Beyond just adding more games and IP to its expanding portfolio, Krafton had another reason for buying up Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks after it was closed by Xbox, and it wasn’t about the money, according to the CEO.
“We wanted to maintain their legacy,” says CEO Changhan Kim told Game Developer. “Although they did not have a big success in their games, we saw many creatives worth pursuing. That’s why we wanted to work with that organization.”
It was a delightful surprise to many when Krafton announced that it had purchased Tango for an undisclosed sum after Xbox had shut it down earlier this year. It was one of four studios closed by Microsoft in 2024, alongside Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog Studios, and support studio Roundhouse Games.
Preservation isn’t the sole reason Krafton purchased Tango. Hi-Fi Rush was well received by critics and players (Digital Trends ranked it in our favorite Xbox games of 2023), although since Xbox only releases player numbers, not sales, it’s unclear if it was financially successful. Kim seems to imply that the game didn’t sell well in the Game Developer interview.
“We cannot really translate the volume into money. It’s more about the significance,” he added. “The dollar amount was not really important to Microsoft.”
Regardless of actual sales, the publisher wanted access to the IP to make more games. It doesn’t own the IP to other Tango games, like The Evil Within, as that would be too complicated to negotiate with Microsoft, but it could work on one of the biggest surprise hits of the past couple of years — especially since a Bloomberg report said that Tango had been pitching a sequel. “Because Hi-Fi Rush fans really want to see sequels, we negotiated with Tango Gameworks’ parent company [Microsoft] to acquire that IP as well,” Kim said.
It’s also one of many recent moves the PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds publisher has made over the past few years. It acquired Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment in 2021 and The Ascent‘s Neon Giant in 2022. It also announced earlier this month a significant investment in Spoon Labs, a short-form K-drama startup.
“The addition of Tango Gameworks represents a strategic alignment with Krafton’s mission to push the boundaries of interactive entertainment,” a Krafton spokesperson said in a press release announcing the deal.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.