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Tango’s closure will forever be a stain in Microsoft/Xbox history, the biggest most unpleasant stain imo as it screams mismanagement and corporate greed.

We’ve heard Phil saying for more than a decade that he wants Xbox to have a foothold on Japan, for that they need to have relations with Japanese devs or having a Japanese team.
They finally got it in 2021 with Tango being included with Zenimax, they made 2 current-gen only titles (not many studios can say this currently), with one, Hi-Fi Rush being a “smash hit” (MS’ words) with both critics and public alike, personally becoming my favorite Xbox game of the last decade.

A few months later Xbox announces they’re taking the games to other platforms with all the excuses they gave but supposedly to “nurture the IP” but literally a month after launching on PS5 they closed down the studio entirely, it’s been a month, they showcase has passed but they still haven’t gave a good reason on why the studio deserved to be closed down, we’re only left with the rumors that it was just bad timing, the fact they weren’t in active development made them more disposable, which is just infuriating to me, talent means nothing, awards mean nothing, appraisal means nothing, being a ‘smash hit’ means nothing.

The showcase was great, really great, but this will always make me wary of Xbox and Microsoft moving forward.

@JayJ That rumor was debunked by people still working on the studio, don’t spread misinformation.

Nonsense PR we saw a mile coming the day this was announced, it’s sad that even though today’s showcase was great the stain of Tango’s closure is still there lingering and tbh stops me from being fully excited about Xbox’ future.

The story got very convoluted at the end of 5 so I guess not even them were sure how to continue it and they rather went back, but honestly this I what I wanted to see from Gears ever since the very first one so this is incredibly exciting.

The fact it’s called Gears OF WAR made me way more excited than it should have lol

Lmao these are priced to scare players out, the 1TB Series S is $349, all-digital Series X is $449 and 2TB Series X with Disc Drive is $599.

Microsoft really doesn’t want to sell consoles…

Except for the ones who were shown the door a month ago…

(Still very bitter about Tango’s closure).

@NEStalgia Exactly this, if there’s something that can move the needle in terms of Xbox’ popularity is Call of Duty, the game will be a financial success either way but where and how users play it will ultimately determine the future of the platform.

In terms of gameplay I’ll never shut up about how they NAILED it in Infinite, the lack of content and lackluster campaign killed the game but the gameplay was at its best imo, keep that gameplay, take your time to build up significant content for the next release and you already got a solid ‘Halo 7’ multiplayer.

However for the campaign… it’s got sooooo convoluted that I honestly have no idea where to go from here, they could follow-up Infinite’s story for the
Endless and all that but honestly I’d want a soft-reboot or just pretend 4/5/Infinite never existed lol.

Make no mistake, this is a make or break situation for Game Pass and the Xbox platform in general, if CoD doesn’t bring meaningful traction to both Xbox consoles and Game Pass subs we can be sure that nothing will, however if this actually becomes a bigger success than expected and even reverses the downtrend for Xbox consoles and Game Pass subs, Microsoft might just realize their platform is worth keeping…

I mean, it’s not like we could ask since the studio will no longer exist, I guess with the offline mode is enough, the game may not be great but at least everyone will be able to give it a chance instead of ceasing to exist when they pull the plug on the servers.

The discourse around the game is starting to get real bad :sigh:

From what I’ve been reading the game is exactly what I expected, same gameplay as the first with a gruesome harsh story and that’s perfectly fine for me however I’ve read countless people expecting it to be God of War from Xbox and it ain’t that nor it tries to be.

There now people complaining that “all you do is walk and hear voices” that is what Hellblade is my friends…

Hopefully it gets 60 FPS somehow, kinda jealous of the PS5 version since that patch came out.

Look like there’s still a little hope for the Xbox platform.

• If CoD can bring meaningful traction to Game Pass and Xbox consoles then we can be certain that Microsoft will still be supporting it (at least for a long while).
• But, if CoD fails to bring new audiences to the service it’s certain that both the platform and service are dead and Microsoft will just go full multiplatform.

Is there like a deadline that Xbox can’t exist in 2025 or why the f*ck is Microsoft rushing so much to get rid of Xbox?

He’s right, Microsoft has to commit to either their Xbox platform, Game Pass and their users, or just drop everything become Microsoft Gaming and be the biggest third-party publisher in the industry.

This in-between isn’t working for anyone, it feels there’s a civil war going on at Xbox right now where Microsoft Gaming is taking over and I must say, after giving Phil and the Xbox team a decade and 80 billion dollars to turn things around and failing it was obvious Microsoft had to step in at some point.

Xbox ran out of time and now Microsoft will get their money back even if that utterly destroys the brand which is already happening, and there’s no going back, I really do feel this is it for Xbox.

@Banjo- I didn’t mean to sound so hostile, as everyone can tell by my comments I am very angry lol, probably have never been actually angry at a company ever before but yeah, my anger should always be directed at the company, not other people, for that I’m sorry.

I got frustrated that there’s lots of misinformation floating around, it’s true that some people left Tango but we’re not talking about even 5% of team and it’s now known they were in pre-production of a sequel to Hi-Fi, and according to Bloomberg it seems the only reason Tango was shut down was bad timing, the fact they were not in active development made it easier to save up on resources than cancelling a game already in development that would’ve already used some resources (time and money).

While I understand the business side of decisions to me it seems incredibly shortsighted, plus the fact that just some months ago Spencer, Bond, and Booty all claimed porting the game to PS5 would help to ‘reinvest’ in both the IP and the studio, only to shut down the studio 6 weeks after porting it to PS5, that blatant lie is so infuriating to me and show such a clear lack of vision that I really can’t even think of Xbox having a future.

That’s great, but I don’t anymore, there’s no way around it, Xbox is dead, Microsoft Gaming has taken over and there’s no way in hell I’m sticking to see their administration.

After watching Sarah Bond’s interview I can bet she’s gonna be leaving in the upcoming months, she looked so uncomfortable and I almost felt bad for her because it’s obvious she didn’t make those decisions and she hasn’t been around as long as Phil Spencer or Matt Booty, who should be the ones answering these questions, it feels they just promoted her to be the scapegoat.

@Kooky_Geezer I’m kinda looking at a 4070 setup, but I might just wait for the 5070 coming out later this year, in the meantime next week I’m getting a Rog Ally or Legion Go to basically begin testing how gaming on a PC would be (I’ve always owned all consoles but no PC).

@Kooky_Geezer I’m also on that boat, I’m already looking into how to begin the transition to PC, the main obstacle right now is my digital library, I’ve got around 60 games that I only own on Xbox so that’d mean having to rebuy them eventually.

It still sucks. I live like 10 miles away from the closest Microsoft Data Center (with xCloud servers apparently), got a 5ghz mesh Wi-Fi 6 router, got a Wi-Fi 6 compatible phone and the experience still sucks.

There’s noticeable lag, becomes very blurry and overall it ain’t a good experience in all the games I tried, it’s usable but I wouldn’t play anything more than 5 minutes.

@CallMeDuraSouka Same but I’m going with a Rog Ally since I have some games on Epic and MS Store (through Play Anywhere) and I don’t want to rebuild my library from scratch.

@RIghteousNixon No, that was actually Tuesday’s news.

What’s even the point now…

F*ck you Microsoft. That’s all.

What a ***** show, but if CoD doesn’t get into Game Pass make no mistake, the service will be dead as we know it in a matter of months.

Honestly the healthiest thing to do seems to scale Game Pass back, don’t make it the top priority of MS Gaming, don’t launch games day one but still keep the catalogue for every Xbox/Bethesda/Activision/Blizzard title released in years and generations prior, kinda like Sony does with PS+ Extra.

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.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that Game Pass as an strategy failed, it failed to attract new audience to the Xbox platform, it failed in giving games more exposure leading to more sales and most importantly it failed to reward or compensate the developers who made those games.

As an user it has amazing value and it allowed me to play so many games that I wouldn’t have otherwise but if that comes at the expense that most developers will not reach financial success and therefore leading to layoffs or studio closures I’d rather prefer that Game Pass didn’t exist.

@jFug I’m gonna buy it on PS5 just out of spite (and Dualsense features tbh).

Hopefully they don’t close the studio before they push the update.

Xbox is dead, the sooner we accept it the better, they’ll keep making consoles that nobody will buy for a time (just like Surface devices) until they get tired and their platform is so irrelevant that they’ll pull the plug overnight just like they did with Windows Phone.

And btw, Microsoft Gaming isn’t going to last long with these type of decisions, they could end up ruining Bethesda, Activision, and Blizzard even more alongside Xbox just like they did with Nokia.

MS really is all-in on their tutorial on “how to ruin and utterly destroy your brand in less than 6 months!”

Well of course, of all Microsoft studios’ portfolio Tango was the least deserving of a closure, and I also think that Xbox fans are just discouraged with the brand, it really has been disappointment after disappointment since this generation started, I can’t believe what I’m saying but we were better off at this point of the Xbox One generation than we are currently.

This generation for Xbox has been disappointment after disappointment after disappointment…

Hi-Fi Rush is the best Xbox game since Sunset Overdrive imo, the one that has received more critical acclaim by a long shot, and what does MS do? Empower the studio to encourage them to keep making great games? Nah. Remove the exclusivity, treat it like a low-tier game and close down the entire studio. F*ck this Microsoft.

Yeah because we’ve never got in a situation like that with Microsoft right? /s

In fact since last year there’s an ongoing miscommunication with MS as Xbox is indeed moving multiplatform while claiming it’s only a few games when we all know there’s more coming if not all.

Having basically 4 publishers I’d expect so!

The fact this game comes out in less than 3 weeks and there’s not even ONE advertisement for it is just baffling.

I honestly think Microsoft should let go the entire marketing department for Xbox as they’ve been failing or not even trying for over a decade, just let the Activision team run the marketing for all Xbox, they’ve proven to have wildly successful marketing campaigns every single year when a CoD drops.

@Ricky-Spanish Absolutely no, I owned several Windows Phones and it was much better than Android phones at that time specially on mid-range phones, the problem with it was that it didn’t get support from major developers starting with Google itself, not having YouTube, Facebook, and several must-have apps from that time really hurt the platform.

So when Microsoft started porting their own apps to Android and iOS without getting nothing in return it eventually killed the platform as customers saw no point in getting a WP as their must-have apps weren’t there but they were on Android/iOS plus all the MS apps that we’re previously exclusive to Windows Phone, exactly the same dilemma we’re getting at with Xbox right now, why should a customer get an Xbox when it doesn’t have Sony’s must-have exclusives but the PS5 has them plus MS own games, why should a customer choose the platform with less games? And yes I know Game Pass is a factor but it doesn’t seem to be driving console sales at all.

@Ricky-Spanish It won’t matter if those consoles don’t sell (and they won’t cause all games will be eventually released on all other platforms), we’re literally reliving Windows Phone yet again, in the last few years Microsoft swore multiple times they had multiple phones and software in development and that Windows Phone wasn’t going anywhere, then they started doing things like releasing MS Office for Android and iOS (when it previously was Windows Phone exclusive), obviously hurting their platform and getting nothing in return as Google nor Apple launched any of their apps on WP, exactly the same thing happening to Xbox porting games and receiving nothing in return, that situation dragged for years until they literally cancelled everything overnight.

Microsoft’s actions speak much louder that their words, and their actions are screaming Xbox customers’ “you don’t matter, the moment we get more money from selling games on other platforms ours is done for”.

It’s good for the games and players but if this ends up becoming a successful strategy you can bet every single Microsoft gaming title will eventually be on PlayStation.

@GeeEssEff You’re tripping, it may give you more points for buying things but there’s almost no way to earn points without buying stuff, only a couple 50 points campaigns each month and only if you have PS+, it’s nowhere near comparable to MS Rewards.

It ain’t what it used to be but there just isn’t a better Rewards program to get free games or sub, my latest use case for my points is to use them for one month of Ubisoft+ or Game Pass when there’s a notable game launch, I essentially get to play those games day one for free and later buy them on sale if I liked them.

@Yorozayu Because it’s real, I admit the concept of it sounds absurd, but it’s true, most gaming journalist have preference towards PlayStation or just dislike Microsoft/Xbox in general, and it shows in both game reviews and journalist opinions basically wishing Xbox was no more, just look at how many of them literally made up rumors about Starfield and other games coming to PS5 and leaving the Xbox platform for dead mere weeks ago.

Let’s face the facts, the game will be amazing, like I’m 99.9% sure it will be a 9/10 experience at the very least, but it’s an Xbox game and people already have a very different expectation.

I’ve read TONS of people expecting Hellblade to be God of War and anyone who played the first game knows this is just not the case, so the game is going to get hate for not being what they expected, get hate for being a rather shorter experience, get hate for being announced 5 years ago, get hate for being a digital-only game, and of course, get hate just for being an Xbox game; none of which affects the game’s quality but you know gaming journalists and the Xbox tax.

Played for more than 2 years at least once a week with 360+ hours played but when they dropped the seasons I dropped the game entirely, I was very patient with it but this meant the devs were moving on to something else so did I.

What happened to this game is just sad, the gameplay is easily the best of any modern FPS and yet the lack of content at launch irreversibly killed it, it should’ve been in the oven for at least another 6 months and it’d have launched decently, but I have no idea how they planned to drop it a year earlier when it released with so little content.

And while the campaign is fine, they left it in a cliffhanger that I’m not sure we’ll ever see the next chapter of this story instead of pivoting to something else entirely, just like what happened from Halo 5 to Infinite (as 5’s story was just BS).

I honestly expect it by Summer 2026, it wouldn’t be a Rockstar game without a delay, and for what will be the biggest game of all time they should take as long as they need.

It’s not my type of game but I’ll give a try.

Games, games, games, in two generations Microsoft hasn’t been able to replicate the feeling of getting so many good and some exclusive games on Xbox, those years in which we got Halo 3, Mass Effect, Gears of War and Bioshock have been the best time ever at Xbox.

If Hi-Fi Rush has very good use of the Dualsense I might pick that up.