd be impressed if they've even as much as made half of the original investment back at this point.
Rareware
(Score:2)Re:Rareware
(Score:4, Insightful)Now it seems Rare has gotten lazy, and MS let that happen. Nintendo's probably been laughing their butts off at all this. AS IF Rare could have made $375 mil for Nintendo if they'd been this lazy releasing games for GCN.
Re:Rareware
(Score:4, Insightful)(http://www.jwnyc.com/)
And yet there was a reason Nintendo was willing to part with them. Remember, Rare was not an independent company - MS bought them from Nintendo.
Rare's output was dropping for years before the sale. In their last three years of development for Nintendo, they released five home console games: Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Starfox Adventures. Of those, only Perfect Dark could be called a legitimate hit. (DK64 sold well as a pack-in game, but it wasn't what you'd call a top quality game.)
A lot of people were pretty shocked at the price MS paid for them. This isn't just a 20/20 hindsight thing - many people said at the time that it was a dumb purchase. There were some hardcore hopefuls who thought otherwise, but this was not a purchase that was universally praised at the time.
And while this doesn't really apply to a studio like Bungie that's buying themselves, whenever one publisher is all too willing to dump a development studio onto another publisher, you have to ask yourself why. It's always a big red flag, and it seems obvious now that Nintendo knew something that MS didn't. Not about how to run Rare, but about how far Rare had really fallen.
Was M$ forcing them to make new games vista only?
(Score:3, Interesting)So?
(Score:2, Insightful)Is Newsweek still owned by Microsoft?
(Score:2)(Last Journal: Monday March 20 2006, @09:33PM)
Xbox Losing Money?
(Score:4, Insightful)(http://www.mccrappy.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday January 25 2005, @02:29PM)
Last I heard MS was already making a profit on the 360, due to the cost coming down quicker than expected. Yes they took that billion dollar charge, but as I understand it each one sold is still profit at this point.
Add onto that some pretty killer titles in the last year and MS has made some cash. Halo3 alone would offset any losses in the last year I would assume. (Short of the charge).
If you read the statement Bungie released on their website it sounds more like what MS did was pull lots of companies into the fold, in order to foster the growth of its image as a gaming company. Now that they've established their beachhead, they can let those companies go sink or swim on their own merits.
I think Rare is the perfect example of why MS is letting the studios go (though still in publishing agreements for many of them). With a good partner relationship MS doesn't take on the risk of a studio starting to turn out poor quality product. At the same time, its become a large enough, established enough player, that those publishers will pay attention to MS, even if they aren't subsidiaries.
Rare
(Score:1)Endless cash.
(Score:2, Troll)Subversion of the masses through electronic drugs is the primary goal. If Microsoft dies, then it will be replaced by some other machine designed to make people dumb and slow and distracted.
I'm sure all the MS employees, however, don't see it this way. But they're just expendable cogs in the works of a greater force.
Among the best things I ever did for myself was to throw out my television set, to stop playing video games, and to start eating healthy foods.
-FL
Nonsense
(Score:2, Insightful)(http://thirdprize.blogspot.com/index.html)
For the Ultimate gaming experience
(Score:1)Re:Stick A Fork In The Xbox, It's Done
(Score:4, Interesting)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.
Re:Stick A Fork In The Xbox, It's Done
(Score:4, Interesting)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.
Re:Stick A Fork In The Xbox, It's Done
(Score:3, Funny)(Last Journal: Saturday November 18 2006, @12:11PM)
Re:Does it matter?
(Score:1)(Last Journal: Tuesday July 31, @01:20AM)
While your post sounds like you are intelligent I am boggled by how you can be unaware that MS purchased Bungie long before the original Xbox came out - that's why Halo was a launch title.
Re:Does it matter?
(Score:2)Halo was possibly the most anticipated game ever back when it was cross platform (pre release). That's why MS bought them in order to make it an X Box exclusive.
Halo 3 would have been more of a success without MSs involvement because more people could have bought it were it available on more platforms. Everyone already knew about it, so there wasn't really anything positive MS added to the picture.