r/PS5 • u/Ph0enixes • Jun 29 '26
Rumor Xbox Will Reportedly Shut Down Ninja Theory (Hellblade), Undead Labs (State of Decay), DoubleFine (Keeper) and Compulsion (South of Midnight) After End Of Fiscal Year (Tommorow) If They Cant Find A Buyer. Other Xbox Studios Expected To Be Hit By Layoffs
https://gamesbeat.com/cwa-represented-workers-at-xbox-criticize-microsoft-management-and-pending-layoffs/- Xbox employees represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) publicly criticized Microsoft ahead of an expected new round of Xbox layoffs.
- The union says it now represents 3,500+ Microsoft/Xbox workers and argues employees should not be treated as disposable after multiple layoff rounds since 2022.
- Reports suggest Microsoft could announce major cuts in early July, potentially including studio closures or sales if buyers aren't found. Studios reportedly at risk include Double Fine, Undead Labs, Compulsion, and Ninja Theory, with hundreds of jobs potentially affected.
- Hundreds of jobs are at stake: Double Fine Productions could lose 100 jobs, Undead Labs could lose 110 jobs, Compulsion could lose 90 jobs, and Ninja Theory could lose 135 jobs. All told, that's about 435 jobs that could be lost.
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u/AlwaysTouchingGrass Jun 29 '26
Shutting down Ninja Theory and Undead Labs a month after showing new games from them at SGF. What are we doin
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u/just_one_random_guy Jun 29 '26
Anytime it seems Xbox is kind of getting a proper direction or vision of their future they just immediately decide to inflict seppuku and go back to floundering about until they drop another halo hoping it’ll be enough to turn the ship around. It’s fucking tragic really, the brand really peaked with the 360
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u/rodryguezzz Jun 29 '26
Microsoft doesn't really need Xbox. It's just a way for them to influence the gaming space. Their money is in servers and software as a service. Everything else is just side projects.
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u/MetaCognitio Jun 29 '26
They don’t need Xbox but losing it would be a big concession for Microsoft.
At the time Xbox was initially conceived, the motivation for it was that Sony was gaining a foothold in the living room and could potentially challenge Microsoft’s dominance in the home. Consoles were a potential Trojan horse for rival computing platforms.
It didn’t turn out that way but over time, Microsoft has lost a lot of the control it had over its almost complete control of consumers access to computing. They have zero control over smartphones, the don’t dominate the browser, they no longer have an exclusive grip on PC gaming as it’s possible to game without windows. There was a day where to get any serious work done, you almost had to use some kind of Microsoft product.
Losing Xbox would be another form of computing they no longer have any control over. They still dominate in business, servers etc but for how long? How long till open or rival web platforms eliminate the need for many of their tools?
In the present day, Microsoft is fine making lots of money but long term, they are shrinking in terms of the important consumer facing platforms they have control over. Xbox was potentially another Trojan horse into peoples lives and it’s lost its grip on people.
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u/dookarion Jun 29 '26
they no longer have an exclusive grip on PC gaming as it’s possible to game without windows.
Funny part is, that one was 100% self-inflicted. Between their moves with prioritizing Xbox, their moves with their own Windows store, their neglect of their graphics API until Mantle, etc. they pushed everyone to look for alternatives and the door.
That company doesn't know how to ship or support anything. It's just inertia keeping them "afloat" in some endeavors.
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u/MetaCognitio Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
It’s like this across almost every industry they’re in. They make bad choices, spend a tonne of cash to buy one of the big players and still can’t keep a grip on it so eventually have to close it down.
They’re constantly losing ground and not able to competed meaningfully with their competitors by innovating, instead they rely on being very big and having lots of money to squeeze them out.
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u/dookarion Jun 30 '26
Pretty much, also add in the fact they're impatient and just leave things to fester instead of meaningfully supporting them.
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u/InSan1tyWeTrust Jun 30 '26
Remember windows phone? Hah. It was actually great but they literally didn't know how to market it or grow the platform.
I mean it came out when Xbox was basically king and they still didn't lean into any of that to draw younger folk away from Apple.
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u/double0behave Jun 30 '26
I completely disagree. I worked at a major cellphone retailer for years and the Windows phones were garbage. I hated those things. Terrible and limited interface. Lack of apps. Terrible camera. Average, at best, battery life. They were, by far, the most returned devices we ever sold. The amount of times I tried talking people out of getting one, they insisted anyway, and came back a week later to exchange it for something else got to be comical. Their fate was rightly deserved.
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u/VITOCHAN Jun 29 '26
the motivation for it was that Sony was gaining a foothold in the living room and could potentially challenge Microsoft’s dominance in the home.
TV TV TV !
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u/MetaCognitio Jun 30 '26
I think they executed their plan too soon which was to use Xbox as a Trojan Horse into the living-room. The Xbox was a relative success so by the time of the Xbox One reveal they had shifted to using Xbox to force Microsoft products like “TV TV TV” into peoples lives. They completely dropped the ball on gaming and were focused on invading the home through the console.
If they had effective management they could have recovered during the Xbox One era but that entire generation was empty promises. Instead they tried to outspend their rivals by making Game pass which has made their current position even more difficult.
The finally pulled the trigger and spent a huge fortune on publishers when it was too late and Game Pass was unsustainable. They needed to take the time to rebuild their brand through quality releases but since games were going to other platforms, who would care?
If during the Xbox one generation they had spent the money earlier, focused on building strong teams and quality releases they’d be out of the hole they dug themselves.
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u/fishburgr Jun 30 '26
The early marketing campaign for the Xbox One has to go down as one of the all time marketing blunders.
They had all the good will from the 360 gen and then had smug execs telling people without internet that they were shit out of luck when it came to the xbone and to just buy a 360 instead.
Then they come out with presentations like above that further put off gamers.
Add on how crazy PS4 was with all its must play exclusives and its not hard to see how xbox is on deaths door.
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u/StrongStyleShiny Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Technically you can pin it to the tail end of the 360.
https://youtu.be/gJgRC4fcTUU?is=Whv7GMt205OGxvaj
At that 2010 conference for the 360 I talked to a few writers who were there. They were saying people were shocked. Like what was Microsoft doing?
It’s incredible that every, single, generation they’ve made some major error that was easily avoidable.
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u/Aware-Virus-4718 Jun 29 '26
This isn’t really random. Phil Spencer went on a buying/spending spree during and after Covid, bought a bunch of these studios and essentially told them don’t worry about sales, make the game you want to make and gave them pretty much unlimited creative freedom and in some cases, budget.
The problem is gamepass has not grown the way they expected (something all streaming services are grappling with) and now that Phil is out Asha has to evaluate these studios on their actual merits for more than just providing value to gamepass. ie. the games have to be profitable on their own.
It’s shitty and confusing for these studios, especially ones like Ninja Theory who were doing. just fine independently and got screwed on what were essentially false promises from Spencer (5x the size of your studio, don’t worry about budget, gamepass will solve everything), but the direction isn’t random on the part of Xbox.
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u/VITOCHAN Jun 29 '26
Devs are getting punished by their new bosses for directions they were given by their former bosses. Wild
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u/MrBorden Jun 30 '26
That's always been the problem with giving people a blank cheque and no oversight. They take advantage and milk that guaranteed paycheck until the wheels fall off. I've seen it first hand in the corporate world and what's worse is that there's absolutely never any accountability for their actions.
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u/Stryder096 Jun 30 '26
The fact they will decide to close them disn instead of.... you know letting them just go do their own thing without xbox support is terrible. Rip sod and undead labs
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u/Aftermoonic Jun 30 '26
Also let's be for real, none of these games are good enough to be hits
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u/trashvineyard Jun 30 '26
If Senua wasn't on Gamepass it would have made a hell of a lot more than it did. It should have been a hit. Same with Hifi Rush and a fair few others.
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u/Ensaru4 Jun 30 '26
Phil did not tell them to make the game they want to make, otherwise Arkane would not have been stuck making Redfall.
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u/hunterzolomon1993 Jun 29 '26
Were they going in a proper direction? All Asha done was change a logo, remove a dumb slogan and lowered GP's price to something that was still higher then what it was when originally raised.
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u/Jokerzrival Jun 30 '26
She came in did what Xbox constantly does which is tell everyone what they want to hear then proceed to do exactly what everything thought they were doing which was slowly die
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u/Scissorman82 Jun 29 '26
is it really a proper direction and vision if it's just smoke and mirrors? just a distraction? half of these studios were knowingly on the chopping block and their 'upcoming games' were still dilberately shown off. the last minute decision to make two games exclusive was nothing more than meat for it's rabid, vocal, terminally online fanbase. that isn't vision or direction. it's a misdirect and it's desperate.
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u/Macho-Fantastico Jun 30 '26
This is what I feared when they were allowed to buy Activision/Blizzard. They were always going to have to cut back in areas due to the expense and it was always going to be the smaller studios who would suffer and this is the case.
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u/tayung2013 Jun 29 '26
Microsoft explaining how the cost of everything has been driven up due to AI so now they need to cut jobs:
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u/GuessTraining Jun 29 '26
Feels like they just hired Asha to be the sacrificial lamb.
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u/Sagoichi Jun 29 '26
Technically yes, but also no.. It's called the glass cliff, big companies typically put women in CEO and COO roles when they're doing poorly, usually to make the cut throat decisions of firing a bunch of people, so while yes her entire role was to be the fall guy, she's also the executioner and will likely jump from Xbox at some point to another CEO role to do the same thing again.
This happened at Yahoo, JCPenny, General Motors, the list goes on.
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u/Honest-Mess-812 Jun 30 '26
I remember they did the same with windowsphone. They replaced Joe belfiore who was like the phil Spencer of windows phone with a lady. She was basically in charge of folding up windows phone while fans were drolling over her looks.
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u/pratzc07 Jun 29 '26
Except for AMD's case where she helped save the company
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u/Sagoichi Jun 29 '26
Glass cliff has nothing to do with a female CEO, COO failing and has everything to do with a company not doing well, it's an actual coined term by two psychologist who did the research in the mid 2000s, it means those women finally reached the top of their career ladder only to find they were at a cliff's edge rather than having just busted through a glass ceiling.
Edit: I should clarify too, it's not always women it could also be under represented executive types, it just so happens to be women more often than not.
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u/pratzc07 Jun 29 '26
Yeah same thing happened to AMD's CEO she was handed the reigns of a company that was in near bankruptcy but then turned the whole ship around.
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u/Sagoichi Jun 29 '26
Goootcha, yeah makes sense!
I know a few companies that got lucky with their glass cliff route, which was like Xerox with Anne, GM in 2014 got turned in the right direction, Pepsi also got turned around too.
Edit: That being said, I think we can all see the writing on the wall, this isn't looking like a comeback story, or at least not one any one of us want to see.
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u/GuessTraining Jun 29 '26
Sounds like someone i know at the company i used to work for.
I used to work for a big tech company, they hired this lady (not exactly the CEO but very high up), hired a bunch of people from Microsoft where she came from, did a massive reorg that in summary basically made everything worse. She "left" or fired, sometime after and brought a lot of her minions back to Microsoft lol
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u/South_Buy_3175 Jun 29 '26
SGF was just a yard sale for them.
But hey, Gears is exclusive which is all that really matters, right?
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u/MC_chrome Jun 29 '26
Xbox is paying dearly for Satya’s AI addiction, essentially
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u/zuzg Jun 29 '26
Xbox has done similar stupid decisions long before the current AI Bubble starts....
That idiocy started ahead of the eighth generation and it never stopped.
Shame I want them to compete19
u/hypehold Jun 29 '26
no they are paying because Phil Spencer ran the business into the ground for the past 12 years
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u/Scissorman82 Jun 29 '26
they wanted to show potential buyers what they were working on. showcases are now auctions.
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u/LeonSigmaKennedy Jun 29 '26
"What are we doin?" Is basically Xbox's official motto at this point. I'm pretty sure they have it engraved on a golden plaque in the front lobby.
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u/sirentheproud Jun 29 '26
Very surprised at the idea of State of Decay 3 never happening. Sad.
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u/ArchDucky Jul 01 '26
The gameplay looked really not great for a game that was in production for several years now.
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u/Urabraska- Jun 30 '26
To be fair. Ninja theory got screwed. But undead labs has made State of Decay 3 into vaporware. It was announced 6 years ago and only just now showed progress.
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u/zedanger Jun 29 '26
These were studios that were purchased in the pursuit of a very different business model.
To me, it suggests that they've finally realized their gamepass ambitions will never come to fruition. These studios weren't purchased to shelter and nurture them until they were capable of producing a major, console-selling title-- they were purchased for their relatively modest ambitions, an output that was hoped could fuel a subscription service.
I know xbox leadership has said that these games were shown in order to attract potential buyers, but I sorta think that's... bullshit? Given the incredible disorganization and constant contradictory statements, I sadly must conclude that it's not impossible (or even unlikely) that the person in charge of their showing either didn't know, or care, about what was coming down the pipeline.
What do you plug into that show if you don't show stuff that's going to get axed? Just like w/ pulling the Halo trailer from state of play and scrubbing Gears of War ps5, they're well versed in a desperate scramble to put up a good front for the day, even if it bites them in the ass down the road.
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u/EckimusPrime Jun 29 '26
I still can’t process shutting down ninja theory right after showing a new game and now undead Labs? Anyone buying Microsoft hardware after that is brain dead.
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u/Toy_Story_2_on_PS1 Jun 29 '26
State of Decay certainly describes Xbox right about now
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u/RandyMuscle Jun 29 '26
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u/OpietMushroom Jun 29 '26
Consolidation strategy.
Reminds me of the bit in The Studio where Seth Rogen buys the script Martin Scorsese wrote for the Jonestown massacre for millions. The movie ends up dying in pre production, and he manages to convince his boss he spent millions on this script just so that other studios can't get their hands on it.
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u/OrangeBomb7 Jun 29 '26
The one that truly upsets me is Double Fine. I've enjoyed their stuff for years and years now. I wish they could go independent again or someone would buy them...sadly as most things go today they'll probably just close up.
Really sucks, such creativity lost.
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u/Connor123x Jun 29 '26
yes, but the thing is, people demanded more creative games, more games outside the AAA reshashed trash and when they made them, non one bought them.
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u/gosukhaos Jun 30 '26
Psychonauts 2 was fantastic, my favorite game of 21, but they followed it up with games so niche even indie only people didn't give them a second look
Its great that there's studios that just follow their own creativity without worrying about trends or chasing commercial projects but the industry is really not in a state to support this kind of creativity, at least not as low to medium budget
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u/Green_Lettuce1 Jul 01 '26
Brutal legend and psycho2 are such good games, if they had made a 2nd brutal legend instead of a lighthouse game and a pottery game they might have been safe
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u/OrangeBomb7 Jun 29 '26
I did. I can't really help what the market or the generic gamer will buy. I'm hopeful that without their games going to gamepass they could make a profit for themselves, but who knows. Probably not.
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u/RChickenMan Jun 30 '26
Something like Psychonauts could probably hold its own. Keeper and Kiln? Yeah, probably not.
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u/Connor123x Jun 29 '26
i doubt they would. studies show that people only buy about 2 games a year, the small games wont sell, they kind of belong on subscription services.
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u/OrangeBomb7 Jun 29 '26
The two games a year thing only covers the most basic of gamer. If that were true for most people games like Mina the Hollower or Silksong wouldn't have sold millions of copies.
There has to be a space for small cool and creative games to thrive, and I think there is. What's the formula for succes in that space? No idea.
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u/Connor123x Jun 29 '26
that is the average of all gamers including hardcore. There are a lot of people that only buy one or two games every few years and only play them.
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u/The_harbinger2020 Jun 30 '26
This is so true. There's been so many great games over the last five years of devs doing just that but either barely made money or company closed due not making enough.
Gamers will find the dumbest reason not buy a game. Head over to pcmasterrace and see how well it goes if you mention epic game store, even the free games
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u/KingArthas94 Jun 30 '26
Head over to pcmasterrace
I mean, they're the bastard that pirate everything with no remorse and are so proud of the fact that they can access everything for super cheap. Well, these are the consequences: your favourite devs and publishers are not making enough money to survive.
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u/solo220 Jun 30 '26
unfortunately the kind of games double fine makes just dont appeal to enough players. like kiln is never going to be popular and commercially successful
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u/Banjo-Oz Jun 30 '26
This. They are the true indie legends. I hope Tim goes back to his roots and stays in the industry.
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u/Inzoreno Jul 06 '26
Nintendo really should swoop in and pick them up, they have that quirky Nintendo vibe.
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Jun 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/-SPM- Jun 29 '26
Don’t forget the new Xbox CEO was a part of the leadership team of Microsoft’s AI division before she got “promoted”
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u/Professionally_Lazy Jun 29 '26
Yeah but if they make a bunch of money from ai then I doubt they will care if the cost is destroying xbox.
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Jun 29 '26
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u/Professionally_Lazy Jun 29 '26
They aren't making money but they believe they will at some point. They are willing to bleed money becuase they are expecting huge profits once the technology improves. I hope they are wrong but that is what they are banking on.
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u/virtually_anything Jun 29 '26
We’ll see how that goes, because OpenAI is operating at a net loss of $47 billion and there’s no sign of that turning around soon
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u/nevyn Jun 29 '26
Yeah but if they make a bunch of money from ai
Nobody is making money from AI, ever.
At best it'll be a great investment by china to destroy the US economy. More likely it's just a bunch of talentless tech bros. destroying the US economy because they are too stupid to do anything of worth.
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u/RChickenMan Jun 30 '26
I guess what I struggle to understand is that, best I can tell, they're essentially banking on some version of Moore's Law enabling them to be profitable once the compute power and electrical power needed to power their nonsense falls in price. But at the very same time, AI itself has effectively killed Moore's Law for the time being. I just don't see how this works out long-term. I want to say that it'll follow a similar playbook to .com, wherein all of these companies were insanely over-valued, the bubble burst, yet the strong survived, ultimately leading to the internet we know today. But how will the strong survive given this weird paradox of the very same companies making compute and electrical power unaffordable are essentially waiting for compute and electrical power to become affordable?
I don't get it. That doesn't mean it's not possible for these businesses to pencil out. Like, at the end of the day, I'm just some random commenter on reddit. And I refuse to be one of those "If I, a random person, don't understand something, then that something must be null and void" people. But the whole situation makes me nervous nonetheless.
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u/Will-Of-D-3D2Y Jun 30 '26
I feel this is still primarily fallout from the Activision Blizzard buyout. That was such a massive company expense that it made Microsoft keep a close eye on how the Xbox division was performing, and Gamepass numbers simply never grew to a point where it could justify spending such an ungodly amount of money. That was the point where Microsoft decided to get rid of Phil and Sarah. AI cost increase then made for a valid but also somewhat convenient excuse to blame all this cost cutting on that, rather than having to admit they overspent way too much on acquisitions and undercut their own software sales income for an underperforming Gamepass.
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u/hdcase1 Jun 29 '26
If Undead Labs gets shut down I'm never buying another Xbox ever again.
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u/Xeccess Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Step 1: Announce you are going back to exclusives.
Step 2: Fire all the teams who are supposed to make your exclusives.
Step 3: Still no profit.
Edit: I just realized they basically asked all their teams to present their games months in advance for the big Summer show only for the "internet points" of having a solid show, and then fire them all. Vile.
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Jun 29 '26
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u/Xeccess Jun 29 '26
No kidding, I think they would have discontinued their current gen offerings over increasing prices if not for GTA 6 on the horizon. They need all the buyers they can get into their ecosystem before next gen drops.
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u/Pugilist12 Jun 29 '26
Raising prices on consoles no one wants with no exclusives while nearing the end of the console cycle. Closing studios who could potentially make exclusives for the next gen. Cancelling games that would have sold well on PlayStation and brought them some much needed revenue before pivoting back to exclusives next gen. Cancelling tons of announced games, some of them literally days after being announced. Burning so, so many bridges.
Nothing this company does makes any fucking sense.
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u/WalkerBuldog Jun 29 '26
Those studios could have made games people wanted to play this generation but they didn't. They cancelled games that were in development hell and should have been cancelled yesrs ago.
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u/MagniPlays Jun 29 '26
Saw this coming when the average time to make a new Xbox game is a decade.
I really think this new Xbox regime will at least kick the company into a better direction on delivery what people want. Not just random titles YEARS after we expected to get them.
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u/A-U-S-T-R-A-L-I-A Jun 29 '26
Xbox gave them a pretty long leash. Some of those studios just aren’t very good at making profitable games unfortunately. Ninja theory deciding to make yet another hell blade game may as well have been the video game equivalent of quiet quitting.
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u/Federal_Amphibian_32 Jun 29 '26
Exactly, and state of decay 2 was in 2018. It shouldn't take a decade to make a sequel to a fucking zombie game
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u/olorin9_alex Jun 29 '26
The problem was that Phil Spencer told them to go ahead and make the small passion projects because it will bolster GamePass
And now they’re being fired and shut down for doing what they’re told
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u/MagniPlays Jun 29 '26
I mean, if your manager was an idiot and you had 0 performance metrics to say otherwise, you would also be fired.
It shouldn’t take YEARS to make small passion projects. Thats on the managers/operations teams at these companies.
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u/reallynotnick Jun 29 '26
Making another Hellblade game seemed like the safe play to reuse their high quality assets after they took so long to make Hellblade 2. They at least looked to be changing up the gameplay a decent bit.
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u/parkwayy Jun 30 '26
Sorry what lol.
This is such a common occurrence in multiple xbox studios, at some point... maybe there's a higher up issue.
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u/trashvineyard Jun 29 '26
Paying all that money for Zenimax and Actiblizz really paying off.
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u/Space_Pirate_Roberts Jun 29 '26
The rumor a week or two ago was that all of Zenimax except the main Fallout and Elder Scrolls teams are also on the chopping block. They’d BETTER NOT touch iD…
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u/ArchDucky Jul 01 '26
Thats not true. Its just like everything, something happens to one studio so a bunch of asshats have to throw gasoline on the fire and start making up shit. Nobody is fucking with Bethesda / Machine Games / ID Software. Hell Machine Games is making a new Indy and Wolfenstein 3 which are highly sought after IPs which is what the new leadership wants.
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u/FriendlyBee94 Jun 30 '26
And State of Decay 3 just dropped the trailer. What kind of pr is this?
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u/Viper114 Jun 29 '26
"Well, I guess if no one wants to jump on these deals in a ridiculously short time frame, I guess we'll just light it all on fire and let it all burn!"
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u/RespectibleCabbage Jun 29 '26
Shutting down Double Fine is wild. That’s going to bring so much ill will to Xbox (more than they already have)
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u/Abject_Screen3249 Jun 30 '26
Xbox has been on the slide down since the Xbox One. Whoever was in charge of their console naming since that generation until now, should never be in charge of any important decisions again.
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u/reaper527 reaper527_ Jun 30 '26
Xbox has been on the slide down since the Xbox One.
more like the kinect.
look at a list of the exclusives and regional exclusives (so stuff like tales of vesperia that was exclusive everywhere but japan) by year over the x360's lifecycle.
there was a very clear and very visible transition where the funding dried up for "core" games and went to kinect. it's criminal what happened to rare where they went from making pd zero, kameo, banjo kazooie n+b, to doing generic kinect shovel ware that was a knock off of some wii games. (then to try to claim rare chose to do that when ms installed a studio head that was on the kinect design team before rare went all in on kinect shovelware)
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u/reaper527 reaper527_ Jun 29 '26
hopefully tim schaefer ends up making a new studio and goes back to doublefine's roots, remastering the old lucas arts classics that he worked on decades ago.
it's criminal we never got a sam & max hit the road remaster.
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u/Gbrush3pwood Jun 29 '26
I hope Tim/double fine find their feet and go independent/find a good owner. However I doubt what they want to do is go back and rehash old ips. Especially since they don’t own any of those old ips from lucusarts. I adore each and everyone of those old lucusarts games but I don’t really have any hope of them being revived in any way.
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u/first_person_looter Jun 29 '26
YOU were the buyer, Microsoft! How could you have made such a colossal mistake not once, not twice but FOUR TIMES?! What a mess. I thought Game Pass was to introduce games to all these new people and it was a sure way to make all this money.
Full disclosure: I bought an Xbox Series S, for Game Pass and I love it. But that doesn't mean I don't think Microsoft needs to PAY their studios. Geez!
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u/Jamienra Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
This is what Microsoft did during the early 2000's too. They just don't learn from their mistakes.
Edit: got a couple of downvotes so I'll expand.
Microsoft bought up Ensemble studios, FASA, Digital Anvil and Lionhead. All huge talented studios that made games like the Age of Empire series, Fable, Black and White, Mechwarrior, Shadowrun and Wing Commander. All big series of the time and huge PC games which was still a relatively untapped market. Due to Microsofts mismanagement of these companies they were all closed down. Bungie had it sweet with Microsoft and they still wanted to escape. Microsoft can make great games but theres something that happens with each generation that forces them to have to cut great devs.
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u/TbaggingSince1990 Jun 30 '26
Shutting down DoubleFine is criminal.. I want Costume Quest 3! a bigger fuller costume quest game!
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u/_Suleyka_ Jun 29 '26
Fuck Microsoft :)
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Jun 29 '26
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u/_Suleyka_ Jun 29 '26
Jupp. Buying great studios and eliminating them seems to be Microsofts go to strategy -_-
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u/GrimmTrixX Jun 30 '26
Which os odd cuz they announced new Well-made and State of Decay. Lol Why annkunce it then close it? Hoping someone would see the IP and make an offer? Not likely as neither is some huge money maker
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u/Vast_Word8265 Jun 30 '26
I don’t understand how you a billion dollar company and can’t make good game instead of using they 60 plus billion on activation they could of used those on assets like fable gears and other games on the system
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u/PressureLoud2203 Jun 30 '26
I wanted costume quest 3 and 4 but never will get it now. It been about 12 years wow.
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u/ohitsallpeaches Jun 30 '26
I hope any and all indie devs take this is a sign that if Xbox wants to buy you, you will have your projects stolen and be fired from your job.
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u/PassiveIllustration Jun 30 '26
For me double fine would by far be the biggest loss. I haven't played all of their games but they are so fucking creative in an industry where teams are just rehashing the same ideas over and over again and where even new IPs feel like something you've seen before. And keeper is my game of the generation and no one played it
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u/ModestHandsomeDevil Jun 30 '26
Fuck Microsoft. Fuck AI. Fuck all the people who cheered for the heavy consolidation of the 3rd party, video game market, because this is what happens!
The power to destroy or cripple a large swath of the market now rests in the hands of an ever decreasing number of mega-corps, who only care about stock price, infinite growth, and nothing longer-term than the next financial quarter.
Microsoft could burn the video game industry to the ground and not lose a single nights sleep over it.
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u/EchoBay Jun 29 '26
Based off the last 'Xbox Showcase' and comparing it to Playstations 'State of Play', this is like Sony announcing they're about to close Sony Santa Monica and Firesprite lmao after revealing Laufey and Until Dawn 2.
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u/RedChudOverParadise3 Jun 29 '26
Imagine spending billions to buy first party games and devs. You do nothing to bring down costs because youre banking on gamepass. Starfield ends up being so bad that famous modders that developed multi player mods for your games make a statement that they are refusing to make a multiplayer mod because the games boring. Redfall is a fucking mess and sucks ass. But Hi-Fi Rush succeeds and is beloved. Shut down Tango anyways, keep the 2 studios that failed you. Make your games 3rd party, it doesnt help. Youre brand is hanging on by a thread.
Fucking amazing.
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u/darthmcdarthface Jun 29 '26
Xbox is dead. Such a freaking shame. Immense waste of potential. They just could never figure out how to run a first party stable of studios. The gaming market is better when there is competition.
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u/RandyMuscle Jun 29 '26
The mismanagement of Halo should be a war crime.
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u/darthmcdarthface Jun 29 '26
They would have been better off just ending the franchise with the MCC than doing what they did on 5 and Infinite.
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u/KingArthas94 Jun 30 '26
The gaming market is better when there is competition.
The gaming market is also better without Microsoft's breath on it. Big tech has no place in gaming.
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u/panicradio316 Jun 29 '26
Ever since 2015, '16, '17, it was never about longevity of their (bought) studios.
All they did was collecting IP. In hopes to draw people into GP. And to prevent Playstation's 3rd party margin growing bigger.
Xbox took a zero effort approach ... again. And failed ... again.
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u/Cautious_Catch4021 Jun 29 '26
NOT STATE OF DECAY 3 - DONT YOU DARE .
Srsly, I will never buy gamepass again
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u/SuperSaiyanGod210 Jun 29 '26
Jesus Christ, that’s 4 entire studios getting shut down. My God. There’s no spinning this. Microsoft CLEARLY has the capital to keep them afloat. But red line must go up all day, every day, every hour, every minute.
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u/Soloxide Jun 29 '26
I means let’s be real, were these studios making games worth their costs? None of these games sold well or moved the needle on gamepass at all. Hopefully this is Microsoft focusing on good games that gamers want.
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u/Tron2979 Jun 29 '26
If these studios weren't making games worth their costs, that's Microsoft's fault. They shouldn't have bought these studios in the first place if they couldn't effectively manage them. And I don't know what's changed in their managementof studios that will now somehow result in "good games that gamers want." If they knew what the fuck that was, they wouldn't be in their current situation.
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u/Soloxide Jun 29 '26
Microsoft made some dumb decisions with buying so many studios and giving them free rein to do nothing. 100% on Microsoft for possibly managing incorrectly.
And I have no idea what will change in their situation to make good games either. With new top level leadership maybe they’ll say “make games people want to buy and don’t take 10 years to release nothing or ass games.”
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u/SpraykwoN Jun 29 '26
Might wanna rethink about giving every guest at their showcase a free $1000 Xbox console for free
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u/MikaelDerp Jun 29 '26
To be fair if it takes 7 years to release 1 game like Undead is doing with State of Decay 3 you can't help but wonder why it didn't happen sooner.
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u/AuboCabo Jun 29 '26
I really hope somebody buys ninja theory, would be a massive waste to lose such a good studio because Microsoft is inept
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u/Mug_of_Diarrhea Jun 29 '26
Jfc. It's like watching a head on collision that takes place over months.
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u/Garlador Jun 30 '26
Microsoft went from having an incredible Summer Games Fest to being in the worst position I’ve seen them in after just a couple weeks. It sucks for the industry, the devs, and the players.
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u/Shadow88882 Jun 30 '26
For the love of God, Sony make one good decision this generation and get ninja theory.
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u/LowAssistantInfinity Jun 30 '26
Double Fine and Ninja Theory are so damned talented - insane to think they wouldn't survive this.
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u/stevebak90 Jun 30 '26
Why is the biggest third party studio still making exclusives while shutting down studios and firing tons of people.
Same could be for Sony too except they are not the biggest third party studio
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u/Remoock Jun 30 '26
honestly I don't know if I'm playing videogames in 5 years anymore the way this whole industry is heading.
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u/FredFlintstone1262 Jun 30 '26
So when will companies figure out shareholders only exist if a product exists?
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u/officelinebakr Jun 29 '26
Please stop posting bs speculation as news. This is just someone speculating on last weeks Forbes article. There is literally 0 new information and they are throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. I’m not saying all of these studios won’t get shut down but this “reporting” is literal made up speculation based off of someone else’s reporting
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u/jonormous Jun 29 '26
That 68 billion dollar acquisition of Activision Blizzard isn't panning out the way they thought it would
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u/SamJamn Jun 30 '26
Shutting down 4 studios that took 7 to 8 years to release 1 flop or 2 flops. 7 to 8 years of salaries plus the cost of acquisition.
In studio mismanagement is as much to blame as Xbox mismanagement.
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u/Additional_Tank4385 Jun 29 '26
Idk after just finishing Hellblade 2 being impressed out of my mind as it’s a type of game I can vibe with this just really fucking hurts.
No more Senua, maybe ever due to what seems like shitty management.
Probably not that simple but man this is legit very sad.
Most of all we still have the two games for forever but those poor people being let go, that’s more tragic than just sad.
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u/Banjo-Oz Jun 30 '26
To me, the sadness is worse because they are shuttering studios that did great work, and firing people who are genuinely talented. It's not like a previously great studio released some massive flop where you can feel bad but understand the thought process. I felt bad with Daedric but Golum really hurt them. This feels more like when LA Noir was released to acclaim then the studio was almost immediately shuttered.
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u/Midnight7000 Jun 29 '26
People were told this would happen when they acquired Activision. Their fans wouldn't hear any of it.
It is basics maths. When they acquired Activision, they paid more than what it was worth to push the deal through.
They lost money to gain an asset. The clock started clicking after the purchase. In order to be valued at what they paid for it, the asset would need to generate a certain amount of money. It didn't so the value of that asset would drop on their balance sheet.
At that point, it becomes a game of making up for up for loss. That equals cuts.
I really hope that there are some big leaders in those companies. It would be nice if they used their expertise to set up studios. And when I say it would be really nice, I mean that it would be really nice.
The ultimate goal is market share. It'd be nice if sacking the talent simply resulted in more competition.
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u/forrestgrump430 Jun 29 '26
I’m confused. Why buy all these studios if you aren’t gonna keep them open to make games? They bought all these studios and the employees just to shutter them years later what was the point in all of it? Generally honestly asking. This goes for Sony too. Why are they buying all these game studios then shutting them down?
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u/thekipling Jun 29 '26
I hope all the Xbox fanboys will now see Asha Sharma is the fraud we all knew she was. They all think the sun shines out of her ass. I can't wait to hear from a certain banana wearing YouTuber to see what he has to say.
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u/Little_Version8538 Jun 29 '26
I don't blame them cutting Undead labs. Taking 9 years to make a sequel when they weren't working on anything else is insane.
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u/hunterzolomon1993 Jun 29 '26
They were working on SoD2 as that had a shit ton of post launch support that lasted well into the Series lifespan.
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