Xbox Fans React Angrily To Closure Of Bethesda's Tango Gameworks

This one is completely wild to me.

Arkane Austin, I understand. But Tango?

Absolutely deplorable. Tango was great. I enjoyed ghostwire and evil within enough, although I never finished them. But hi fi was and is, my favorite xbox game to date. Smh.

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.

It's not acceptable to buy new studios with the intention of closing old ones. It's no coincidence that the ladder was pulled up after they just released two games recently. MS not willing to fund the development of new ones is crystal clear in its short-sightedness. Angry is a very polite way to put how I feel about MS right now.....

Yup let’s kill a fresh new, well received IP in its infancy, a studio that won critical acclaim for Xbox, and remove a much needed Japanese studio from the Xbox ‘family’.

Slow Clap

I wish man united axed players a much as Microsoft is axing studios and devs

Add Hi Fi Rush and Ghostwire Tokyo to the enormous pile of abandoned franchises.
Microsoft doesn't, and has never, actually cared about delivering high quality software. That's why their showcases are always trailers for games that are coming out...someday. they care about profit, that's it. I'm personally tired of it.

I don't get it why Tango though as they've been breath of fresh air in the present landscape. It wasn't meant to be system seller just like Pentiment. It's a terrible decision really.

This generation started off so well with the backwards compatibility and FPS boost initiative. Game Pass was flying too. Now Microsoft have again reverted to type, they destroyed Arkane Austin by forcing them to make Redfall, now they've also closed the studios too.

I just don't understand this one. They have spent decades trying to get anything in Japan and they finally get it.... then poof.

The only thing I can come up with is that they don't "need" Japanese games anymore. Shifting more and more to a third party footing means they don't have to cater to niches outside their own any more.

Someone please punch Phil Spencer in the gut. How the f did that consideration of closing Tango Gameworks came in their mind in the first place?!

The tango guy leaving (I don’t know his name) must have known what was going on and left before Xbox could drop the axe.

Of all the stupid decisions made by the Xbox division in recent years (and there were many) this take the cake.

@Fenbops I suspect it might have been the other way around; without Shinji Mikami MS may not have seen Tango as a viable studio.

Lacking in selection of japanese games in their platform and look what they did, they close their own studio whose games have a very much DNA of japanese game. Holy ***** ***** PHIL SPENCER WHAT THE *****?!

Its those ***** bean counters over at MS screwing people over again. They should lose their jobs

Why the f did this happening... ONE MONTH BEFORE YOUR OWN SHOWCASE XBOX WHY THE F*CK DID YOU DO THIS?!!!!!!!

HOLY F*CK*NG HELL .... Xbox can't appreciate unique and amazing game that is Hi-Fi Rush. They prefer boring and forgettable a$$ games with ugly a$$ relatable character. F*ck*ng f*ck you, Phil Spencer & team.

Dumb a$$e$ shutting down all them. tangoworks hurt the most. I loved the evil within series ( I guess third entry is not happening) ghostwire and hifi. Not to forget arkane with prey, dishonored and deathloop. Very disappointing in Microsoft and wish they never made that purchase.

Seems very strange after picking it as one of the ‘test’ games to go multi platform and appeared to be doing well.

It’s a shame while the music in the game was not to my personal taste I could still appreciate how good hifi rush was, one of the best MS has released in recent years.

I hope those affected can find a happy home!

Jeff Grub: Hi-Fi Rush underperformed
Microsoft's response: No it didn't, we're very happy!
(Six months later Tango is shut down)

I guess we know Jeff was right. This whole thing feels like Tango was set up to fail though. Hi-Fi Rush was Day 1 Game Pass. You can't boast this about your service and then bitch that a game underperformed in sales and axe the studio. Especially when they made a decision to not market it and shadow-drop it. It was a fun experiment, but maybe it didn't pan out the way they hoped. That wasn't Tango's decision, but they're (and we're) paying the price.

Ghostwire Tokyo and especially Hi-Fi Rush are two of the best games XBOX has had over the past few years… and they just delete the studio. Legit doesn’t make any sense to me.

Even financially, they’re getting all of their money from GamePass. And if you’re comparing games by hours played… well, yeah, of course “complete” and shorter single player experiences like these will have way less hours played then sandbox titles like Starfield and online centered games like Forza and Halo.

Just a thought, but maybe with GamePass, Microsoft doesn’t care for games without online components where they can’t sink hundreds of hours into and monetize.

Forza MotorSport and Horizon 5 are heavily monetized now and more “online-focused” then ever. Same with Halo. And Bethesda keeps shoving Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Online down our throats. I have a feeling that Gears 6 is going to push online super hard and be heavily monetized. Maybe this is why Perfect Dark was in development hell for its first couple years… the devs had to switch things up to incorporate live-service elements and monetization?

I’m just theorizing and rambling now lol. This news just shocks me.

I am mildly surprised with Tango because they have made great games. The others should come as no surprise. Roundhouse has been MIA for years now, Alpha dog is redundant with the large mobile developers they acquired with AKB, and Austin completely blew Redfall.

Tango was a great studio but the issue is the genre of games they played in are not huge sellers. Evil Within is a great game, but its grittiness/horror is a turn off to the mass market. Ghost Wire was interesting but not very well received critically. HiFi was really good, but not a big seller probably. It is disappointing this has to happen, but these companies exist for profit, not to build games that don't recover their investments.

This is what sucks about the gaming/movie business. The money goes to the big selling projects while the more creative and riskier projects get shelved. I just hope MS does not dump Double Fine. They have quirky, fun, creative games.

they won't have many people wanting to buy their next console which means very little 3rd party support. jump ship folks!

Ghostwire Tokyo was good. And ive heard great about hi fi rush. Why not let them make sequels. At least let them put hi fi rush on Nintendo.

I'm also quite mad at the Mighty DOOM devs getting canned. Microsoft wants a piece of the mobile market, they make a good mobile game, they get shut down. BGS is more or less just Fallout, TES, & DOOM now, which is totally not foreshadowing of them keeping Activision as the CoD company.

I never got the hype about Hi-Fi Rush and I can't see it turning much if any profit so it makes sense to me. Good game or not it just doesn't have mass appeal.

MS leaning into the L this generation.

Just too many games made by too many game studios at increasing developpement cost.
We are at a turning point in the gaming industry . Layoff and studio closure will continue until the commercial balance comes back for them to make profits.

Microsoft thinks gamers only care about First Person Shooters. That’s why they wanted COD, Doom, Starfield and Fallout to go with Halo.

And that’s the reason why the XBox player base doesn’t grow.

I have been an ardent defendant of Xbox this generation, but shutting down Tango is the stupidest thing they could do. Arkane is not smart either, but Tango??? Their only Japanese studio? at the same time they keep trying to convince us they are taking Japan seriously??? 😒

I've been a supporter of Xbox since the OG but this is ridiculous. Next gen might be the first gen I skip and go all in on the other two. It is let down, after let down with them. Always 1 step forward and 18 steps back. It took me a lot longer than some others to see what everyone else were saying "They lie, they are bad for the industry" etc. etc. but I see it now. Phil needs to go.

It's mind blowing and infuriating the smaller dev teams are the ones who suffer when the big ones fail. Why would you even wanna be a game developer in Current Year when someone could scoop you up and destroy everything you did and wanted to do?

Got to love how MS boasted and heavily praised HiFi Rush last year only to murder the studio that made it the next year only a month or two after porting the game to PS5 to great result. Tango did not deserve this at all.

Honestly, I just hope people will "vote with their wallet" and make MS feel their disgust in the language they best understand - money. That's all

@Utena-mobile Used to be? They were always like this, they only humbled a bit for a small time because the X1 was an utter failure. MS is one of the worst media based corps in the world, they are ruthless as hell.

Yaaaaayyyy! I look forward toward the Xbox era of COD, Fallout, and Palworld being playable on any device

• sarcasm *

Note: I realize Xbox doesn’t own Palworld, but would be funny if they acquired after this

@endlessleep I don't think Phil is fully stearing the ship now. Since ABK went through it's been CEO Sataya Nadella more pushing the narrative.
I wouldn't be surprised if Phil is as gutted as we are. As he hailed Tango Gameworks as an important purchase. He has also done more to get Japan on board after previous management abandoned the region. Partnerships with Sega, Atlus. Descent support from Namco & healed rifts with Square Enix. All for nothing now!!!

@DennisReynolds The sad thing it's that such a normal thing for Microsoft to do now. Have good thing, praise good thing, stop good thing shortly after praising it.

This is so totally over the Line it's not even funny!!! Xbox is digging a hole so deep they will never climb out of it!

beyond insane. closing the dev of one of last years most highly acclaimed and accoladed games makes no sense. they don't belong in the video game business.
end of discussion.

And yet whoever made Starfield stays open

So the June showcase is gonna be....Look at all these great titles! Coming to Playstation!

Disappointing. Well the showcase better be worth it. Whatever they have planned and I still likely won't care about many of them if big obvious games, updates to games and maybe 1 title that's actually exciting hopefully or none at all.

ABK back compat I doubt will happen and even then that's not enough compared to current gen GOOD titles. But well I'll stick to old Xbox games then. Sure it's not supporting the studios but like they want to support them and support studios I don't want to anyways.

Japanese presence from Microsoft/Bethesda gone (only focus on western region sales, and many western players into Japanese games not just the Japanese getting screw over, aka like I am doing with any OG Xbox or 360 games western or Japanese/Korean I missed out on like Kingdom Under Fire series).

Something creative, gone. Redfall was unfortunate for Arkane Austin but Tango. Just no. Couldn't wait till the Switch port of Hi Fi Rush or whatever else Tango had planned that wasn't far enough along yet if they weren't doing the porting but another studio instead which makes sense.

I can understand Xbox fans disappointment because to me too it is disappointing. Some of us want other projects to succeed, seek something different then what is offered and they give us the finger instead and 'hope' we give them money for their big projects only. Nah pass. Sigh.

Games like Hi Fi Rush ARE system sellers for me because they are different, because they stand out. Sure Prime 4/Bayonetta 3 were reasons I bought a Switch but most of it is other titles as well as Bayo 3. Not the big blockbuster games I don't have interest in most times unless a particular one comes along.

I'm so picky with third party small/AAs at this point as my system sellers or continued game purchases.

Most of the time I'm buying up retro games instead and playing them not current gen. Even if back compat I check the list but do I play a lot on it not really. If not back compat I'm playing them on my 360, for OG Xbox it is the limited titles on back compat lists for both 360/Xbox One & Series.

Well I'll keep buying up 360 left overs those studios don't care about I'm not buying their sequels on current/Xbox One anyway.

Out of all the closures, this one hurt the most. I’m still in surprise over this closure. Not a good move at all.

@Widey85 you’re exactly right Xbox can say goodbye to their dreams of increasing market share in Japan. The Japanese will always buy a Japanese product instead of a western one and closing studio their only Japanese studio is a stupid move.

closing tango was seriously just the worst thing they could've ever done in recent memory. arkane was still going but tango had nothing but a good name all over it.

this really feels like nadella has his name written all over it.

@Trotterwatch They did not force Arkane to make anything. The game was inherited with the Bethesda acquisition well into its development and was utter trash in every way. That team was destroyed by its management's shift towards a game that they had zero idea how to make and most core members had already left during its messy development. The studio was just a husk waiting to get buried.

However, closing Tango is bs. That studio had massive potential to deliver future hits. Hard to say what they had cooking after HiFi though. It's possible they didn't have any especially intriguing projects lined up when they got the axe. We'll may never know.

@munstahunta That is because everyone expects big blockbuster hits and graphics in a timely manner. Previous console generations had the big titles but many mid and low tier titles that broke even. Expectations of consumers and the bean counters is the blame for the game industry today. But the latter is more to blame I admit.

This is the only studio worth being upset about closing. The other ones don't really matter.

Just constant negative news with Xbox doubt I’ll buy there next console it’s always doom and gloom

I don't understand why they wouldn't sell Tango instead of shutting it down? Surely they'd fetch a fine price given their pedigree and recent acclaim for HFR?

One of the worst parts....

WHERE'S PHIL?! has he had anything to say or does he plan to hide until his nothing-burger of a corporate speech is ready? How their hearts and prayers go out to the people who lost their jobs? How "grateful" he is for their hard work? How "difficult decisions " have to be made in order to make xbox the blahblahblah bullflop?

Where. Is. Phil?

Maybe somewhere cleaning out HIS desk?

PlayStation fans aren't too happy, either, even though future games coming to it were questionable.

Welcome to the world of corporate greed and monopolies.