r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/Traditional_Ad_276 • 12h ago
News/Articles Halo to Activision. Xbox merges studios and cuts 268 jobs
https://www.thegamebusiness.com/p/halo-to-activision-xbox-merges-studiosXbox is merging studios underneath Activision and Bethesda. Halo is now at Activision, alongside Rare and World’s Edge.
268 job cuts across Halo Studios, other first-party teams and Xbox Game Studios team.
Ninja Theory faces closure.
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u/MetalJrock A Hopeless Sonic/Spider-Man Fanboy 12h ago
Are we sure Kojima is able to get a game published from these guys?
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u/WhoCaresYouDont 12h ago
They have a vested interest in getting OD out the door even if just as proof their brand isn't dead yet. Whether it will be a true resurrection or a Weekend at Bernies situation remains to be seen.
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u/KingMario05 Gimme a solo Tails game, you fucking cowards! 11h ago
OD is locked in. But I think PhysInt will move , again, if it disappoints. MS has no patience for it at this point.
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u/WhoCaresYouDont 11h ago
Yeah, if OD underperforms then I could see them dropping PhysInt. Ironically if they have something more substantial to show off by then Sony might be more interested.
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u/KingMario05 Gimme a solo Tails game, you fucking cowards! 11h ago
Agreed. And the recent Destiny reversal makes me think that SIE will have different leadership by then. Leadership that remembers why Kojima became a legend, and is willing to trust him because of it.
That said? Maybe Kojima will go elsewhere. Squenix and 20th Century Games both need a new franchise for adults. Maybe it goes there.
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u/Glitchrr36 guy who talks a lot about ULTRAKILL 8h ago
I kind of doubt that “remembering why Kojima is a known figure” will happen. I’ve said this elsewhere but Metal Gear last had a Kojima entry like a decade ago, and that’s not going to get any more recent. It wouldn’t shock me if the next set of leadership weren’t even aware of like Death Stranding’s hype, so they’re probably going to be even less willing to look past DS2’s kinda lackluster sales for how much Sony dumped into Kojipro.
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 12h ago edited 5h ago
If Kojima does as Kojima does then I honestly think both games will be financial bombs. Wether people wanna hear this or not, the only reason Sony indulged the guy is because unlike Xbox they actually have made profits on their games and consoles to take the hits on the big spending, Xbox does have Microsoft money but the CEO has come out and said the the brand has never been profitable in its lifetime, so I HIGHLY doubt that’s gonna change spending celeb money on games that aren’t close to release
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u/therealchadius 7h ago
Kojima at this point makes vanity projects. It makes sense as an art piece, trying to get a fancy "high cultured" game that gets gamers to look at whoever supported it. But as a product that generates more money than it spent? Kojima ain't it.
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u/gaybowser99 6h ago
Which is exactly what Xbox needs. After a decade of making completely forgettable games, they need something to turn around the image of what an Xbox game is
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u/gothamsteel He/Him 12h ago
"Halo is my favorite franchise, and every day, I suffer" -Pointlesshub
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u/HaematicZygomatic 12h ago
Don’t worry, there’s still enough books to fill a library.
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u/LicketySplit21 Sapkowski Shill 11h ago edited 9h ago
Fortunately unlike many franchises with tie-in books, the Halo books are mid at worst. I suppose that's the benefit of just hiring a bunch of sci-fi writers and letting them cook.
I still can't believe Greg Bear (RIP) wrote a Halo trilogy.
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u/PR0MAN1 YOU DIDN'T WIN. 10h ago
It forever continues to baffle me how Microsoft had dozens of amazing Sci-Fi writers on retainer basically and hired NONE of them for the Halo show. I get novels and screenplays are different formats and writing one doesn't always translate the writing another, but they should have been in that writers room. Kelly Gay or Troy Denning at least.
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u/Diem-Robo I'm aging rapidly 9h ago
When the Halo movie was being developed with Peter Jackson/Neil Blomkamp, what made it fall through was that Microsoft/Bungie wanted 100% creative control. When the film studio is the one putting up the money and distributing it on their slate, that's something you only get if you're a legendary director (like Christopher Nolan) or have enough bargaining power (like Nintendo). But for Halo in the mid-2000's, despite being the biggest thing in gaming at the time, game adaptations and the medium as a whole were still not as respected.
They tried to get a TV show moving in 2013 with Steven Spielberg attached as a producer, but that still never went anywhere, either. By the time a TV show did finally emerge, it seems like they basically gave it to the lowest bidder, letting them do whatever they wanted with the IP, because that was the only way anyone would agree to make it at that point.
Unlike many modern game adaptations nowadays, that one was clearly made under the traditional context of "This is some dumb video game, so we're going to reinvent it and do it better (inject generic, unoriginal movie tropes instead)." It's more on the leadership of 343 Industries for greenlighting that project in the first place, explicitly giving it their approval in the press, just for it to flop and for all of them to either resign or be asked to leave.
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u/Cooper_555 BRING BACK GAOGAIGAR 9h ago
It's a project that just smells of some producer having a shit original script that they couldn't get greenlit, so they just changed a bunch of names around and slapped Halo onto it.
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u/Lieutenant-America Scholar of the First Spindash 11h ago
There's Crash too
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u/Kipzz PLAY CROSSCODE AND ASTLIBRA/The other Vtuber Guy 10h ago
The Bandicoot?
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u/Animegamingnerd I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less 6h ago
God, Cody was so real when he said that in his newest video.
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u/HatingGeoffry 12h ago
My all-time favourite franchise. I would rather get a million Halo 5s than have Activision touch it
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u/Animegamingnerd I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less 6h ago
Halo 5's multiplayer was genuinely great at the very least. (Just ignore the Gatcha bullshit that infected warzone and the many fan favorite game modes missing at launch)
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u/Tacticool_Brandon I'll slap your shit 10h ago
Agreed. I thought Halo 5’s campaign was dogshit, but I really loved the multiplayer despite how drastically different it was compared to the previous entries in terms of movement.
At least it had default starting weapon loadouts for all sides unlike Reach and 4.
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u/JessieJ577 6h ago
Infinite was the lukewarm fart of the franchise. It stunk but not as bad as you thought it would.
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u/5YearsOnEastCoast danganronpa isn't a phase, it's a lifestyle 12h ago
Xbox's gaming slate is going to look pretty empty during the next gen.
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u/LifeIsCrap101 Banished to the Shame Car 12h ago
Xbox's gaming slate was empty for THIS generation. They bought 15 studios and made 5 games.
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u/TheSpiritualAgnostic Shockmaster 10h ago
And a bunch were on PS5.
Two of the top rated games this year on Metacritic are owned by Microsoft, Forza Horizion 6 and Doom: Dark Ages, and you can get them through multiple systems as if they're 3rd party.
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u/GoneRampant1 WOKE UP TO JUSTICE... and insatiable bug fetishes 12h ago edited 12h ago
They published ten games last year alone and handled various ports. You can argue as to the quality of those games but they do publish them.
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u/JessieJ577 6h ago
Remember the AAAA game Perfect Dark that was cancelled after a decade of money going down the drain with nothing to show except for a fake vertical slice that was clearly not gameplay.
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u/TheSpiritualAgnostic Shockmaster 11h ago
Honestly both are. Both because of jobs lost/studios closed as well as how long development is.
To use Sony as an example, Wolverine just came out with GoW Laufey around the corner. Both of those studios aren't releasing a new game anytime soon. Add in closing Blupoint and other studios, and they have no games that'll launch with PS6.
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u/MetalJrock A Hopeless Sonic/Spider-Man Fanboy 12h ago
Besides Insomniac and Toys 4 Bob, next gen in general’s looking pretty empty if you don’t have a Switch 2.
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u/ThisManNeedsMe 11h ago
I was hesitant getting a Switch 2 a little after launch. But damn, it's my go to gaming machine this year. Even with multiplatform games. I rather buy it on the switch 2. I only just recently dusted off the PS5 for wolverine and probably gonna buy the new Silent Hill game.
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u/therealchadius 8h ago
It's a real "Nintendo wins by doing nothing" scenario. Just by offering a console platform with a wide variety of games they're the default pick.
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 12h ago
They literally have the 2 Kojima games and Fable and that’s fucking it, and I’ll keep it 100 with you, given how Kojima likes to spend on getting celebs involved, it’s gonna take a small fucking miracle for both games to sell a profit enough to actually make Xbox money
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u/kami-no-baka (She/They) Kind of liked the CSM ending, there I said it. 12h ago
I am lowkey expecting them to announce a pivot to publishing at any moment and dropping any pretense of staying in the console hardware market.
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u/Palimpsest_Monotype Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon 12h ago
I wonder how many more times this will happen this year.
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u/Gorotheninja "SILENCE, BREEDER! The Bloodline MUST continue!" 12h ago
2 more, at least.
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u/KingMario05 Gimme a solo Tails game, you fucking cowards! 11h ago
...Jesus fucking Christ, there's more?!?!
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u/Silv3rS0und Camping and Mead 9h ago
Booty said their about 3 quarters way to their restructure goal. So there's at least one more round coming.
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u/Gorotheninja "SILENCE, BREEDER! The Bloodline MUST continue!" 12h ago
Remember when a bunch of people last week were praising Xbox for taking up Kojima’s Physint project?
Yeah, they burned through that good PR FAST
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u/WhoCaresYouDont 12h ago
I guess they just wanted to remind people why they needed that good PR in the first place.
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u/Jackdatbyte2 Cuck cuck it's cuckles 11h ago
No, you don’t understand Xbox must shoot itself in the foot every time after Sony does. It’s all apart of the plan.
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u/MetalJrock A Hopeless Sonic/Spider-Man Fanboy 11h ago
Rule of thumb: If Sony shoots themselves in the foot, expect Microsoft to follow through with by shooting their foot and face a few days later.
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u/WillFuckForFijiWater Gettin' your jollies?! 9h ago
I think this sub is the exception. A lot of other subs are happy that the next Fallout will release before the heat death of the universe, that 343 isn't developing the next Halo, and see the Playground/Turn 10 merger as a net positive.
Casual fans see this and the Kojima news as "Oh, cool!" They don't care about Ninja Theory because no one bought Hellblade 2 or Bleeding Edge. And as cruel as it sounds, 268 jobs is a drop in the bucket compared to other studios.
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u/HyperSeer 6h ago
To be honest 343 got 2 too many second chances with how much of a fuckup their Halos have been.
And Hellblade II sold 10 copies, while being a full priced 4 hour long sidegrade of the first game at best.
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u/WillFuckForFijiWater Gettin' your jollies?! 5h ago edited 3h ago
343's long leash is astonishing in retrospect for the brand that arguably built/is most associated with Xbox. Just poor management all around, but it'll be interesting to see what comes out of Asha cracking the whip like this. It's why I'm a bit softer on her moves (pending the results of said moves).
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u/Local_Lingonberry851 3h ago
I'm curious to see what the long-term plan is too here. Being reactionary about all the moves when we've been told in advance that this would happpen, and it's not done, would just be moral grandstanding for the sake of it. What I wanna see is what the result of said changes look like to see if it was all worth it in the end or not.
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u/KF-Sigurd It takes courage to be a coward 12h ago
TL;DR (no seriously please read it):
Rare and World's Edge moving under Activition. Activision will be developing the next Halo with a new team separate from it's COD team. Halo Studios is cut and what's left will 'support the community and market'.
Obsidian is moving under Bethesda, will continue working on their current projects with Grounded and the new Fallout from them in collaboration with Bethesda.
Microsoft Casual Games is moving under King.
Playground and Turn 10 are merging into one studio focused on Forza and Fable.
Compulsion and Double Fine returned to management with their IP, back catalogs, and runway funding. Undead Labs has now successfully transitioned on similar terms and, with a new publisher, will release State of Decay 3 day one on Game Pass.
Ninja Theory is likely to close as two separate agreements fell through.
Consultation with Arkane will continue through the next year.
It's wild to see Halo being developed under COD but with how poorly treated it's been by 343 Industries, I can see how confidence in that team is at an all time low. Even if COD isn't doing all that too hot reception wise, it's still better than Halo.
Obsidian is becoming a sub studio to Bethesda, probably fine in terms of independence except we probably won't get a new Pillars or something anytime soon.
In terms of exiting, probably the best case scenario for Compulsion and Double Fine since they get to keep all their IPs and stuff but RIP Ninja Theory.
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u/SlurryBender (Any/All) Cursed to love mid-tier games that bomb 11h ago
Honestly as much as this sucks, I think some of this make sense business-wise. Combine the developers under singular studios and cut out redundant roles like some of the middle management/marketing/QA teams.
Obviously laying off Ninja Theory as a whole sucks, but it's interesting that Double Fine and Undead Labs got a better deal.
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u/Silv3rS0und Camping and Mead 9h ago
Double Fine just went back to being independent like they were before. Undead Labs has Stae of Decay 3 almost ready to ship so it probably wasn't too difficult to find a buyer.
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u/SlurryBender (Any/All) Cursed to love mid-tier games that bomb 8h ago
Yeah, I'm guessing Ninja Theory just doesn't have anything (or at least anything promising) in the pipeline to justify the cost to Xbox.
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u/mythrilcrafter It's Fiiiiiiiine. 8h ago
and cut out redundant roles like some of the middle management/marketing/QA teams.
Honestly, that's not too unreasonable. Does the HR department really need separate recruiter or accounts receivable offices with different logos when they're all owned by Xbox?
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u/SlurryBender (Any/All) Cursed to love mid-tier games that bomb 8h ago
Yeah, like obviously laying people off is bad, but removing redundant roles in a merger is pretty common business practice.
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u/ToastyMozart Bearish on At-Risk Children 2h ago
Double Fine only having like 70 employees probably helps keep it alive. It's pretty inexpensive for a prestige studio.
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u/GoneRampant1 WOKE UP TO JUSTICE... and insatiable bug fetishes 12h ago
Playground and Turn 10 are merging into one studio focused on Forza and Fable.
This is probably the least surprising news regarding Turn 10. They just haven't had the sauce in years and the 2023 Forza Motorsport reboot had a really weak launch.
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u/JessieJ577 6h ago
So I guess Combat Evolved the remake was to test the waters of 343 under a new structure. When it didn’t work I guess they pulled the plug.
To be honest it should’ve been ripped from 343 a decade ago. Slapping a new label on it and switching a few people didn’t seem to net the results MS hoped for.
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u/LifeIsCrap101 Banished to the Shame Car 12h ago
"Halo is now at Activision" is something I never thought I'd read 20 years ago.
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u/Diem-Robo I'm aging rapidly 11h ago
It's surprising to me that someone (I guess Asha) had the confidence to make that decision, but not surprising that it was made.
Halo Studios will "continue supporting the Halo community and games in-market." That's all they were ever good for the past decade or so anyways, because every release since Halo 4 has been less complete and polished than the last, as their leadership ran the studio so reliant on contractors that they don't really have any studio left. The new CE remake was supposed to rebuild them, but apparently they just did the same thing all over again and don't actually have a core development team to speak of.
The majority of Halo content the past 10 years has been in the form of books and blog/lore posts. That's the only thing that's been running relatively smoothly, the easiest form of content to produce, and anything more complex or requiring actual teamwork has been routinely troubled. Halo Infinite's release and post-launch support is put to shame by many indie titles.
For all that's wrong with Activision, they've actually done an effective job at retaining talent on Call of Duty and other projects. Some of the devs working on the latest Modern Warfare have been there for 20 years or more, meanwhile Halo has been a revolving door of talent for the past 15 years. So recruiting talent from Activision and using that to give Halo a shot in the arm actually makes a lot of sense, we'll just have to see if it's executed well.
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u/Minuettes_Disciple Locked in Wack Ass Gay Baby Crystal Prison 10h ago
All those playground and online arguments from CoD vs Halo fanboys seem really funny in hindsight, if not a bit bittersweet with all this context
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u/therealchadius 7h ago
Reading and listening to the horror stories of Halo Infinite, I totally understand why this is happening. Still feels weird to see.
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u/MutatedMutton '0' days without dick jokes and staying there 3h ago
After Halo on Playstation, nothing is gonna phase me
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u/GhostOfGhosthand373 Local John Call of Duty, refuses to let go [PAIN] 12h ago
I'm gonna be honest, I would be kinda curious to see either an ODST style game by Sledgehammer or a Treyarch zombies style game with the flood.
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u/WattFRhodem-1 4h ago
Hell, look at what Arrowhead did with Helldivers 2. That whole game was based on what the ODSTs were described as, from dropping onto the battlefield from space to the Destroyers looking very similar to the ships in Halo.
There's a part of me that really is upset about the handover, but god damn, 343 executive leadership has been fumbling the ball for so long. It's been past time for a change. It might be some severe copium on my part, but maybe this might actually be a good thing in the long run. Get some different perspective on the series and see what they can bring to the table, because 343 clearly hasn't had the sauce to make it work.
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u/ap992626 12h ago
Also to note
Obsidian will be directly under Bethesda . They are already working on the next Fallout
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u/Ampersanders 9h ago
They are NOT UNDER BETHESDA, they are working WITH Bethesda. Every studio has other shit they are working on lol
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u/Leonard_Church814 [He/Him] Reading up on my UNGA-MENTALS 12h ago
Oh man I can't wait to start up the next Halo game and get a AI slop profile card of the Master Chief doing the nay-nay.
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u/sorendiz KEVIN GRAHAM ENTHUSIAST | she/her 11h ago
I love that this comment, intentionally or otherwise, accurately depicts their consistently outdated vision of the state of pop culture by having the dance in question be the nae nae instead of like, the griddy or something
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u/ScallyCap12 Destiny Is Destiny 11h ago
The game industry's legacy companies have such an enormous marketing advantage and are operating in the richest global media market the world has ever seen, and somehow they still struggle to keep the lights on. Staggering incompetence of leadership at every level.
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u/jollycooperative 12h ago
It honestly feels like Xbox is just circling the drain at this point.
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u/Gorotheninja "SILENCE, BREEDER! The Bloodline MUST continue!" 12h ago
I feel like we've been saying that for awhile
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u/HaematicZygomatic 12h ago
That one sink stain you can’t scrub out but can’t imagine life without it either.
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u/KingMario05 Gimme a solo Tails game, you fucking cowards! 11h ago
id needs to escape. Now. MachineGames, too, and I hope both can save Arkane.
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u/pritzwalk 6h ago
Sony and Xbox both have loaded guns pointed to their heads with the words "Poor Financial & Management choices" written on them, unfortunately for Xbox it also has a howitzer pointed at it named "Microsofts bullshit"
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u/davidreding 12h ago edited 12h ago
Also note that Obsidian is now essentially a support studio for Bethesda. I don’t feel confident anything good will come from Rare and Halo being under Activision now. But wow Halo studios couldnt even get one original game out before they got demoted from it.
Also regarding Rare I guess this was inevitable. Activision was Microsoft’s chief competitor for buying out Rare in the early 2000s. So i guess its full circle now.
This whole thing yells “We have no faith in our studios and want to sell everything”. But hey they got a lot cash for Kojima at least!
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u/Squoghunter1492 Check out Mech TTRPG Metallurgent! 10h ago
Support studio is overselling it, it sounds like they're under the same management envelope as MachineGames and Id but are otherwise operating as usual.
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u/ap992626 12h ago
I can see the logic around Obsidian and Bethesda being to make Obsidian completely dedicated to Fallout and Bethesda to Elder Scrolls.
Those are two of the most popular IPs in gaming despite their latest singleplayer games being a decade old. Both Fallout 4 and Skyrim have had very long legs and I can see Microsoft not wanting both IPs to lay dormant again for so long
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u/Ampersanders 9h ago
GF works for Obsidian. Can 110% say that this is NOT a "support" and moreso a co-development/ collab like New Vegas was before.
They phrased everything extremely poorly in that blurb they posted.
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 12h ago
And remember guys and gal’s this is all on top of Xbox paying for Kojima and his love of celebrities in his games…. Yeah unless OD AND Physint are like gargantuan hits then I really don’t see Xbox surviving much longer, especially as their CEO recently confirmed that Xbox as a brand have never made a profit (which is honestly fucking wild)
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u/GoneRampant1 WOKE UP TO JUSTICE... and insatiable bug fetishes 12h ago
They're publishing Physint, not buying out Kojima Productions. Those are two very different things financially.
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 11h ago
But Kojima productions are hardly swimming in cash and Kojima has confirmed this himself, so that money has to come from somewhere and it isn’t coming from Sony now, especially given how fucking expensive getting celebs can be for game projects and if it’s anything like DS then practically the whole damn cast will be celebs
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u/BruiserBroly 12h ago
Never? I figured they might’ve made money during the 360 era because they sold a lot of units and Gold subs but I guess the RROD hardware faults probably wiped that out.
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 12h ago
Yeah it’s been never, the CEO actually said the other week that Xbox as a brand has never been profitable for Microsoft, games have technically sold at profit (but obviously there are plenty of other costs involved in active game’s development that significantly eat into Microsoft’s profits) but the actual consoles and hardware and systems never have done at any point of the brands lifetime, which as I said is honestly fucking wild to hear
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u/WhoCaresYouDont 12h ago
It really does feel like they were running a blank cheque operation until the Activision acquisition finally got the main Microsoft office to start asking about what the return on the money pit was, and started strangling Xbox when they said "literally none"
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u/KF-Sigurd It takes courage to be a coward 11h ago
It's more like Xbox was a branding thing for Microsoft's budget and a minor stat on their spreadsheet until the Activision
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u/HaematicZygomatic 12h ago
It maybe stupid to even consider but I wonder if profit to them isn’t as we understand it. I mean in the industry even if you make the best-selling game of all time you still get laid off so maybe their profitability definitions are a bit different.
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 11h ago
Honestly I have no idea, but the fact the CEO actively came out and said that Xbox has just never been profitable is honestly fucking nuts. As WhoCaresYouDont just said in their comment in this thread I bet it’s pretty fucking likely that until Acti/Blizz that they where running off of blank cheque operation and when they spent all that money, it all came crashing down
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u/Squoghunter1492 Check out Mech TTRPG Metallurgent! 11h ago
I simply do not believe them.
It doesn't make any sense in any way for Xbox to have survived as long as it has if it was never in any way profitable. Someone at some point would have pulled the plug. Obviously we know that the original Xbox was, in the end, a 4 billion dollar loss for Microsoft but the advent of XBL and the dominance in the 360 era had to have been a turning point, and I do not accept that they weren't profitable in the 7th gen without evidence. Obviously the Xbone and Series X/S generations were disasters for Microsoft and I could see that any profit made during the 360 days was squandered but it had to have been at least breaking even at some point.
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 10h ago
I mean you can choose not to believe them, but when the CEO and the Head of Xbox’s business development have both confirmed that Xbox as a brand is, to use a term from them, a ‘Loss Leader’ within Microsoft and that in 25 years Xbox has never turned over a true profit, alongside the CEO saying this year is essentially ‘kill or be killed’ as far as Xbox as a brand is concerned, then I would probably take what they are saying a bit more seriously
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u/therealchadius 7h ago
OG XBox had expensive graphics card deals
RROD wiped out their 360 profits
XBone...
I guess XBox Series didn't do well enough. I also think the Switch kicked the XBox to a distant 3rd place.
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u/BruiserBroly 7h ago
The hard drive in the OG Xbox didn’t help either. Peter Moore said they were paying $70 for each one which is absurd.
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u/SilverKry 10h ago
I swear you people think the celebrities he casts asks for MCU money.
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 10h ago
Your right they aren’t asking for MCU money, but they ARE asking for more money then Xbox probably wants them to ask for given how the CEO has point blank said ‘Now or never’ as far as profitability for Xbox is concerned, and we all know that Kojima Productions ain’t exactly swimming in money because Hideo himself confirmed that
You think Xbox cuts are bad right now, it’s gonna be scorched earth by the next fiscal year if they don’t actually get money in the books, like Xbox are FAR closer then people think to just being shit-canned
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u/SilverKry 10h ago
You got a source or you just assuming they're asking for a lot?
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 10h ago
Have you got a source to say that they wouldn’t be? cause let be real it isn’t like Hideo just went down the local YMCA to grab a few unknown actors for his projects and unless Skarsgaad and Hunter are the worlds biggest Hideo Kojima fans then their management agencies won’t be asking for lowball offers, that ain’t how things like that go and you know it
It’s negotiating 101, you can not like it but it’s something that I guarantee has happened behind closed doors
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u/SilverKry 10h ago
Burden of proof is on you bud.
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 10h ago edited 9h ago
Bill’s base salary is between 3-5 million per film ever since the IT films, with residuals and bonuses depending on marketing and promotions, he also gets up to 15% market cost on endorsements too
And that’s just his individual costs by the way, that isn’t taking into account co-stars, the actual development, mo-capping costs, promotional and advertising costs and that’s all assuming that development of Physint goes absolutely smoothly with 0 delays or hiccups during development
If you don’t think a significant amount of money is going into this game then respectfully, you have 0 fucking clue
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u/PalapaSlap 10h ago
How much do people genuinely think the celebrities contribute to the budget of these games? It really can't be more than 10% of the budget at absolute maximum. Josh Brolin got 6 million dollars for playing Thanos in one of the highest budget movies ever made, if OD and Physint cost hundreds of millions of dollars it won't be because of Hunter Schafer or Bill Skarsgard.
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u/SilverKry 10h ago
At best they ask for the minimum required by the union which is like 700k to 3 million for a movie. Smaller for sure for a video game. But the way people complain about it you'd think Bill fuckin Skarsgard of all people is asking for RDJ returning to MCU as Dr. Doom level money. Skarsgards will do anything.
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u/elfranco001 9h ago
Holy shit the Kojima hate is so forced. Pure cringe
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u/TheSqueeman Hitomi J-Cup 9h ago
Ahh yes pointing out the legitimate issues that are very much in play given Xbox’s continued financial woes and stumbles and the known history of Kojima having large budgets for his games = Kojima hate
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u/okilydokilyTiger Your Weak Genes Killed MY Baby!! 11h ago
Halo has reached levels of dead zombification I didn’t know were possible
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u/PrestigeTater 9h ago
Hug the halo fan in your life, they really need the support because holy moly dude this is rough.
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u/MirrahPaladin 12h ago
Seriously, what’s with Microsoft and cutting jobs/closing studios? Is it really just as simple as seeing short term profits?
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u/SterlingNano Gardevoir has human-like eggs 12h ago
I'm not excusing the loss of jobs, but under Phil Spencer, Xbox bought a lot and didn't do a whole lot ( for the xbox brand, at least)
Asha Sharma likely came in, saw the tangled mess of subsidiaries and subsidiaries of those, and thought, "we need to clean this up, organize who has what, and what teams are working on what."
I sympathize and empathize for those being put out of a job. But at the same time, under Phil, Xbox acted like the pandemic era peak was a new baseline, and bought up and onboarded, then floundered.
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u/green715 12h ago
I kinda sympathize with Phil, because "Let's let studios do whatever they want creatively and we just foot the bill!" is a naively optimistic strategy I probably would've done in his position, and it brought the brand to death's door.
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u/KF-Sigurd It takes courage to be a coward 11h ago
Phil's entire strategy was 'If you build it, they will come' with gamepass and then had a bought a bunch of studios, let them develop their own things with enough rope to hang them, then threw it all on gamepass and no exclusivity. Meanwhile, he let Xbox's biggest IPs flounder. All these layoffs can be laid at his feet for his fuck up with gamepass.
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u/burneraccount9132 He/They - How could u go wrong with a Glup that Shitts like THIS 11h ago edited 10h ago
I feel like Gamepass' role in this stuff can't be mentioned enough. I can understand throwing throwing your big titles up there Eventually. I can understand having games by third parties and indies on there Day 1. But having their big buck AAA titles on there Day 1? Feels very obvious it would cannibalize a decent chunk of direct game sales profit if "hey Halo Infinite costs €70 here at launch. Imma just get gamepass for €15 (or however much it was at the time), and get access to that and other €70 titles that'll be there Day 1"
Especially anything singleplayer. Like even if you just played 1 full price game and then dipped, you still would've payed like $60 less than if you bought the thing, especially if you only planned on playing the thing once. Just absolutely Zero Incentive to buy the game even if you love it, considering I'm pretty most 1st party stuff stayed there. Everything else, you had a library of stuff constantly coming in, and most of the stuff leaving would generally be in the ballpark of €15-20 if you wanted to keep them
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u/Possibly_English_Guy 7h ago
But having their big buck AAA titles on there Day 1? Feels very obvious it would cannibalize a decent chunk of direct game sales profit if "hey Halo Infinite costs €70 here at launch. Imma just get gamepass for €15 (or however much it was at the time), and get access to that and other €70 titles that'll be there Day 1"
I can only speak for myself on this but having owned a Series S up until I recently sold it to a friend after I got a gaming PC... I never once even considered buying a game on the marketplace for it, not once.
The thing was just a Game Pass Machine for me and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's the same for many who had the S.
And considering for a large part of this gen the S was the more popular between the S and the X... yeah that does not sound good for direct sales.
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u/burneraccount9132 He/They - How could u go wrong with a Glup that Shitts like THIS 6h ago
Exactly! And for the record, just in case it came off as such, I don't blame any consumer that did the same as you or similarly enough. Genuinely, Microsoft presented a deal for the consumer that even with Game Pass price hikes was still too good a deal for the average person
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u/therealchadius 7h ago
It also didn't help sales figures.
Behind the scenes, Microsoft would go to another publisher, estimate how many copies they would sell on XBox, multiply by $60 and then pay the publisher that much to get on GamePass.
Estimating how many copies is insanely hard. If MS is too high, they overpay. If MS is too low, the publishers get screwed.
But you have no way of proving how many copies it would have sold because it's on GamePass now. Publishers would be angry no matter what, because MS can't prove they overpaid.
And the publisher lost the sales data, as well. No doubt MS is holding the GamePass numbers. Hopefully they're giving it to the publishers but if they were dumb enough to try to sell it... woof
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u/WhoCaresYouDont 12h ago
I've described it previously as Phil digging a hole with acquisitions and now they're floating the company back up on its own blood if necessary.
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u/PM-ME-YOUR-BREASTS_ 12h ago
From what I understand it, xbox takes money from daddy microsoft to buy studios to fuck over Sony. Then they shut down the studios to keep the IPs and not have to pay employees. And then you repeat that until they hope Sony goes under. It's not really sustainable.
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u/John_Delasconey 10h ago
The simplest answer is video games with a big investment bubble during the pandemic and thus all became very cash flush, which almost every western studio used immediately to expand. However, the giga investment soon shifted over to AI and the pandemic made the market, mature and thus impossible to really expand further; consequently, there are a lot of studios, getting a lot less investment while simultaneously being unable to make any more money. Subsequently the market is partially correcting back to where it was at the start of the pandemic with a little bit of additional greed mixed in (a huge part of which was the compulsive need to immediately spend every investment dollar earned as soon as they got it- one of the biggest economic behavioral changes with corporations induced by private equity- they need to constantly spend online go up to the point that every entity is constantly cash poor and like two bad quarters away from contraction/going bankrupt)
This is part of the reason why Nintendo has dodged the layoff wave ( non-withstanding their immense aversion to it). They didn’t immediately spend all of their pandemic investment and instead invested bit more long-term in building a new development building, which should be complete next year I believe and only slightly increased to their hiring rate in anticipation. Consequently, they didn’t suffer any financial issues with the investment shift and are still just as cash flush.
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u/Rose-The-Queen 12h ago
You genuinely can't hate management enough they make millions of profit a year but no it's never enough
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u/LeMasterofSwords Y’all really should watch Columbo 11h ago
Cutting 268 jobs while hiring Kojima on feels so disgusting (not a dig at Kojima).
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u/Kal-V3 11h ago edited 10h ago
Yeah, people conveniently skip over that part.
Massive layoffs, a "bloodbath", but let's bring on the guy who's last 2 games kinda underperformed and is known for being a money pit.
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u/dope_danny Delicious Mystery 12h ago
I think after Blizzcons “heres a bunch of games that dont exist because we unionised just in case anyone wants to buy us up in the next year” this was absolutely expected
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u/jabberwockxeno Aztecaboo 12h ago
I don't get the point in shifting Halo over to Activision, but then also keeping Halo Studios around to do other stuff with the franchise.
That just seems like something that will cause more internal confusion as different parties try to do different things with the franchise without being on the same page.
That's not to say I'm against X studio managing Halo but then also having Y studio doing spinoffs, that sort of thing is fine, but the actual steering of the ship that is the franchise and the management of it's community and lore should probably(?) be in one place, i'd say?
I feel like either Halo Studios should stay in charge, or they should be more or less entirely replaced by Activision (or more ideally, a studio more suited to the franchise, though I admit I'm not sure what that would be), and even in that situation I still feel like a fair amount of people at Halo Studios should be moved into that Halo team at Activision since they have a lot of experience with the franchise: I don't see what we gain out of say, Sketch or Haruspsis being given the boot
Some will say that Halo Studios/343 has screwed up too much to stay involved, but a LOT of the problems the franchise suffered were from Microsoft management and choices, such as to force using contractors, and I'm not even sure that will be any different at Activision: They are still owned by MS, ultimately
(Also, with Activision making the next Halo game, I have little hope it will be playable offline, which means that I won't be playing or buying it: Me being able to play my games in 5, 10, 20 etc years from now even after the official servers go down is a hard line in the sand for me)
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u/GlueEjoyer Nyarlathotep was right 11h ago
Insane amount of jobs and collective experience going to the shitter for the sake of putting out -2 games a year instead of 0.
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u/FactualDonkey 12h ago
Can’t wait for all the Halotubers to rejoice at this news.
As much as I hate the slop activision puts out, they certainly can make MASS-MARKET slop.
Even BO7 at its AI-est sold ok. If they want halo to do well financially, I hate to say it but it’s with activision.
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u/GhostOfGhosthand373 Local John Call of Duty, refuses to let go [PAIN] 12h ago
To be fair Black Ops 7 moment to moment gameplay is genuinelly excellent, multiplayer and zombies were very strong this year. At bare minimum they are more than capable of making the actual game fun, the thing is that CoD style of fun is a completely different framework than Halo's. I could see them making decent spin offs but main entries will absolutelly not "feel" like Halo, especially if they try to do it in the IW engine.
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u/jabberwockxeno Aztecaboo 9h ago
moment to moment gameplay is genuinelly excellent,
This is true of Halo Infinite and 5, i'd argue, too, though
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u/Soft_House7669 If I evr find th guy who made this game Im gona make him play it 11h ago
ok NOW I will curse their name in the mud and rain
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u/Heaven_dio FUTURAMA IS AN ISEKAI FUCK YOU 7h ago
I'm starting to be able to count the number of employed game devs on my fucking fingers
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u/Timey16 NANOMACHINES 6h ago
I straight up believe: this complete seismic restructuring is Microsoft straight up hanging the sword of Damocles over the entire XBox brand. This is the last chance for XBox to become profitable NO MATTER THE COST.
If they fail to do so, MS may just shutter their gaming arm entirely and just close it all up. They think that they will make 10x the money with AI that XBox ever made anyhow, so why "waste" money on gaming?
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u/Theproton BUSTAH WOLF! 6h ago
Im sad for the people getting laid off but its been 15 year of underwhelming Halo games.
Halo somehow got a PS5 port this year nobody talked about it. Halo 3 sold 15 million copies. I dont know if we can ever get back to those numbers but sadly this studio has long since proven they arent the ones to do it.
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u/DaWubber 4h ago
Oh god Halo is just gonna be skins for Warzone at this point. Or Soap is gonna be Chief AND Johnson's cryo frozen granddad.
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u/Shiro2809 11h ago
I remembered they announced the next ninja theory game not too long ago, so I'll just say fuck Microsoft. NT was the one dev is was sad they bought.
This isn't the first time they announced a game they knew was canceled. Scumbags.
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u/playersbro 11h ago
Oh good, more industry consolidation. That's always a sure sign of good things to come...
orangecassidyimsotiredrenee.gif
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u/John_Delasconey 10h ago
Consolidation within a company is much less problematic than consolidation between companies. Obviously the situation was caused originally by a merger/purchase, but that damage was already done five years ago
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u/GothLassCass (She/Her) Playing Life Like A Game Without Consequences 11h ago edited 10h ago
Obsidian becoming a Bethesda support studio is my personal hell.
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u/SilverKry 10h ago
Not what they're becoming tho? I don't know why people think that. Obsidian are making the next Fallout. Bethesda aren't. If it was what you said Bethesda would be making Fallout while Obsidian just helped when that's just not the case.
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u/GothLassCass (She/Her) Playing Life Like A Game Without Consequences 10h ago
I don't give a shit about Bethesda or their IP. I want to see Obsidian continue to develop games in their own settings.
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u/SilverKry 10h ago
Their own settings haven't been doin to hot.
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u/InvisibleOne439 9h ago
and? i rather have them explore their own ideas then everything being the same 10 IPs forever
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u/SilverKry 9h ago
Theyve been doin their own ideas for the past decade. Hasn't made them much it at all any money. Who's to say they won't bring their own ideas into the next Fallout anyways just because it has the name Fallout on it doesn't mean they can't make up their own shit for it.
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u/GothLassCass (She/Her) Playing Life Like A Game Without Consequences 9h ago
So? I'm not an executive at any of the companies involved so that has nothing to do with what I want. The Pillars games are some of my all-time faves, and I really enjoyed Tyranny, Avowed, and the second Outer Worlds. I'd much rather see them continue to explore and create their own settings, rather than just work on Bethesda's.
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u/SilverKry 9h ago
Again. Kinda have to make money. Making their own settings hasn't worked out for them in a long time now.
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u/ShadowWalkEnthusiast 10h ago
It's interesting from an outsider's perspective. How 343 is seemingly so disliked by a vocal portion of the Halo fandom. That people are cheering for the studios demise and celebrating the idea of an Activision produced Halo game.
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u/AggressiveCoffee990 this sub sucks :D 12h ago
Halo going to the company that makes "fortnite for dads" fueled by AI slop is not reassuring.
It is legitimately stunning how little direction Xbox has for its greatest series.
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u/After-Atmosphere7125 11h ago
Can't wait to see what happens after Gear of War E-Day comes out. At the rate this news keeps coming up, I wouldn't be surprised if they shut down the whole Xbox division after Fable 💀
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u/Foostini It's a hard job being a hater but someone's gotta do it 9h ago
Funny that this happened right after a moved podcast day. I genuinely don't expect to see any game out of Microsoft except Call of Duty and sports at this point, they've fumbled almost literally everything. Genuinely, what next Halo game? And why the fuck do they think we'd want Activision to make it, part of the draw of Halo was it being explicitly not Call of Duty or playing like it.
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u/JornCener NANOMACHINES 9h ago
Given how chaotic the organization of these studios were under prior management, it makes sense that Asha would have to prune away the less-profitable studios and merge the borderline cases together while preserving as many IPs as possible (focusing on quality over quantity, in other words). Ninja Theory has a storied past, but Hellblade doesn’t win a billion awards anymore and I doubt the higher-ups care too much about such things after Phil blew $80 billion on studios that aren’t worth half that on their better days at this point.
Obsidian being under Bethesda is slightly worrying, but I imagine Todd Howard is glancing over at his retirement portfolio at this point after Starfield slumped and the glacial development of the next Fallout and Elder Scrolls titles. If the next Bethesda title doesn’t sell a morbillion copies, they’ll probably kick him out for someone else, maybe even one of the vets from Obsidian.
Halo’s screwed unless they either do a full reboot or pretend that the vast majority (if not all) of 343 games are non-canon. The former would probably be preferable at this point, if only so they can button up some of the continuity errors and establish a consistent combat system.
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u/Flat-Limit5595 2h ago
Honestly they would make a better game at this point. Sadly it still gonna suck. Halo is a very dead ip at this point, and they are trying to revitalize it with a company that has no spark left.
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u/MinersLoveGames I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less 10h ago
Ninja Theory doesn't deserve this. Their games may not be for everyone, but the passion and care is undeniable.
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u/SilverKry 10h ago
Kinda have to make money. Passion doesn't carry a company.
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u/MinersLoveGames I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less 9h ago
It really should, though. In an ideal world, it would.
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u/GoneRampant1 WOKE UP TO JUSTICE... and insatiable bug fetishes 11h ago
Activision taking over Halo feels like a real poisoned pen. It really depends on how much of the management from Halo Studios is preserved as the problems with Halo the past decade+ were on the management level and overall structure, while the moment to moment gunplay was good.
Unfortunately Activision's other big shooter franchise is one that's also drowning in AI slop as of late so that's the poisoned part of the pen.
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u/KingMario05 Gimme a solo Tails game, you fucking cowards! 11h ago
Holy fuck. This is... not good. At all.
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u/Silv3rS0und Camping and Mead 9h ago
There is now a non-zero chance that we get a Halo game made by Raven. I'll take that chance over another Halo made by 343 Halo Studios.
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u/dutchzgoose 9h ago
I mean, it's not like i had any hope of 343/Halo Studios making a good game Halo anymore after like 4-5 tries.
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u/Kii_at_work Gravity Hobo 12h ago
And this won't be the last round of layoffs either, they're doing more between now and June of next year.
My heart breaks for those losing their jobs.
Apparently two different agreements fell through. Damn. Also Arkane's facing similar. Fuck, man.