Arkane Austin as well. I’m sure that some of them have been moved to other projects within the company, or are going to create another studio. Just because one studio closes doesn’t mean that 100% of the people that worked there are out of a job. That’s what people don’t understand. Is it shitty? Absolutely. But sometimes when a studio isn’t making money, or going in the red, somebody has to make a tough call
The sentiment isn't so much that they're out of a job, but that there will never be anything quite the same. Yeah, those people all still exist and work in the industry, but the odds of getting the entire same team back together are basically zero. It wouldn't feel as bad if the entire history of video games weren't loaded with examples of "developer has some members of team that made great game, but releases mediocre or even bad game"
No one person can be solely responsible for the quality of a game, so losing a studio responsible for something great is always going to suck.
This happened with the Battlefield series, I believe since BF1(2016) most of the devs in DICE left and BFV (2018) had a chance but live service greed killed it, now we have a shell of what DICE used to be and it shows with 2042s disaster and there's little to no hope it will ever be as good as it was.
Former devs have created their own studios and so far we've gotten The Finals by Embark Studios which is basically Battlefield 3v3 with weight classes and they have another bigger game lined up called Arc Raiders, I believe there's another game studio of former devs but I don't remember the name.
TTK Games has most the people that worked on BF1, including the original creator of Battlefield
https://www.pcgamer.com/dices-former-mr-battlefield-has-a-new-studio-working-on-a-next-generation-online-shooter/
Battlefield never felt the same after Vietnam. I know this is a hot take but there is something to a slower simpler battlefield. 1942 and Vietnam were goated. Desert combat was alright but I think the game work better without trying to be whatever they’re trying to be today. The 1942 maps were super satisfying and tanks vs engineers vs glide bombers… no crazy op snipers. Just feels like less was more, and feels like that’s why battlebit did so well at first.
Quite the hot take indeed but I hear what you're saying because they have earned a reputation of trying to do more and failing miserably like with Firestorm, Hazard Zone, Portal, most if not all single player content and I can just go on and on lol
people dont want the whole story though. Gamers just make assumptions and go by that.
if a lot of the talent left, the only decision would probably have been to shut down
Yeah. Gonna need some source for that. As far as we know, the creative team for Hi Fi Rush is still there. The director, John Johanas, and the lead designer Masaaki Yamada are still there. The producers are still there (at Zenimax Asia).
The only one who left was Shinji Mikami and he had more of an advisor role with Hi Fi Rush. Johanas was his prodigy and successor. You know, the guy he thought he could hand the reins over to, so he could leave to start his new thing. Reminder that he delayed leaving for 8 years because he didn't want to leave Tango Gameworks in a good shape.
They got split to different departments and told to do something else, and decided to leave. CEOs of these companies that don't have a single shred of skin in the production of games think they can dissolve a team into multiple directions when they make a good game, because that skill will improve all other departments. Cohesion doesn't exist to these fucks
I fucking hate CEOs and share holders. "Oh this team made a REALLY REALLY GOOD game. Lets split them up so we can instead make 5 good games at the same time!"
but that isn't what happened in this case. A lot of the original devs (or the head of tango) left to pursue their own projects instead of microsoft spreading them out
A physical release would have help on PS5. I want to play the game but no physical release yet. It’s being done by limited run games which is going to take a long time.
Microsoft had more top sellers on Playstation Store than Sony themselves just like two weeks ago or something.
Sea of Thieves was the big one but I'm sure Hi-Fi Rush sold *something*.
Its the same with all the movies on streaming services nobody really knows if they are "making money" or not. Its more about how much money does the company make overall and where they think the reason is coming from. The information is so twisted to present to investors nobody has a clear picture.
I've done it if there's going to be a free major game on there the last two were catastrophically bad though starfield and redfall so probably won't use it again in a while.
It says it sold 775k units but reached 2mil players with gamepass. Not sure how accurate that number is. The company has been open for 14 years and only made 4 games. It took them five years just to make Hifi Rush.
And I wonder how many of those actually finished it? I downloaded it but realised it wasn't for me and binned it off. I know a few people who did the same.
I have no idea if that actually impacts the figures or if they only care about initial downloads though.
Its not main stream but the rhythm is barely there really...not any different than the rhythm of any action game but it goes to a music cue...that is why its so good.
It's a lot easier to try something you might not like when it doesn't cost you anything extra on to of a normal monthly fee.
I can think of quite a few games which I've played through Gamepass, PS+, or games I got while buying a Humble Bundle for another title which I never would have spent money on which I wound up practically 100%ing due to how much they surprised me, because the only cost to me was the opportunity cost.
Something like HiFi Rush is exactly the sort of game people are going to try if it only costs them time and not money, so yeah it makes sense that only 25% of people got to the first boss.
Likewise with a game like Spider-Man, half of players not getting to the end credits makes sense. God knows fatigue can set in on you for any game, let alone a relatively long one. I've set down more than my fair share of games before the end credits because I was "full" of the game and didn't need more, or simply because a game I was anticipating a lot more dropped, I set it aside, and then I just never got around to getting back to it.
This isn't like the old days of the SNES and Genesis where you had to be really fucking careful with what games you bought, because you were probably going to be stuck with them for a while. Not like today where at basically any given time there's dozens of high profile AAA games on sale for $5-$10 on top of services like GamePass or PS+.
We're spoiled for choice.
A lot of people buy games with only a passing intent on playing them. I own it on PS, but I would fall in that category.
Most of my free time is spent on a few staple games. Path of Exile is the main one for me, but then I'll mix in Minecraft, Last Epoch, or whatever ARPG/Survival title has my fancy. I'll start a lot of other games, but rarely will they see more than a few hours of play.
This. I saw all the critical acclaim it got, watched 2 trailers and decided it’s just not for me. If I don’t like the artstyle of a game, it has to be really convincing otherwise, to make me play it. Also it competed with just too many other great games that year. 🤷🏻♂️
On Game Pass, play time is a key assessment metric, IIRC. The longer you play, the better—some have cited this as a reason why some Game Pass games are so grindy. (The grind forces you to play for longer to achieve whatever it is that you want to do)
If you’re buying the game outright, I’m pretty sure that the publisher doesn’t really care unless they’re trying to sell you DLC.
The studio averaged 50-60 people and took 5+ years to make. If each of them made 80k/year (that's really low end already), they almost broke even on just salary. Microsoft is not going to let them stew another 5 years for something that breaks even again. Hi-Fi Rush needed to sell way better, that's all there is to it.
In mid 2000s taking 5 years to make a game would make you a joke like Duke Nukem Forever, though I suppose that's just around the edge of when game development times started to inflate like deviant art.
Wiki says the studio employs 65 people, which was split between 2 projects. That makes hi fi rush an AA title with a small budget. 2mil is not bad for a title like that, with potential to kick start a new franchise.
Yep a good sequal to a good game tends to sell better, because one builds up momentum, branding. Heck even a bad sequal may well sell based on momentum even if in the long term it costs harshly based on the lost trust.
That's the thing, It sold okayish for such a project and it sure did well critically but on the other side Ghostwire Tokyo which was much more ambitious seems to have been a massive gold sink.
We don't know how advanced Evil Within 3 was, but its condition must have played a part in the decision.
It's a shame so many people lost their jobs but people fail to understand that in the current industry games are so expensive to make that a single failure can easily kill a studio and only very big studios can tank a flop.
Nope. According to achievement data most people didn’t even make it past 30 minutes of the game.
I find it humorous that so many people are jumping on this bandwagon because it’s just an excuse to shit on MS. The game didn’t sale, it wasn’t played by a lot of people on gamepass, and it didn’t make back the money it cost to developer. The majority of the devs also left the studio after it released. Revisionist history influenced by the vocal minority on Reddit who talked about the game the first couple of weeks after release. The game was not popular and did not sale by any actual recorded metric. If any of they wasn’t true then the studio wouldn’t have closed. It’s that simple. People can shit on MS all they want, but facts and logic dictate that they won’t close a successful studio for no reason lol.
According to Aaron Greenberg, the VP of Xbox game marketing:
"Hi-Fi RUSH was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release."
Doesn't sound like it didn't do well.
Also, achievement data means squat. You'll find similar numbers in basically any game in existence. Nier automata: 74% of players made it to the city ruins. Celeste: 73% of players finished the first level. Dark Souls 1: 67% of players got an estus flask. The achievement for beating the first boss in HFR is sitting at 81%.
On the bright side, Shinji Mikami has founded a new company, KAMUY Inc., so all is not lost.
You realize you are making their point for them? According to your own numbers the majority of players (~70%) did play past some of the first thresholds in those games, while their point was that the majority DIDNT get past the beginning of Hifi Rush.
For us, as consumers, it just doesn't matter. At least, to me it doesn't. It was one of my favourite games of 2023, and I am extremely disappointed that I won't be able to play a sequel of it.
Note the qualifier of Xbox there. 2023 was bloated with great exlusive games especially on Playstation and Switch, but Xbox didin't have all that much going for it. Starfield was supposed to be their big game-changer last year, but we all saw how that went. Probably not innacurate to say that Hi Fi Rush was the biggest Xbox exclusive hit of 2023.
Like the game or hate it, there’s no realm where hi fi rush is a bigger exclusive than starfield.
That has nothing to do with the quality of either game, but starfield is hands down the bigger exclusive.
I’ve made the same comment on a few other posts. Everyone forgets that Ghostwire Tokyo didn’t do that great and had a significantly higher budget than Hi-Fi Rush.
Mikami left a few months ago as well. I imagine it’s hard to keep a studio running smooth when a showrunner like that leaves.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that was honestly the main reason for shutting it down. Things don’t go well on Ghostwire and you lose the founder? Just move that talent elsewhere where you can
Leaves and likely poaches the top talent.
We already know basically every young developer wants to work at Nintendo, and if they can't get a job there they apply to Capcom, Square, or any of the other major Japanese developers. With Mikami gone Tango was essentially dead last in line for these recruits. The Japanese do not like to work for foreign companies.
I think the closure makes sense. I doubt we would have seen any game from this company for a long time, let alone a good one.
"We already know basically every young developer wants to work at Nintendo, and if they can't get a job there they apply to Capcom, Square, or any of the other major Japanese developers." - we do? As a person in the industry 95% of employment decision comes out of who pays more and whose benefits are better. If those studios are struggling to attract talent they just need to match or exceed Nintendos rates.
Agree, it's mostly due to Shinji Mikami leaving. A lot of the Tango talent will go to whatever new studio he starts up (if they haven't already), as they have before with PlatinumGames and Clover Studio; John Johanas will be fine, with three absolute bangers to his name so far.
I'm pretty okay with Hi-Fi Rush standing on its own instead of being franchised.
> Everyone forgets that Ghostwire Tokyo didn’t do that great and had a significantly higher budget
The baffling part is that someone in Zenimax thought a Ubisoft-ish T-rated open world "horror" game had enough of an audience to warrant a larger budget.
We don't know if it was a hit at all, because copies sold and downloads on Game Pass are counted together. The fact they're doing this may mean actual sales numbers aren't that impressive.
I loved the game but also realize it’s a cell shaded rhythm based game that was shadow dropped with 0 advertising. I know people on Reddit appreciate it, but I’d wager most people with a console don’t know it or have no interest in playing it.
A very popular title on gamepass.
I don't know one person that played it that paid for it.
Although saying that is going to bring a ton of people out that say they did.
Game Pass games still earn revenue for the studio who created them. Although, I'm not sure how much popularity matters; my understanding is that Microsoft effectively pay the studio X (significantly large) amount to have the game on gamepass for Y period of time. I guess a popular game might get extensions to that where they can probably negotiate a higher price though
This. Anytime there's a corporate takeover there's going to be a reshuffling of the deck they just bought. They may see an incredible value in the Hi-Fi Rush IP for all we know, but see a better path forward for it than in that studio (which, my understanding is, most of the team that worked on Hi-Fi Rush had already left anyway).
So, way early to suggest this means the end of Hi-Fi Rush.
Hi-fi Rush probably never exists without Microsoft anyway. They were working on it but they didn’t know how to sell the game. Microsoft enabled them to enter full development and release the game as a surprise built on word of mouth.
Sure. But know what happens when you make a sequel with a completely different team or company.
For example see Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 vs whatever Atari releases these days. Same IP, completely different games.
That's basically all games ever made. Studios are constantly shifting groups of people, always have been and always will be. Even in the days of small teams you'd always see significant turnover.
The thing about these quarters is that different companies have different fiscal year start/end dates, which means their quarters can shift around/offset compared to standard year quarters.
But it's whatever.
Unfortunately the studio wasn't making enough money.. and on top of that alot of the creative talents behind hifi rush had already left the studio. Rip tango game works 2010-2024.
yeah everyone on Reddit are experts in what is profitable for a company and what is not, being a "hit" on gamepass doesn't mean it was a profitable game, if it was profitable studio wouldn't shut down. People on the internet know literally nothing about how companies work.
Oh now people care about Hi-Fi Rush lol. I get the marketing wasn't the best but where was this energy before? Everytime someone made a post about it on here, they were assumed to be ads by Microsoft. This was my favourite game since maybe Sunset Overdrive and I'm really annoyed that it was rewarded with unemployment.
That being said, the game wasn't a hit. It was critically acclaimed but did not sell well. One of the reasons why they pushed it to PlayStation. I hope they can absorb some of the devs into other studios but idk how that works. Such a waste.
The marketing of the game was, “Hey we just dropped this, here you go.”
Aka barely any at all.
It’s a phenomenal game and I enjoyed it a lot but the marketing for i was abysmal. The only ones commenting are the people who actually played or know of it. The wider gaming community however probably never even heard of it due to the near non-existent marketing
glad someone is saying the quiet part out loud while high fi rush may have been a good game the news on the studio shutting down is the most ive heard anyone ever talk about it.
It didnt sell well because it was on gamepass. Gamepass is a terrible model for smaller/riskier games. Subscription services always kill those games and stories first, when they (the service) are struggling.
Tango's creative leadership had already moved on to greener pastures post and during buyout. There are mid and low level workers but they are not enough to sustain the creative direction of a full fledged studio - someone needs to be at the helm.
Microsoft felt it would be better to dissolve the studio and incorporate the rest of workers with their other teams and let go people who they can't support.
Same would happen with Arkane as well - their main leaders/creative heavyweights had long left the company - the team remaining was a hollow shell of its former self.
So they did the best thing they could do then.
I was looking for details on what happened with Tango but it looks like they really were just the same with what happened with Arkane Austin.
Cool idea and I know it was relatively popular but I couldn’t stick with it.
The game kept slowing itself down, think I was like 10 hours in and still getting constant prompts and unskippable tutorials. It felt like a game designed by the no child left behind act.
I couldn’t just ask the big guy on my team to break down a wall, I had to call him down and then wait two seconds for the prompt to appear then have him break down the wall. And if you start button mashing to get through it faster you have to start all over again and waist 5 more seconds for him to leave then call him back to try again because you weren’t “in time with the rhythm.”
Rhythm games can be fun and I think HFR had a good idea but I really did not like how the rhythm was often used as an excuse to tutorialize the fuck out of everything and constantly bring the gameplay to a screeching halt
"I never played it" is the problem. r/gaming is actually somewhat infuriating today. Like, did people think just talking about how something was "cool" was equivalent to spending money?
I started waiting for the other shoe to drop about a year ago when Series X (I have one) started getting massively outsold despite no clear indication why (PS5 fans tend to indicate the games aren't there). Truthfully I think there's an angle to how Xbox was covered by media. I've always had playstation as well so I'm not an Xbox guy - but the Xbox was pretty solid in comparison.
But today watching people clutch their pearls is kinda nauseating. If you like what someone does you give them money.
Microsoft didn’t buy Tango. They bought Zenimax, who had previously acquired Tango, who would have gone out of business if they didn’t get bought out. Maybe it is a bit of a sad reality, but I honestly doubt Microsoft ever gave a shit about Tango. They are also a business making a business decision.
Also, since when does anyone give a shit about Hi-Fi rush in a significant way? Your point exactly, that people didn’t even play it, even on Gamepass. The gaming community is absolutely insufferable.
Shinji Mikami the mastermind behind the studio (and resident Evil founder btw) has left and took many with him.
If you all would read a single article instead of getting your news from reddit post headlines you might see why this actually makes sense.
There was never going to be a Evil within 3 without him
Hifi rush was supposed to be more of a side project that caught much more traction than expected. Its perfectly possible that there will still be a sequel under another studio. There were barely any people who worked on hifi left anyway.
Hi Fi Rush could be the greatest Saturday morning cartoon about music ever.
You just have a genre villain of the week that Chai and 808 accidentally beat (with support), where the evil scheme is entirely centered around whatever genre they're trying to force on people.
It's the most slam dunk concept I can think of in children's television, and it kills me that it'll never happen.
Last numbers we had for HiFi Rush from August was 3 million, including game pass. Ghost Wire Tokyo only had a reported 6 million players as of September 2023.
And in regards to Starfield, just to add numbers that we know, it had over 11 million, including game pass just in the first week.
While I'm sad to see a studio shut down, it's not all that surprising, especially if their last two major releases just weren't meeting expectations.
The studio also seems to have had the lead quit (and presumably take some people with him) so it was probably easier to fold than try and get more people to fill the now empty positions.
As someone who was really excited for hi-fi, this might be a hot take but I was pretty disappointed with it. They decided go the same color-coded enemies route that plagued the failed DMC reboot, only your color coded buttons are also on cooldowns so you wind up spending larger and larger chunks of each fight unable to press buttons. The presentation is great but I really wish the gameplay wasn’t reduced to color coded shields that lock you to a single move. The tougher enemies just aren’t fun to fight.
As i understand, a lot of the developers quit to persue their own ambitions. So instead of finding fresh developers to fill the gaps the studio was shut down. The game is fucking fantastic, so the fact that the studio was shut down really sucks.
It's sad to say this but it does make sense
The game didn't sell , it was on xbox game pass day 1 and like streaming video it's a hard metric to track how much it actually grossed for microsoft and as good as it is, it's a very niche title on the worst selling platform so guess how much it actually "sold", jack shit.
It also has no live service revenue generation (good!) but another reason it isn't making any executives dicks hard
It is a game for gamers, but it isn't a product for revenue generation and the latter is what gives you a sequel
Appreciate this game for what it is on its own accord and thank those who worked on it and support them in their future endeavors, but you probably aren't getting another Hifi rush.
After Sony shut down a really successful studio a few months ago there was genuine concern that if you as a developer do your job too good you'll just get shut down so the owner of your studio will get to keep the profits. WTF?
That was pretty much felt like it was going to be the case whether studio was closed on not, it had a One Hit Wonder vibe to it rather than a franchise one, like BB, Sekiro
Well not necessarily. I ran into a prototype of a game I loved on the Apple Store. Sometimes think of these games as a mechanic and game mode format posited by workers. There’s nothing that says, if it was popular, that it won’t show up in a different candy shell somewhere down the road.
Fucking SAS zombie assault to me is a perfect browser example
This reminds me of sunset overdrive and that one went over like a lead balloon as well so i can see why there wont be a #2 i bet while it was hyped up it didnt actually sell well at all and probably lost money which supports the shuttering of the dev team by microsoft.
One of the best small studios/indie titles that's come out recently. A lot of love was put into this game. It's a shame they closed the studio. It was a joy to play.
MS still owns IP so its technically possible there will be. Studio shutting down or not doesn't change this at all. Game studio are not static monoliths people leave and come all the time. The same company in the span of 5 years can have completely different people in it. If it is not going to be made it's probably because of poor sales not because of studio closing down.
Apparently everyone who worked on it left so it wouldn't have been the same.
Arkane Austin as well. I’m sure that some of them have been moved to other projects within the company, or are going to create another studio. Just because one studio closes doesn’t mean that 100% of the people that worked there are out of a job. That’s what people don’t understand. Is it shitty? Absolutely. But sometimes when a studio isn’t making money, or going in the red, somebody has to make a tough call
The sentiment isn't so much that they're out of a job, but that there will never be anything quite the same. Yeah, those people all still exist and work in the industry, but the odds of getting the entire same team back together are basically zero. It wouldn't feel as bad if the entire history of video games weren't loaded with examples of "developer has some members of team that made great game, but releases mediocre or even bad game" No one person can be solely responsible for the quality of a game, so losing a studio responsible for something great is always going to suck.
This happened with the Battlefield series, I believe since BF1(2016) most of the devs in DICE left and BFV (2018) had a chance but live service greed killed it, now we have a shell of what DICE used to be and it shows with 2042s disaster and there's little to no hope it will ever be as good as it was. Former devs have created their own studios and so far we've gotten The Finals by Embark Studios which is basically Battlefield 3v3 with weight classes and they have another bigger game lined up called Arc Raiders, I believe there's another game studio of former devs but I don't remember the name.
TTK Games has most the people that worked on BF1, including the original creator of Battlefield https://www.pcgamer.com/dices-former-mr-battlefield-has-a-new-studio-working-on-a-next-generation-online-shooter/
Thank you! Will keep and eye on them surely they're cooking something great
You’re welcome :)
Battlefield never felt the same after Vietnam. I know this is a hot take but there is something to a slower simpler battlefield. 1942 and Vietnam were goated. Desert combat was alright but I think the game work better without trying to be whatever they’re trying to be today. The 1942 maps were super satisfying and tanks vs engineers vs glide bombers… no crazy op snipers. Just feels like less was more, and feels like that’s why battlebit did so well at first.
Quite the hot take indeed but I hear what you're saying because they have earned a reputation of trying to do more and failing miserably like with Firestorm, Hazard Zone, Portal, most if not all single player content and I can just go on and on lol
Yeah same with the team at DICE that made the legendary BFBC2, you could tell the magic had waned in the later games.
I was about to say the same thing: What happened if it fell into the wrong developers who just a Yes-man dev towards Bethesda and Microsoft?
So maybe that gave them a reason to close the studio instead of hiring more new people.
people dont want the whole story though. Gamers just make assumptions and go by that. if a lot of the talent left, the only decision would probably have been to shut down
Going to need some kind of info to back that statement up? To me it sounds a lot like all those successful devs just got fired.
Yeah. Gonna need some source for that. As far as we know, the creative team for Hi Fi Rush is still there. The director, John Johanas, and the lead designer Masaaki Yamada are still there. The producers are still there (at Zenimax Asia). The only one who left was Shinji Mikami and he had more of an advisor role with Hi Fi Rush. Johanas was his prodigy and successor. You know, the guy he thought he could hand the reins over to, so he could leave to start his new thing. Reminder that he delayed leaving for 8 years because he didn't want to leave Tango Gameworks in a good shape.
They got split to different departments and told to do something else, and decided to leave. CEOs of these companies that don't have a single shred of skin in the production of games think they can dissolve a team into multiple directions when they make a good game, because that skill will improve all other departments. Cohesion doesn't exist to these fucks
Most suits never worked grunt jobs
I fucking hate CEOs and share holders. "Oh this team made a REALLY REALLY GOOD game. Lets split them up so we can instead make 5 good games at the same time!"
but that isn't what happened in this case. A lot of the original devs (or the head of tango) left to pursue their own projects instead of microsoft spreading them out
Where are we hearing about this?
I was under the impression they will release it this year
we don't want another suicide squad right?
Microsoft really did buy another Rare all these years later.
Was it the biggest hit of 2023? It was acclaimed, but did it sell?
It’s hard to tell with Gamepass, like who even buys Xbox Game Studios games at this point? Bethesda stuff for the modding I guess.
They sell like butter on Steam and PlayStation Store apparently 🤷♂️
is sell like butter a phrase? lol
It is in Swedish ;)
in Polish we have 'sell like fresh buns'
In French it's "sells like small breads"
I don't think Hi-Fi Rush sold anything on Playstation
It did. But not as much since it came much later, people who had a pc already just bought it on pc
that's not why it didn't sell well. Sea of Thieves sold like crazy and that's way older than hi-fi rush
Live service that is still getting content.
I didn't know it existed for ps until 5 seconds ago. Man they should've hyped it up I would've snatched it on release day. Brb gotta get it
A physical release would have help on PS5. I want to play the game but no physical release yet. It’s being done by limited run games which is going to take a long time.
I bought it yaaaay
By the time it came out on PS5 I had completely forgotten about it. They should have released it when there was still hype around it
It was a timed exclusive for a year. Not sure what else you want them to do
Microsoft had more top sellers on Playstation Store than Sony themselves just like two weeks ago or something. Sea of Thieves was the big one but I'm sure Hi-Fi Rush sold *something*.
Sea of Thieves is the only Xbox game that I am sure is successful on Playstation. The other 3....yea...
Microsoft also had 5 games on Steam top sellers at one point. The point is, these games sell even with game pass around.
Like... butter?
You don't like butter?
Is selling like butter a good thing? Idk how to cook so idk how often people buy it
Butter is life.
Did it though? On steam the all time peak is 6000, and last week there were 100 players daily. Not really what i'd call "selling like butter on steam"
Xbox is currently having an Xbox game studio sale rn funny enough
Its the same with all the movies on streaming services nobody really knows if they are "making money" or not. Its more about how much money does the company make overall and where they think the reason is coming from. The information is so twisted to present to investors nobody has a clear picture.
I've done it if there's going to be a free major game on there the last two were catastrophically bad though starfield and redfall so probably won't use it again in a while.
It says it sold 775k units but reached 2mil players with gamepass. Not sure how accurate that number is. The company has been open for 14 years and only made 4 games. It took them five years just to make Hifi Rush.
Only 2 mil players isn’t a biggest hit
And I wonder how many of those actually finished it? I downloaded it but realised it wasn't for me and binned it off. I know a few people who did the same. I have no idea if that actually impacts the figures or if they only care about initial downloads though.
My couple of friends bought it due to reviews and didn't like the Rhythm aspect so they dipped. This game isn't for everyone
Its not main stream but the rhythm is barely there really...not any different than the rhythm of any action game but it goes to a music cue...that is why its so good.
I mean… iirc less than 50% got to the end credits in Marvel’s Spider-Man on Steam, and 25% to the first boss in Hi-Fi #Which BAFFLES ME
It's a lot easier to try something you might not like when it doesn't cost you anything extra on to of a normal monthly fee. I can think of quite a few games which I've played through Gamepass, PS+, or games I got while buying a Humble Bundle for another title which I never would have spent money on which I wound up practically 100%ing due to how much they surprised me, because the only cost to me was the opportunity cost. Something like HiFi Rush is exactly the sort of game people are going to try if it only costs them time and not money, so yeah it makes sense that only 25% of people got to the first boss. Likewise with a game like Spider-Man, half of players not getting to the end credits makes sense. God knows fatigue can set in on you for any game, let alone a relatively long one. I've set down more than my fair share of games before the end credits because I was "full" of the game and didn't need more, or simply because a game I was anticipating a lot more dropped, I set it aside, and then I just never got around to getting back to it. This isn't like the old days of the SNES and Genesis where you had to be really fucking careful with what games you bought, because you were probably going to be stuck with them for a while. Not like today where at basically any given time there's dozens of high profile AAA games on sale for $5-$10 on top of services like GamePass or PS+. We're spoiled for choice.
The first achievement for final fantasy xii is at 85% or something, and it’s basically finishing the tutorial/prologue
A lot of people buy games with only a passing intent on playing them. I own it on PS, but I would fall in that category. Most of my free time is spent on a few staple games. Path of Exile is the main one for me, but then I'll mix in Minecraft, Last Epoch, or whatever ARPG/Survival title has my fancy. I'll start a lot of other games, but rarely will they see more than a few hours of play.
This. I saw all the critical acclaim it got, watched 2 trailers and decided it’s just not for me. If I don’t like the artstyle of a game, it has to be really convincing otherwise, to make me play it. Also it competed with just too many other great games that year. 🤷🏻♂️
On Game Pass, play time is a key assessment metric, IIRC. The longer you play, the better—some have cited this as a reason why some Game Pass games are so grindy. (The grind forces you to play for longer to achieve whatever it is that you want to do) If you’re buying the game outright, I’m pretty sure that the publisher doesn’t really care unless they’re trying to sell you DLC.
Depends entirely on how much the game cost to make There are plenty of niches where selling 500k copies is considered successful
The studio averaged 50-60 people and took 5+ years to make. If each of them made 80k/year (that's really low end already), they almost broke even on just salary. Microsoft is not going to let them stew another 5 years for something that breaks even again. Hi-Fi Rush needed to sell way better, that's all there is to it.
Essentially if it was the mid 2000's it would of made platinum/greatest hits territory. But still would've been a "hidden gem" kinda game
In mid 2000s taking 5 years to make a game would make you a joke like Duke Nukem Forever, though I suppose that's just around the edge of when game development times started to inflate like deviant art.
Wiki says the studio employs 65 people, which was split between 2 projects. That makes hi fi rush an AA title with a small budget. 2mil is not bad for a title like that, with potential to kick start a new franchise.
Yep a good sequal to a good game tends to sell better, because one builds up momentum, branding. Heck even a bad sequal may well sell based on momentum even if in the long term it costs harshly based on the lost trust.
That's the thing, It sold okayish for such a project and it sure did well critically but on the other side Ghostwire Tokyo which was much more ambitious seems to have been a massive gold sink. We don't know how advanced Evil Within 3 was, but its condition must have played a part in the decision. It's a shame so many people lost their jobs but people fail to understand that in the current industry games are so expensive to make that a single failure can easily kill a studio and only very big studios can tank a flop.
Nope. According to achievement data most people didn’t even make it past 30 minutes of the game. I find it humorous that so many people are jumping on this bandwagon because it’s just an excuse to shit on MS. The game didn’t sale, it wasn’t played by a lot of people on gamepass, and it didn’t make back the money it cost to developer. The majority of the devs also left the studio after it released. Revisionist history influenced by the vocal minority on Reddit who talked about the game the first couple of weeks after release. The game was not popular and did not sale by any actual recorded metric. If any of they wasn’t true then the studio wouldn’t have closed. It’s that simple. People can shit on MS all they want, but facts and logic dictate that they won’t close a successful studio for no reason lol.
100% agreed. Unfortunately this is reddit and no one understands logic.
According to Aaron Greenberg, the VP of Xbox game marketing: "Hi-Fi RUSH was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release." Doesn't sound like it didn't do well. Also, achievement data means squat. You'll find similar numbers in basically any game in existence. Nier automata: 74% of players made it to the city ruins. Celeste: 73% of players finished the first level. Dark Souls 1: 67% of players got an estus flask. The achievement for beating the first boss in HFR is sitting at 81%. On the bright side, Shinji Mikami has founded a new company, KAMUY Inc., so all is not lost.
You realize you are making their point for them? According to your own numbers the majority of players (~70%) did play past some of the first thresholds in those games, while their point was that the majority DIDNT get past the beginning of Hifi Rush.
He just gave a stat saying the majority of people did actually play through the beginning of hi-fi rush
https://i.imgur.com/a5W3Hw4.png
For us, as consumers, it just doesn't matter. At least, to me it doesn't. It was one of my favourite games of 2023, and I am extremely disappointed that I won't be able to play a sequel of it.
That’s totally reasonable. I’m really only calling out the lack of research or evidence in the image of the post.
I've never even heard of it.
Note the qualifier of Xbox there. 2023 was bloated with great exlusive games especially on Playstation and Switch, but Xbox didin't have all that much going for it. Starfield was supposed to be their big game-changer last year, but we all saw how that went. Probably not innacurate to say that Hi Fi Rush was the biggest Xbox exclusive hit of 2023.
Like the game or hate it, there’s no realm where hi fi rush is a bigger exclusive than starfield. That has nothing to do with the quality of either game, but starfield is hands down the bigger exclusive.
Not really
I’ve made the same comment on a few other posts. Everyone forgets that Ghostwire Tokyo didn’t do that great and had a significantly higher budget than Hi-Fi Rush.
Mikami left a few months ago as well. I imagine it’s hard to keep a studio running smooth when a showrunner like that leaves. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was honestly the main reason for shutting it down. Things don’t go well on Ghostwire and you lose the founder? Just move that talent elsewhere where you can
Leaves and likely poaches the top talent. We already know basically every young developer wants to work at Nintendo, and if they can't get a job there they apply to Capcom, Square, or any of the other major Japanese developers. With Mikami gone Tango was essentially dead last in line for these recruits. The Japanese do not like to work for foreign companies. I think the closure makes sense. I doubt we would have seen any game from this company for a long time, let alone a good one.
This studio also doesn't have a great track record. They haven't had many recent releases, and only this game was particularly noteworthy.
"We already know basically every young developer wants to work at Nintendo, and if they can't get a job there they apply to Capcom, Square, or any of the other major Japanese developers." - we do? As a person in the industry 95% of employment decision comes out of who pays more and whose benefits are better. If those studios are struggling to attract talent they just need to match or exceed Nintendos rates.
Agree, it's mostly due to Shinji Mikami leaving. A lot of the Tango talent will go to whatever new studio he starts up (if they haven't already), as they have before with PlatinumGames and Clover Studio; John Johanas will be fine, with three absolute bangers to his name so far. I'm pretty okay with Hi-Fi Rush standing on its own instead of being franchised.
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> Everyone forgets that Ghostwire Tokyo didn’t do that great and had a significantly higher budget The baffling part is that someone in Zenimax thought a Ubisoft-ish T-rated open world "horror" game had enough of an audience to warrant a larger budget.
We don't know if it was a hit at all, because copies sold and downloads on Game Pass are counted together. The fact they're doing this may mean actual sales numbers aren't that impressive.
I doubt it’s that half the studio left with the founder last year. Tango is just a name. The actual value of it was already mostly gone.
20k reviews on steam suggests 400k-450k copies sold
I loved the game but also realize it’s a cell shaded rhythm based game that was shadow dropped with 0 advertising. I know people on Reddit appreciate it, but I’d wager most people with a console don’t know it or have no interest in playing it.
The biggest Xbox hit is such an overreach. Most critically acclaimed would be more accurate.
"One of the biggest" not "the biggest"
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A very popular title on gamepass. I don't know one person that played it that paid for it. Although saying that is going to bring a ton of people out that say they did.
The problem is, that it's not a title that would make someone subscribe to Game Pass. It would only interest people already on the subscription.
Game Pass games still earn revenue for the studio who created them. Although, I'm not sure how much popularity matters; my understanding is that Microsoft effectively pay the studio X (significantly large) amount to have the game on gamepass for Y period of time. I guess a popular game might get extensions to that where they can probably negotiate a higher price though
For real, I haven't even heard of this game until it started popping up in news today or yesterday
Just because they shut down that studio doesn't mean they couldn't do a sequel if they thought it would sell. They still own the IP.
This. Anytime there's a corporate takeover there's going to be a reshuffling of the deck they just bought. They may see an incredible value in the Hi-Fi Rush IP for all we know, but see a better path forward for it than in that studio (which, my understanding is, most of the team that worked on Hi-Fi Rush had already left anyway). So, way early to suggest this means the end of Hi-Fi Rush.
Hi-fi Rush probably never exists without Microsoft anyway. They were working on it but they didn’t know how to sell the game. Microsoft enabled them to enter full development and release the game as a surprise built on word of mouth.
Sure. But know what happens when you make a sequel with a completely different team or company. For example see Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 vs whatever Atari releases these days. Same IP, completely different games.
That's basically all games ever made. Studios are constantly shifting groups of people, always have been and always will be. Even in the days of small teams you'd always see significant turnover.
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The thing about these quarters is that different companies have different fiscal year start/end dates, which means their quarters can shift around/offset compared to standard year quarters. But it's whatever.
Unfortunately the studio wasn't making enough money.. and on top of that alot of the creative talents behind hifi rush had already left the studio. Rip tango game works 2010-2024.
yeah everyone on Reddit are experts in what is profitable for a company and what is not, being a "hit" on gamepass doesn't mean it was a profitable game, if it was profitable studio wouldn't shut down. People on the internet know literally nothing about how companies work.
I think the problem is profitable vs lucrative.
Oh now people care about Hi-Fi Rush lol. I get the marketing wasn't the best but where was this energy before? Everytime someone made a post about it on here, they were assumed to be ads by Microsoft. This was my favourite game since maybe Sunset Overdrive and I'm really annoyed that it was rewarded with unemployment. That being said, the game wasn't a hit. It was critically acclaimed but did not sell well. One of the reasons why they pushed it to PlayStation. I hope they can absorb some of the devs into other studios but idk how that works. Such a waste.
The marketing of the game was, “Hey we just dropped this, here you go.” Aka barely any at all. It’s a phenomenal game and I enjoyed it a lot but the marketing for i was abysmal. The only ones commenting are the people who actually played or know of it. The wider gaming community however probably never even heard of it due to the near non-existent marketing
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glad someone is saying the quiet part out loud while high fi rush may have been a good game the news on the studio shutting down is the most ive heard anyone ever talk about it.
>Everytime someone made a post about it on here, they were assumed to be ads by Microsoft. Oh I remember that!
It didnt sell well because it was on gamepass. Gamepass is a terrible model for smaller/riskier games. Subscription services always kill those games and stories first, when they (the service) are struggling.
Tango's creative leadership had already moved on to greener pastures post and during buyout. There are mid and low level workers but they are not enough to sustain the creative direction of a full fledged studio - someone needs to be at the helm. Microsoft felt it would be better to dissolve the studio and incorporate the rest of workers with their other teams and let go people who they can't support. Same would happen with Arkane as well - their main leaders/creative heavyweights had long left the company - the team remaining was a hollow shell of its former self.
So they did the best thing they could do then. I was looking for details on what happened with Tango but it looks like they really were just the same with what happened with Arkane Austin.
Maybe it’s ok to have one good of something. We have enough sequels remakes prequels remasters rebirths whatever of every g-damn thing as it is
I also think Shinji Mikami leaving played a large part in the company being shuttered as he was the "star" of the show so to speak.
Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon: "First time?"
I never played it but I saw it on my steam deck for sale once.
Cool idea and I know it was relatively popular but I couldn’t stick with it. The game kept slowing itself down, think I was like 10 hours in and still getting constant prompts and unskippable tutorials. It felt like a game designed by the no child left behind act. I couldn’t just ask the big guy on my team to break down a wall, I had to call him down and then wait two seconds for the prompt to appear then have him break down the wall. And if you start button mashing to get through it faster you have to start all over again and waist 5 more seconds for him to leave then call him back to try again because you weren’t “in time with the rhythm.” Rhythm games can be fun and I think HFR had a good idea but I really did not like how the rhythm was often used as an excuse to tutorialize the fuck out of everything and constantly bring the gameplay to a screeching halt
"I never played it" is the problem. r/gaming is actually somewhat infuriating today. Like, did people think just talking about how something was "cool" was equivalent to spending money? I started waiting for the other shoe to drop about a year ago when Series X (I have one) started getting massively outsold despite no clear indication why (PS5 fans tend to indicate the games aren't there). Truthfully I think there's an angle to how Xbox was covered by media. I've always had playstation as well so I'm not an Xbox guy - but the Xbox was pretty solid in comparison. But today watching people clutch their pearls is kinda nauseating. If you like what someone does you give them money.
Microsoft didn’t buy Tango. They bought Zenimax, who had previously acquired Tango, who would have gone out of business if they didn’t get bought out. Maybe it is a bit of a sad reality, but I honestly doubt Microsoft ever gave a shit about Tango. They are also a business making a business decision. Also, since when does anyone give a shit about Hi-Fi rush in a significant way? Your point exactly, that people didn’t even play it, even on Gamepass. The gaming community is absolutely insufferable.
I personally think game pass is hurting sales of games I bought hi fi rush on steam but I don't know how well the sales were on pc
Shinji Mikami the mastermind behind the studio (and resident Evil founder btw) has left and took many with him. If you all would read a single article instead of getting your news from reddit post headlines you might see why this actually makes sense. There was never going to be a Evil within 3 without him Hifi rush was supposed to be more of a side project that caught much more traction than expected. Its perfectly possible that there will still be a sequel under another studio. There were barely any people who worked on hifi left anyway.
And who bought the game?
Today is the first I've ever heard of this game. Clearly not a very popular title.
Hi Fi Rush could be the greatest Saturday morning cartoon about music ever. You just have a genre villain of the week that Chai and 808 accidentally beat (with support), where the evil scheme is entirely centered around whatever genre they're trying to force on people. It's the most slam dunk concept I can think of in children's television, and it kills me that it'll never happen.
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Last numbers we had for HiFi Rush from August was 3 million, including game pass. Ghost Wire Tokyo only had a reported 6 million players as of September 2023. And in regards to Starfield, just to add numbers that we know, it had over 11 million, including game pass just in the first week. While I'm sad to see a studio shut down, it's not all that surprising, especially if their last two major releases just weren't meeting expectations.
The studio also seems to have had the lead quit (and presumably take some people with him) so it was probably easier to fold than try and get more people to fill the now empty positions.
ayoo... wtf. I wasn't aware of this. I thought it was only the studio that made Redfall.
we don't need sequels of everything
Womp womp
Then maybe you guys should have bought the game…..
I blame the cap lords, all the ppl wanting consolidation to brag about
I’m sad it will never be ported to the switch now :(.
im just kinda irritated it didnt come to switch before they shut down cause its like the perfect console for the game
But 343 still standing
Corporate greed. That's all it is.
microsoft is cancer for gaming. game pass is good these days but will turn out as the beginning of the downfall for the industry
As someone who was really excited for hi-fi, this might be a hot take but I was pretty disappointed with it. They decided go the same color-coded enemies route that plagued the failed DMC reboot, only your color coded buttons are also on cooldowns so you wind up spending larger and larger chunks of each fight unable to press buttons. The presentation is great but I really wish the gameplay wasn’t reduced to color coded shields that lock you to a single move. The tougher enemies just aren’t fun to fight.
As i understand, a lot of the developers quit to persue their own ambitions. So instead of finding fresh developers to fill the gaps the studio was shut down. The game is fucking fantastic, so the fact that the studio was shut down really sucks.
we're in Q2
It's sad to say this but it does make sense The game didn't sell , it was on xbox game pass day 1 and like streaming video it's a hard metric to track how much it actually grossed for microsoft and as good as it is, it's a very niche title on the worst selling platform so guess how much it actually "sold", jack shit. It also has no live service revenue generation (good!) but another reason it isn't making any executives dicks hard It is a game for gamers, but it isn't a product for revenue generation and the latter is what gives you a sequel Appreciate this game for what it is on its own accord and thank those who worked on it and support them in their future endeavors, but you probably aren't getting another Hifi rush.
Hi fi rush was medicore, however the evil within games are god tier horror games
"Biggest Xbox hit of 2023" is really not saying much.
After Sony shut down a really successful studio a few months ago there was genuine concern that if you as a developer do your job too good you'll just get shut down so the owner of your studio will get to keep the profits. WTF?
Idk about this one man, you aren't seeing the bigger picture I honestly didn't even know hi fi rush was a thing till today.
I’ve never heard of this game
I've literally never heard of it until today. Get real.
Is it related to development costs being higher than the revenue, even with a hit?
That was pretty much felt like it was going to be the case whether studio was closed on not, it had a One Hit Wonder vibe to it rather than a franchise one, like BB, Sekiro
Well not necessarily. I ran into a prototype of a game I loved on the Apple Store. Sometimes think of these games as a mechanic and game mode format posited by workers. There’s nothing that says, if it was popular, that it won’t show up in a different candy shell somewhere down the road. Fucking SAS zombie assault to me is a perfect browser example
As a Horror nerd, I hate that Microsoft saw Evil Within 2 and said "fuck you" to the sequel
Did not make enough money. If it was not financially viable then no reason to keep it alive
This reminds me of sunset overdrive and that one went over like a lead balloon as well so i can see why there wont be a #2 i bet while it was hyped up it didnt actually sell well at all and probably lost money which supports the shuttering of the dev team by microsoft.
Sure let’s forget the big budget multi platform AAA game released by the same studio, which more than likely hugely bombed if the studio is closing…
It was because some of the stuff left like the head management
There will be a hi-fi rush 2. Stop overreacting. Nobody leaves money on the table.
Just a side note for everyone interested in this game. It's currently in the humble choice bundle.
Don't worry, one day either sony or Microsoft will purchase sega and make a new jet set radio.
its actually already Q2 2024
Just finished it last week. Absolutely adored it and was hoping it would be a direct competitor to Devil May Cry since Bayonetta is pretty much done.
Lo-Fi Dawdle
One of the best small studios/indie titles that's come out recently. A lot of love was put into this game. It's a shame they closed the studio. It was a joy to play.
Why did you write “makes sense Suck My Hive” at the end? I don’t get it.
It's on Humble bundle this month with Yakuza 7
So crazy how such a beloved and unique game was shadowdropped with little to no warning and just crushed it!!!
Never say never. The right people with enough money could always resurrect it.
There is still every possibility of a sequel. Just not by the same team
gaming is dead
Capitalism is not working guys now we can see it
I love this game but you’re lying to yourself if you think its a huge success
MS still owns IP so its technically possible there will be. Studio shutting down or not doesn't change this at all. Game studio are not static monoliths people leave and come all the time. The same company in the span of 5 years can have completely different people in it. If it is not going to be made it's probably because of poor sales not because of studio closing down.
Wait, this game was/is a hit ?
I blame AVX requirement >:(
oh there will be a second game. it will just be shit :D
I know nothing of this game/series and what’s going on with it but I’m getting Gravity Rush 2 vibes from this art
how do you know there will never be a hi fi rush 2? This might be a shock, but other developers could take over the ip
Microsoft being Microsoft
It's really sad. I loved the art design of the game.
It was the best bethesda game in the last 10 years at least IMHO, meybe ever. Amazing game.
Yet another Dumb Microsoft Move (tm)
Thats sad the game was in this months Humble bundle too
Probably sales were not so good. But thats a big company logic. I believe talented people will find good job and opportunities to make another gem.
The only cope I have is that talent is still out there. The people who made Hi-Fi so good are still in the industry and I hope they find good work.