Xbox fans left baffled as boss calls for ‘prestige’ games after closing some of his best studios

XBOX and PlayStation seem to have been in a race to the bottom recently, with both companies making big mistakes that angered fans.

First, PlayStation wanted Helldivers 2 players to create PSN accounts following its success, despite the service not being available in around 120 countries.

There was an obvious backlash, and Steam developer Valve began refunding all Helldivers 2 owners, no matter how many hours they had played.

Fortunately, this caused PlayStation to back down on its consumer-unfriendly demand, although the damage to its reputation had already been done.

PlayStation didn’t have to worry about losing goodwill, as Xbox came back strong this week with an announcement that devastated the industry.

Xbox has closed four studios, including Dishonored’s Arkane Austin and Hi-Fi Rush’s Tango Gameworks, with the latter game being one of Xbox’s most successful titles last year.

Hi-Fi Rush received a whopping 90 rating on review aggregate site Metacritic, and also won five awards last year, including Best Audio Design at The Game Awards and Best Animation at the BAFTAs.

It was nominated for a further 19 awards, including Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards.

To say that Hi-Fi Rush was a huge success is an understatement. Its hugely successful shadow release changed the way games have been marketed and released ever since and possibly forever.

However, it appears that this success wasn’t enough to save the developer, even as it was releasing a sequel, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The same report suggests that Arkane Austin was releasing an immersive sim similar to its previous works like Dishonored, which is even more decorated than Hi-Fi Rush, winning the BAFTA for Best Game.

Fans were perplexed by the decision to close these two studios that have incredible games to offer, especially when Xbox has struggled with the quality of its first-party games.

However, new comments from Xbox Games Studios head Matt Booty have left Xbox fans even more surprised.

According to a report from On the edgein internal messages, Booty said: “We need smaller games that give us prestige and prizes.”

It seems confusing to many that Booty would make comments like this the day after the company fired the developers who were making these games.

While PlayStation and Xbox are upsetting fans, at least Nintendo has some good news for the console community.

Amid all the turmoil, Nintendo announced the Switch 2, revealing that more details would be coming over the next nine months.

All the latest Xbox reviews from The Sun

Get the lowdown on the latest Xbox releases from our expert reviewers.

For PS5 and Nintendo Switch, check out our full game reviews section.