Helldivers 2 & Ori Bosses Share Their Thoughts On Xbox's Studio Closures

No doubt there will be some bulls*it excuse when Spencer decides to flap his gums (is told what to say) . There usually is.

Why close instead of divest ?

Because they want the IP's and they don't want to see them going elsewhere without their permission. Plus we can assume that in buying then closing the studios, they can keep an eye on the best talents and see if they can recruit them for bigger internal projects for Xbox exclusively later. It's demolition, no other thing.

@themightyant they could have made them an indie studio like Toys for Bob though.

MS is an IP horder just like Embracer. If they want a Hi Fi Rush sequel then they'll just farm it out to a new developer

Thank god that Moon Studios didn’t sell to Microsoft back then, and yes I’m aware they had issues of their own but at least they still exist unlike Tango.

Also, just read how the devs look at Microsoft, can’t imagine any studio currently wishing to be sold to them, and can you imagine how the people already working at Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard feel right now?
The message that Microsoft sent yesterday and the entire industry heard loud and clear was that it doesn’t matter how good or bad, how expensive or cheap, how successful or not a game is, they will layoff and close the entire studio in a whim.

Also, that they will blatantly lie and we can’t take one single word from a Microsoft executive as the truth, one moment they claim a game is a runaway success, the other they port it to other platforms to supposedly ‘nurture the development’ of the IP, only to close the studio literally weeks later.

We as customers are left wondering, is MS going to do the same with the Xbox platform? It certainly looks like they will.

@mousieone @themightyant What's amazing is they spotlighted Tango a year ago when launching hifi, then boasted how well it did, then just weeks ago made it a big launch for ps, then spontaneously closed it. It has the hallmarks of Jim Ryan celebrating his retirement at London studio a week before closing it.

Though there's merit to the idea the spotlighted it before mikami left it headless, but the game wasn't his anyway. And ghostwire is so underrated. But even that was mikami.

And arkane was rumored to be doing a marvel game (gag) which might make sense like ea killing all studios working on Disney games. Taken on it's own none of this would seem like a big deal. A headless studio that lost it's visionary creator, a failed studio working on marvel junk.... Expected losses. It's in context with everything else plus their total refusal to communicate on a level that makes Nintendo look chatty that it all looks so very dire.

@IOI "they will blatantly lie and we can’t take one single word from a Microsoft executive as the truth, one moment they claim a game is a runaway success, the other they port it to other platforms to supposedly ‘nurture the development’ of the IP, only to close the studio literally weeks later.

We as customers are left wondering, is MS going to do the same with the Xbox platform? It certainly looks like they will."

That's everything right there. The whole heart of the whole problem. Everything.

Shocker they don't like it didn't see that coming out of the blue that is my god!

@Ricky-Spanish The hypocritical outrage from a studio having a dig at Xbox about Ori on Twitter for years, from a studio working for Sony and from the PS visitors that abhor Xbox is something I would have never expected to see here.

I hope the team at Tango, can get together and start a new indie studio.

We can now add Xbox, to the same list as EA, Google, etc.

@Steel76 EA, Google and Sony, too. The only difference is that Sony is smaller than others. Both Zenimax and ABK were on sale. We don't know what would have happened if they had been bought by anyone else, Sony included if they had the billions.

@mousieone Toys for Bob had or raised enough money to buy themselves out. Also, I think MS/Xbox retained the IP and some other assets. TfB now has a contract to develop a game for Xbox. Maybe the cards did not fall in place for this to be an option for Tango (them being a Japanese studio may also factor in). Booty's email said that no one from Tango was joining other Bethesda teams.

@NEStalgia I sincerely doubt any company would relinquish the foothold that MS has in gaming, and that includes the console. The nonsense of "Xbox is in third place" or "Xbox isn't successful" or "consoles don't matter" is online trash talk. Google and Apple would like to have that third place. Thirty million consoles sold is significant. Day & date on PC is significant.

Unfortunately, Tango titles were not exactly lighting up the charts prior to acquisition, and the same goes for Arkane Austin. Greenberg's tweet about Hi-Fi likely referred to MAU metrics and internal Xbox metrics. MICROSOFT metrics are a whole different story. Business factors and decisions are not frozen in time or etched in stone. I think the ABK acquisition changed a lot between Xbox and MS.

@theduckofdeath I don’t think they gave them a chance to do that though. Judging from the tweets and how things seems to go down this was a massive surprise to everyone. In fact it looked like they were working on a Switch port.

I’m not suggesting they take the IPs because that studio worth is the talent not the IPs. None of Tangos IPs are huge sellers on their own. They also pretty recently were allow that studio to hire.

No I think this was a snap decision.

Japan values loyalty above all else. I think with this, they've sent a pretty strong message to them that Xbox is not a studio that cares about them very much.
Which is sad because Phil very obviously loves Japan and worked hard to improve ties with them. I would argue under him, Xbox has had the best relationship with Japan ever.

I'm curious to find out what Hideo Kojima says. He's not one to mince words.

@mousieone Makes me wonder if in the last 6 months MS told Xbox to make some cuts. "If Hi-Fi Rush does not sell on its third platform, we close the studio." Arkane-Austin's days were numbered.

If I remember correctly, from the ABK trial, the fiscal year for MS ends in June. That is probably weighs in on the cutting of those drowning and those treading water now.

@Utena-mobile To be fair, Mikami's "loyalty" wasn't so strong when he left the studio and founded a new one..... Maybe Tango had trouble's we didn't know about, but I agree, I fear that after all the word Phil put into fixing the Japan relationship this will kill all of it. And as a primarily Japanese games buyer, primarily on Xbox, it does leave me wondering how much of what I want will continue to be on the platform at all. Right after we were finally starting to get it.

Also really curious about Kojima....that's an angle I hadn't thought of.

@mousieone $20 says it was a snap decision based on SoT overshadowing HFR on PS, plus a desperate scramble to cover that Windows 11 is a colossal failure before next shareholder meeting, and probably also covering terrible Xbox hardware sales.

@theduckofdeath I also don't believe that MS will stop making gaming hardware. But the question is what will that hardware actually offer over time. Those of us that buy it buy it because we value certain features, but they also seem to change those plans suddenly and without warning. So we don't know what to ever expect out of it. Surface being a good example, sales suck, they still sell it. But what was once a really exciting line of hardware has mostly just become uninteresting plain hardware for much too high a price. Which is why sales suck. They just leave it there to leave it there now.

Business factors change over time, but there's a difference between a business acting in good faith vs not. And MS seems to choose the latter. A business can make a commitment and honor that commitment, preserving the integrity between consumer and producer. Or a business can say what sounds good today, or speak vaguely avoiding ever saying anything at all, and then just randomly change things constantly so the consumer and partners are always in confusion about what exactly they're buying. That's the current Xbox.

Agreed though, ABK changed a lot between MS and Xbox, and that's the problem. The idea of smaller creative games like hifi rush that don't need to sell like gangbusters was the whole appeal and marketing point of GP and Xbox. But that quietly and suddenly reversed. Now it's all about blockbusters. If we were all in on blockbusters we'd be ponies. In 2020 Series consoles were the future. In 2022 cloud gaming was the future and Series consoles barely got mentioned. In 2024 Playstation is the future, cloud barely gets mentioned, they're "looking at" handhelds, they have "the biggest tech leap in consoles" planned..... Which leads to the question, so what will be the future in 2026 when they've moved on from those things too?

That's why there's so much cynicism.

Despite that I do believe their hardware will exist. And it may even be good. It may even be a great value. But if they can't convey what they're actually selling, what you're actually buying, and can't consistently commit to any of what they said the year before, the whole product line will have a negative vibe. You can't get excited for a thing you don't even know what it is or what it will be, you just begrudgingly use it because it's a better cost-benefit than other options. Like Windows. Though you can actually just use Windows. Cost and convenience fore now being the obstacles.

@NEStalgia
Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. We've barely heard anything about OD, but getting that deal with Kojima must not have been easy. And wow, has it been hyped. As a Kojima fan I'm in love with it already.

But is it possible to draw parallels between Kojima/Konami and Tango Works/Xbox? I wonder...
Either way, I think Japan is going to get all the wrong messages from this fiasco.

@Utena-mobile I also don't know what to make of Mikami's cryptic reaction of "Tango closed. Sad.", it almost seems to me like he's mocking it, like it was an expected thing since he jumped ship. It could just be due to limited English, but it seems like there's something kind of sarcastic, or even taunting about it. Maybe bad blood with MS? Or bad blood with Tango? I get the impression he didn't leave because the kids could take over. Though we all knew that anyway. And IDK if that makes MS look worse because there was trouble already, or makes MS look better because Tango had issues?

Either way, yeah, I'm sure Square and friends are looking at Tango and any good will toward MS is shot. Even if Xbox isn't doomed, might it be doomed for Japanese games fans? Despite internet culture it really wasn't a bad place for Japanese games fans finally. If that's damaged, it sure kills a lot of buzz.

Glad MS didn't buy Insomniac after Sunset Overdrive otherwise they may have met the same fate if SO2 didn't "meet expectations"

@NEStalgia That's pretty much where I'm at with the platform as well. MS provides so much news for these sites/YTbers because the company has massive potential as well as erratic spurts. The porting rumor fiasco, slow response, and eventual ports were point where I began to disengage. After a decade of watching Xbox pull itself back together, have another good Direct and new games on the way, they throw the car in reverse gear at speed.

I still play some games(s) for a bit each day (more consistently than I play on PC), Game Pass doesn't expire until almost 2028, and I'm not selling anything. I'll probably buy the next console just because. There is an overall disinterest, however, where platforms tend to foster the opposite. Capcom releases great games (for my entire life, and I'm older now), and have been on great streak, but I never think to visit a Capcom site, you know?

@MaseSco What the closure of Tango reminds me of, unfavorably, is the robotic nature with which MS closed the MechAssault studio after the second game underperformed.

What does divest mean? Sorry I didn't learn that word haha.

@theduckofdeath Sadly true. My disinterest has led me to consider other options and yet I can't say any of them are any more appealing, just trading for another set of problems.

@CutchuSlow divest - the inverse of invest. Sell off or cut funding from.

@NEStalgia oh I see. Thanks.

It important to note that we do not have any idea what it was like behind the scenes at Tango. What were they working on, what state was it in, how is the studio now that the founder left etc. There is always more to it than they made a game (AA passion project) that reviewed well.

I'm disappointed too, I love the evil within franchise but it does seem like all of their games underperform what you would expect for sales/player count.

Yeah, it is kind of sus. I think Shinji Mikami was already bummed out about Tango Work long before this. He originally wanted Ikumi Nakamura to succeed him, but that didn't work out. Maybe that was enough to get him to leave or maybe he saw other things. It could have also been Bethesda and not necessarily Xbox.

But either way, Japanese developers are pretty close to each other. Closing Tango Works is going to have long lasting repercussions.

This is all so crazy. I hope xbox wakes up. I've been backing this up all the way up until this week.

@NEStalgia Surface is more like Apple, high-end devices that sell in small quantities compared to the best-value brands, but they are quite good and the best models always sell out.

I agree about everything else. Tango's circumstances were mentioned in my first comment on the first thread about the latest drama. We know that most of the reactions here and on Twitter are not sincere, some of course are and you can easily tell, but only the negative threads have hundreds of users whose comment history and registration date expose themselves.

If Arkane Austin (is it the one?) was asking for additional resources, but they are not being successful, it's not surprising that Microsoft decided to shut it down.

@Utena-mobile @theduckofdeath The interesting part is Tango, because its founder and the main producers had left, so remaking Tango was ruled out: additional money, different staff and unknown results. Because of Microsoft's hands-off approach, it was likely a Tango/Zenimax issue.

After some time thinking about all this and how big Xbox has become this generation, I think that it's more like Microsoft has decided to make the Xbox arm more competitive. The video game industry is highly competitive now. Xbox has become a huge tree with tons of branches and they decided to cut the long ones that didn't bear enough fruit. Probably, they are going to invest more resources in consolidated IPs, but also in new IPs that are produced by the pruned tree. Consolidated IPs include Call of Duty, Minecraft, Halo, Gears of War, Forza and the like, but I believe that if Crash, Spyro and Banjo have an audience, they will use the available resources to invest in them. At least, I want to believe so. They decided that they don't need so many different studios doing so many different things. Just think how many studios they have, how many games and DLC being slowly developed, the mixed results and those studios demanding additional staff and resources. For the now huge Xbox, it's better to focus on what's working and to make new things with the available resources and the studios that are tuned.

I don't think that pruning the massive tree is a bad strategy. Microsoft's PR is messed up, but it's because unlike Sony and Nintendo, they are too quick to answer to external questions. They are messing up because they are talking too much. However, what Xbox is doing the worst is the hands-off approach, because that's what changes everything inside. The consequences are unpredictable and the solution comes late and it's definitive, unless it's something huge as Halo Infinite and they keep bringing new staff in to turn the tide.

@Banjo- Surface Book has always been poorly priced, and sort of experimental, but did some things, early on, that were really interesting and worthy of a look. Heck one of the ONLY laptops to ever make use of eGPU even if with was lolwut pricing and nobody bought it, it was cool. HORRIBLE keyboard though. What it's become is just an overpriced laptop now. They stopped being creative on it. They phone it in with minimum effort. And they can't be bothered to put a battery bigger than Sony would use in the things. The Surface Pros were phenomenal, and a big part of that was they also represented an okay value. Not anymore, they cut the well priced models and force you to buy the higher end ones where the cost really isn't justifiable. I was a dedicated Surface Pro user until that jump. I don't see myself buying another one. They had the right price to performance ratio on the lower cost models. But with Win11 requirements, instead of adjusting prices they just decided you'll go premium and like it. It's a shame, they had a very good thing going with a really solid product line, but they instead broke that and made it this weird Apple-like premium-only halo thing ad the same time as Apple started moving down in price tiers. And the sales tanked as a result. They treat Surface the way they treat Xbox now. Maybe worse.

As for Xbox, yeah. On an individual level I don't think the studio closures would be rocking any boats, to an extent they make sense. But it's part of the whole backdrop. Back in the late X1X era into Series launch, Xbox was really awesome, with an awesome direction. You remember though back when "Project Scarlett" was announced, I was dubious. Nothing about it seemed like the direction that was laid out with X1X and it didn't go where I thought they were going to go. The Series seemed like a step backward to the 360 in some ways, but the launch was fun all the same. And then within a year or two the direction shifted again to cloud cloud cloud. And then that stopped and the direction was ABK for GP quantity, quantity quantity. And then since that went through we hear "Microsoft Gaming", "XB on PS", the weird "We lost the console war, we can't compete with PS, we need to do our own thing" interview, then Satya presenting the Direct, then the double talk with "it's just 4 games, it's not starfield, but it's a test for other games, but it's just 4 games, but it's a test for other games" to then Satya boasting about selling great on PS, and through it all I looked at their hardware and platform plans and thought it still is on track, it'll be fine, they're not getting out hardware (I still don't expect them to. But I don't think they'll sell enough to put any pressure on Sony from now on. They'll be fine with it, but the market will suffer.)

But I think these closures became a final straw for the loyal fans who had doubts but still believed. After enough direction changes they never communicate, new strategies they pretend aren't, and basically total WiiU level promotion of consoles (there's none), finally the studio closures, backing down on "AA games for Game Pass" and jumping into "fund the AAA machine!" (And then saying they still want AA games for 'prestige'?????) just as Sony may be backing away from that strategy, I think it reached a point where it's impossible to not recognize this is not Phil's Xbox we loved during the X1X era anymore. This is now a weird corporate Microsoft Activision console thing glued to an Activision style mega AAA publisher. Overnight it's kind of become a green version of Jim Ryan's utopia.

I'm giving MS until June, or maybe July to give it breathing time. If they're vague about their console direction, don't talk hardware, and keep talking PC PC PC the way they talked TV TV TV in 2013, we know they're hiding things. If Phil retires in the next 3-6 months, I stop buying 3rd party games on XB I think. I was along for the ride of his Xbox. I don't think I want to see Satya & Bobby's Xbox. I do think they'll still do the PC hardware console thing. But I also think this new entity will keep doing tricks like "double the price of gold on a Friday" stuff and sudden policy changes. MS may have lost the console war, but I think Phil lost the Xbox war internally. And his Xbox was the one we liked.

I find myself shopping PC parts "just in case"....though I really don't want to eat the costs...it's simply not in any way cheap.

@NEStalgia I'm happy with my Surface Laptop 4! I admit that the part about Satya is funny.

You are wary. You buy several units of each device just in case, because of possible stock issues (when not the end of the world ) and your HDD-killer energy supplier 🤣. Just a wait a bit longer. The drama this generation is disproportionate. I think that we will know about the next generation console and, maybe, a next generation handheld/hybrid soon. My digital library is the only thing I care about (regarding video games). They were clear about that and they are focused on hardware as part of their global strategy. That's all I need. The one that has disappointed me the most in my gaming life is not Xbox but Nintendo. I don't feel that my library and my digital rights are endangered on Xbox. The rest is not that important. I know that even if they remain third in the hardware race forever, there will be hardware to play the Xbox games.

This generation is atypical for the three of them, so it really doesn't surprise me at this point all the changes that Microsoft and Sony have made. Not just the business strategy of both but what happened to PSVR2 and Portal? Things are actually a bit calmer now. The next generation will likely be less convoluted. Next generation will be more boring but better. It will be: Xbox devices plus Xbox-everywhere, PS6 plus PS-PC and a humble successor to Nintendo Switch.

@Banjo- Wary, yes! I only bought spare Xboxes since it's my primary. Though I'm starting to regret not having bought a spare PS5 instead....Pro maybe. I was against it, but if I'm jumping from XB, maybe I'll bite if I don't do PC.

I know we'll get one more generation and handheld (I was day 1 on the handheld until this debacle.) It's not really the studios themselves, it's what the behavior represents/confirms that I think makes things wary. I agree, it's the digital library that's all I care about, and is the reason I've been making XB my main.

But that's the troubling part. By "They" have been clear about that being their strategic focus. But the problem is Phil and Sarah have been clear about that. But what's now evident is that Phil and Sarah no no power anymore. They don't call the shots. They can say they intend to do that, then corporate can snap their fingers and say "our analysys shows a 1.3% margin increase if we drop BC. Go break it intentionally. Don't comment on it." And they're the kind of executives that demonstrate they do exactly that. When Phil had control and Phil said they're all about BC, I believed they'd make sure to be all about BC. When Phil says it and we know Satya makes the decisions, Phil's statement means nothing. And if Satya says it, this is a man with a well proven history of lying with a straight face and doing the exact opposite on a daily basis. Nothing he says is worth the time we spend hearing it.

That's really what broke. Faith in the leaders. Phil, and Phil's protege? I trust them. But only when they're actually the decision makers, and these decisions make clear that corporate are now the decision makers for Xbox. The same corporate that thought 2013 was a good idea. I think any of us that loved what Xbox was under Phil (haven't I said many times that Xbox is great while Phil is, there, but the day he's gone I worry what will happen? Been saying that since before PXB returned...and now we seem to be at that date, unofficially... )

IDK. They MAY end up still delivering a "better than the alternatives so hold your nose and use it" solution (Like Windows!), Or they may create a nightmare product. I wish PS was a good alternative, but especially without a competitive xbox they won't be pleasant either. Takes me back to PC but....ugh.....arm and a leg and a PITA.

Maybe the real solution is just stop caring about 4k/HDR, just embrace 1080@30, go in on Steamdeck and dock as primary and never worry about digital library again. I'm too spoiled with pretty screens

I do agree on Nintendo though. Even most PS and XB and even PCMR enthusiasts praise Nintendo, but I just don't see it. The hardware is overpriced (for now we'll see what SW2 is) and the games. They DO make some great games, but they also make a lot of expensive ports and a lot of mediocre mobile games. The great games are great, but it's a high price to pay for less than a dozen amazing games over 7 years. They're important to the industry, I'll give them that. And I don't dislike them. But Switch is not 3DS, that's for sure.

PSVR2 is half of what angers me about Sony. I'm a big PSVR fan. I arguably play more PSVR2 than Xbox since it came out. 3rd parties are great. But the total abandonment and hilarious pricetag from Sony is infuriating. That's one feather in the cap of going PC. Proper VR support on Quest. Or even PSVR2 (which they're porting to PC.)

Portal's doing great, it sells out the moment it comes in stock. Mediocre product, not a horrible price point though considering I paid more for my GCloud. Very popular for what it is. Surprisingly so.

I do think Xbox hardware will do the PC in a box thing, and I do like that idea. Still makes me wonder, other than preserving my existing library, especially with Phil hinting it will be more expensive than we're used to, why not just go PC though, as I don't think it will influence the industry very strongly. And will require GP at who knows what LOL price by then.

Kind of amazing from 2013 to today we've gone from Call of Duty, Call of Duty, Call of Duty, TV TV TV to Call of Duty, Call of Duty, Call of Duty, Fallout TV Fallout TV Fallout TV, Playstation.

@NEStalgia That is exactly why I wonder why people ask everyone but Nintendo to port their games, when Nintendo porting their games would benefit gamers the most. That's also why the scene is so obsessed with Nintendo. It's a pain having to deal with Nintendo's weak and overpriced hardware and accessories for a couple of remarkable games every generation, but logic is rarely applied when discussing Nintendo. Same users criticising the frame rate and resolution of Starfield stating that the frame rate and resolution of Tears of the Kingdom are perfectly fine. Plus, the controls are great, too 🤣.

@Banjo- The other thing that annoys me about praise for Nintendo is "Nintendo doesn't do all these layoffs, they're so well managed." No, Nintendo, by their own admission basically keeps skeleton crews managing the projects and a lot of the work is outsourced. When the outsource has tons of layoffs of Nintendo project staff, nobody hears about it or connects it to Nintendo. They have pretty small dev team sizes, but according to Takahashi, if you include all of their outsourced development they have about the same size as Ubisoft. UBISOFT! (and all they can make is mobile games?) And none of those tens of thousands of heads have gone? Even the most jaded pony/xbot/PCmasterracer somehow applies a shine of minwax on Nintendo. Not that I fault Nintendo for that process, they hire what they need, how that's managed by the contract firm isn't their problem. My issue is with people praising them blindly without understanding their structure. They didn't do anyting wrong there but they're not saintly and immune to the industry woes.

I get Nintendo's business model. The last of the true consoles, and the model Sony keeps trying and failing to get back to. They still use their own games as bait to get you to buy their walled garden so you buy lots of other games once you're in it. And it works very well. I get why they don't "go third party", their whole business model falls apart, and then they, too, would become just another Activision. I don't think Nintendo could be Nintendo if they didn't have their closed desert island to operate in.

But that also has a lot to do with Japan. If the Japanese market stopped buying Nintendo and only Nintendo, they probably would consider a major shift. A lot of what they do is centered around a model that exists only in their home country. I daresay if we lived in Japan where 2 people a week buy an Xbox on a good week, and 1000 buy a PS and 20,000 buy a Nintendo which is everybody's main console.....we also wouldn't mind their model...

OMG don't get me started on TOTK. It's very very risky, inventive, creative, innovative........and OMFG It's not even slightly fun to try to play! I have a Zelda avatar for crying out loud and I didn't play that game past the snow dungeon and a few shrines. I just can't. It's so absolutely unfun. To be fair it actually would be an absolutely amazing PC game with a mouse. Massive fun. Amazing game design. It's a case where the game is so entirely ill suited for the controls IDK how they managed to make that at Nintendo. Rotating objects in 360 and moving them to precise locations to build structures is not something you do on an analog joystick. I'd like to see all the 3d modelers on the dev team try to make their whole game world on thumbsticks.

Maybe Switch 2 will add an innovative control inspired by ToTK, that makes it fun, and then they'll sell the game again on Switch 2 at full price with HDR and "New Controls". Heck, support single joycon motion control for it. Something to make it suck less!

@theduckofdeath That sucked for those who like those kind of games. I was pleasently surprised when EA (of all places) didn't close Respawn after Titanfall 2 sold poorly (not the games fault) but instead allowed them to create both Apex Legends & Fallen Order and those have become successes.

@NEStalgia That's what I said that porting/going third party would benefit gamers the most, so it's weird that gamers ask everyone but Nintendo to port their games.

You are right about Nintendo and the development teams. They not just outsource part of the development, but sometimes they hire another studio to make the games and you can tell because how different the essence of the game is, e.g, Yoshi games after the first one. They sell the Nintendo brand using non-Nintendo workers.

The hired workers of course are laid off after the development is finished, even when they are part of another studio that Nintendo hires to make the game. I remember the interviews about Metroid Dread, made by Mercury Steam. They sounded like a Naughty Dog model. It's important to note that Nintendo doesn't close studios because they outsource the development and only have skeleton crew for their Jumbo fleet.

@Banjo- Yeah, I mean Yoshi's a bad example, but definitely other series you can tell so easily. Tthat first Yoshi game was very much different because it was originally meant to be SMW2 and Miyamoto made the whole thing pretty much himself, as a giant middle finger to management for rejecting his actual SMB2 direct sequel. He did the whole crayon style thing pretty much to flip them off in a "you wanted unique, I'll give you your effing unique" sort of way, and then when they got it they loved it, lol.

Yeah, Nintendo....I don't want to say they hide things, they're not doing anything wrong. But I hate how people put them on this pedistal like they're some honest savior of gaming when they're the original cutthroat shark. I loved Iwata. He was a genuinely honest change of pace for Nintendo. And shareholders hated him for it but tolerated him because he somehow made them rich. But Nintendo was born out of a yakuza town.......they have as ugly a corporate core as any corporation and they didn't become Japans richest company by being egalitarian. Yamauchi's long gone, and he was the core of their nastiness in the 80's, but that doesn't mean their fundamental operating changed.

People who put Nintendo on a pedistal remind me of the Sony "Organic growth" people. OTOH, I see Activision organically growing over Xbox like a parasitic fungus, so there's really no winner here. Not even Steam. Heck what I'm most interested in right now is EGS where it's semi-DRM-less. I think if try PC handheld it'll be Ally or Legion, because Steamdeck is too much like the consoles. Still don't want to have to run bash scripts just to start a game though (FFXIV.)

@NEStalgia What I mean is that outsourced games are not Nintendo anymore, although some might be better because of that, like the first Mario & Luigi that is very funny and something that Nintendo would have never written. Yoshi's Island DS has that style you talk about but is worse than Yoshi's Island. Yoshi's New Island is even worse. Most of the recent games has lost the old Nintendo magic. Besides, people working at Nintendo's own development studios are not the same. Not just the common workers but designers, directors and producers. That's why I don't understand why people talk as if Nintendo hasn't changed. If they play their games, they must have noticed they have changed. No Mario 2D game is better than Super Mario World, except, for some people, the game that came before. Mario has changed. Yoshi has changed. DK has changed. Metroid has changed. The other IPs have disappeared. Even Zelda, that has veteran staff, has changed. Fine if they like the new things, but they are completely different. Worse, in my opinion.

About Nintendo's ethics, they have admitted things like making low-quality hardware to charge for frequent maintenance services. I don't remember if they were printers or what, but they also like making cheap consoles. If you have read the Iwata Asks interviews, you can tell. It's all about spending little and charging as much as possible. Outsourcing is cheaper than maintaining studios, so it matches their business vision that is greedy and stingy.

@Banjo- Yeah, Nintendo won't admit it, but Miyamoto, Tezuka, etc are the heart and soul of a lot of Nintendo. Pikmin 4 - Still Miyamoto & Tezuka. That game's special because it's still the OGs behind it. BotW? Really was Miyamoto stepping in and pulling weight on it. ToTK....it's innovative....a mess...I feel like it's not a game Miyamoto ever would have authorized.

ACNH. That is an infuriating travesty and everyone celebrates it. Koizumi still has the touch when he gets involved. He's the guy that dared to go behind Miyamoto's back and make Rosalina and a big story in Galazy. He had the same spirit as young Miyamoto did. But yeah, a lot of Nintendos games feel very paint by numbers anymore. I don't understand how everyone praises it as so amazing. It's not bad. I enjoy some of it. But so much feels so generic. Mario Wonder is a really good platformer, a fun game. But it doesn't have the same magic as yet another run through of Mario 3 and SMW. Nintendo feels as corporate as any other corporation these days. But somehow fans don't see it and treat them differently. I WANT to love htem as much as I used to and as much as everyone else seems to. I miss loving Nintendo like I did just 8 years ago. But I try...and it's just not there.

@NEStalgia I wholeheartedly agree with your last comment and I feel the same. Do like me, use your SNES Mini to live some of those magic moments every now and then. Even the controller is the same. I've never had the NES so I'm not NEStalgic and I don't have the NES Mini. It's SNES the earliest for me 😁. By the way, it's incredible how SNES games hold up today! Not just the graphics but the sound and controls. Controls are actually better in their older games, e.g., Super Mario World. The controller is still comfortable, even better than modern controllers for 2D gaming.

@Banjo- SNES was absolutely special. I have a hard time deciding if the NES or the SNES was the best era. Objectively SNES was it. Subjectively, there's something magical about the original. Warts and all, there was a rawness, even if most games were bad, that can't be replaced, even if it doesn't hold up today. But I dont think gaming has ever been as good as SNES. PS1 comes close. Golden age PC comes close. Everything since then has gone downhill. Except 3DS. IDK that little box was magic and actually replaced SNES as my all time favorite, or at least tied it. We'll never have that again.