Today, a day after Microsoft announced it would close four of its game studios, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty held a town hall meeting to discuss the department’s future goals. “We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards,” Booty told employees, according to internal comments shared with The edge.
For some listeners on the conference call, it was a surprising target: Microsoft had just shut down the Japanese developer Tango Gameworks, which published the small, prestigious hit title HiFi Rush.
HiFi Rush, which was a surprise release last year, was praised for its innovation and charm. The rhythm-action game featured music from The Black Keys and Nine Inch Nails and an art style reminiscent of the hyper-stylized games of the PS2 era. Just four months after its release HiFi Rush reached 3 million players. During the 2023-2024 awards season, the game won a Game Award, a DICE Award, a Game Developers Choice Award, and a BAFTA.
Although Microsoft didn’t announce sales figures, it was apparently happy with the game. When rumors swirled that it wasn’t doing well commercially, Aaron Greenberg, vice president of Xbox games marketing, wrote about it on X HiFi Rush “was a breakthrough for us and our players by all important standards and expectations.”
By all accounts, including Microsoft’s, Tango Gameworks was a hit and something completely different than anything it had done before. Before HiFi RushTango Gameworks was known exclusively for its survival horror games, including The evil in series and Ghostwire: Tokyo. In an interview with Kind of fun gamesXbox boss Phil Spencer spoke about how important it is for Xbox to give studios the opportunity to develop games outside of their comfort zone.
“I want to give teams the creative platform to advance their skills and ambitions,” said Spencer.
HiFi Rush also represented Microsoft’s commitment to bringing Japanese exclusives to the console. In an interview with Game observationa Japanese video game media company, praised Spencer HiFi Rush for its “high quality” and said that players could “expect” to see more AAA titles from Japan, reminiscent of the time when Lost Odyssey And Blue Dragon were both exclusive to the Xbox 360. “There are titles that we can’t announce yet,” said Spencer in an interview in September 2023, translated by VGC“We are currently developing new games in collaboration with Japanese companies.” It’s worth asking whether that’s still the plan after Tango closes.
At the moment small single player games like HiFi Rush have a huge moment. Balatroa poker roguelike created by a single developer sold over 1 million copies in its first month. Landlordsanother solo developer project in Early Access on Steam, has also sold over 1 million copies. Hades 2 was just released in Early Access and doubled its predecessor’s highest player count on Steam in a single day. Even the original Hades is climbing back up the Steam charts and breaking its record for the highest number of players of all time today, almost four years after its initial release.
We don’t know exactly what sales goals Microsoft had HiFi Rush, there is clearly a proven interest in these types of games and Tango Gameworks is perfectly positioned to deliver this. According to a report by BloombergTango Gameworks was in the process of presenting a sequel HiFi Rush before it was turned off.
With HiFi Rush, Tango Gameworks gave Microsoft exactly what Booty wanted: a small, creatively unique, highly acclaimed and award-winning game. So Booty’s comments suggest that Xbox executives didn’t realize what they had on their hands – or simply didn’t know how to exploit the success they sought.
We have reached out to Microsoft for comment.