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The story
PlatinumGames’ Hideki Kamiya sparked discussion on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (Geha) board after saying that when it comes to Microsoft’s approach to hiring talent, “it’s not as simple as gathering talented people and expecting a fun game to come out of it.” While Microsoft has pushed forward with major acquisitions like Activision Blizzard in recent years, it has also seen a wave of Xbox studio closures and layoffs, and the thread filled up with comments weighing the validity of Kamiya’s remark by pointing to things like 343 Industries’ struggles with Halo and staff cuts at id Software. At the same time, plenty of posters pointed out that Kamiya himself never managed to finish Scalebound, casting doubt on how much weight his comment should carry.
What people said
Sweet Baby◯: "Beats me~ (staring into the distance)"
He's making Okami 2 right now, isn't he?
Xbox's new CEO is way younger than this guy and doing just fine.
What do you even mean by "playing the wild maverick"?
It starts with "just poach Miyamoto and it'll all work out" thinking — and it nails exactly what's broken about Microsoft, who are still killing off titles to this day.
"Too many captains steer the ship up a mountain" (a Japanese proverb: too many cooks spoil the broth)…
Even if you made a variety show with Sanma Akashiya, Emiko Uenuma, and Ichiro Furutachi all as main MCs, it'd fail like 99% of the time.
If it doesn't sell, he's out.
If it sells, it becomes a series.
The only one actually living out the "just need that one guy" thing for real is probably Sakurai (Masahiro Sakurai, Smash Bros creator).
Miyazaki (Hidetaka Miyazaki, FromSoftware) seems like he could actually pull that off, though.
The gaming-forum crowd is trashing him, but this take is correct.
Spending big money to gather talented staff doesn't guarantee you get a fun game out of it.
Happens all the time in anime too — like the Grendizer reboot, which pulled together top talent using Saudi money.
We're not talking about anime here.
That's exactly why you need to spend the money, idiot.
But in reality, Microsoft — who's supposed to have all the money — is at the bottom of the heap.
They sure spent plenty on the Activision Blizzard buyout, that's for sure.
Microsoft really does love its problem properties, huh, lol.
I took it as them trying to avoid a repeat of FF15, where the cutscene team ended up with nothing to do and just started making gourmet rice balls.
Moving them from directly under Microsoft's Xbox studios to under Activision instead — feels more like they're just dumping the responsibility onto Activision, if you ask me.
And Activision's in a rough spot too, what with COD on the decline.
Gutting a studio that makes games that good…
It becomes funding for Kojima's garbage games and Hollywood star cameos.
You don't even own an Xbox, do you.
Honestly, I think Japan's decline comes from more and more people making calls like that.
AI's just a tool.
As long as humans are the ones judging and evaluating what comes out of it, the principle that "people make games" doesn't change.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Microsoft has kept cutting costs even after its 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard, pushing ahead with the closure and consolidation of multiple Xbox studios. 343 Industries pulled in talent from across the industry to rebuild the Halo brand, but the series’ stagnation still hasn’t been resolved. The comparisons drawn in the thread stem from that backdrop. Kamiya himself ended his collaboration with Microsoft without ever finishing Scalebound, which is why the thread’s disagreement centered less on whether his statement was valid and more on “does he even have standing to say this, given his own track record.” The point that talent quality and organizational management are separate issues is one often raised within the industry — other developers, including Yoshiki Okamoto, have made similar remarks — and that’s context the article body alone doesn’t fully convey.
※This article is an excerpt and summary based on the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Hideki Kamiya: “Hey Microsoft… Gathering Talented People Doesn’t Automatically Make a Fun Game”.”
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