What Does the End of Tango Gameworks Mean for Game Pass?

ign.com:

Just over a year ago, Tango Gameworks and Xbox released Hi-Fi Rush, a musical delight that seemed to come out of nowhere. Hi-Fi Rush received almost universal acclaim – it was wholly unique, polished, and tightly paced. It was also like nothing developer Tango Gameworks had ever made before, and seemingly made explicitly for Xbox Game Pass. It followed closely in the footsteps of games like Psychonauts 2 and Pentiment, neither of which match the profile of the big, blockbuster AAAs that move millions upon millions of copies, and yet they were beloved anyway. Taken as a whole, they lent credibility and prestige to Xbox Game Pass as an accessible library of well-supported, beautifully crafted art.

Now, just over a year later, Xbox has decreed the award-winning studio behind Hi-Fi Rush no longer necessary to its business. Its work does not consist of “high-impact titles” that Xbox is prioritizing. It is not among “the opportunities best-positioned for success,” as Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty put it. Tango, along with Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog Studios, and hundreds of workers are being cast aside.

We’ve written about the devastating impact such mass layoffs continue to have on individuals within the games industry. We’ve also discussed some of the internal strife over Xbox’s identity. Now, brand new questions have emerged following Xbox’s latest shutdowns, few of them more pressing than what the future holds for Xbox Game Pass after the demise of one of its star developers.

Xbox Game Pass has always been intrinsically tied to Xbox CEO Phil Spencer. Upon taking over Xbox from his predecessor Don Mattrick, one of Spencer’s earliest moves was to bring the brand back to a pure gaming focus after an unpopular pivot to entertainment. But he didn’t stop there. After a 2014 acquisition of Minecraft developer Mojang saw wild success, Spencer saw a pathway to linking his gaming growth ambitions with that of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s broader plans for cloud technology.

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