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Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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It's worth mentioning thought that Microsoft did step in after they bought Bethesda to get the game to even run at 30fps on their consoles.
However, I very much doubt that they would have tried to compromise the vision of the game after paying premium for the company. Keep in mind that Bethesda had delivered some beloved games in the past.
The mistake was to trust them. A mistake that it looks like they don't want to repeat with Blizzard judging by the huge amount of layoffs.
I don't buy that it was purely trust. If you're going to spend $69 billion you have to do your due diligence. You want to know what you're buying. I can imagine Bethesda not noticing they had a problem, they have been working on it for years and if you're so immersed into the development it can be hard to take a step back and take a good look at what you've made. But Microsoft was looking at it with a fresh pair of eyes. There are only 2 options: Either the Xbox division at Microsoft is completely incompetent or they knew they had a stinker and decided to sell it anyway.
They knew what they were buying - a beloved studio that has churned out tons of "classics" over the past couple decades, which has been able to sell and resell one of those classics (Skyrim) for like half a dozen different consoles.
There's actually a third option: Microsoft knew Starfield would sell, stinker or not, because Bethesda has a very loyal fanbase that will eat up anything they put out. It didn't matter to Microsoft whether the game was good or not, they knew they'd make their money either way.