Xbox is a disaster | Seaside

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Microsoft closed the Summer Game Fest with a bang. The company annual June exhibition they were full of people pleasing people: Hello, Gears of War, MythA good-looking Xbox, and some new surprises Man and Crazy Taxi game. It was the kind of event that harkened back to the heady days of E3, when the industry was in a healthy place and game shows were traditional events.

Three days after the demonstration, The new head of Xbox Asha Sharma warned of a “restructuring” at Microsoft’s gaming division, which would require “making tough decisions.” The weeks that followed were filled with reports of impending layoffs, studio closings, and game suspensions. Ninja Theory is said to be one of the studios on the chopping blockeven if they have it just unveiled a new game at SGF. If all of this happens, the Xbox will be a shell of what it once was.

After entering the console space nearly 25 years ago, Microsoft’s gaming division is at an all-time low. And the fallout from the disastrous election will be even worse in the coming weeks and months.

It wasn’t always like that. With the arrival of the original Xbox in 2001, Microsoft seemed poised to compete in the space, with all its hardware helping to play against the likes of Sony and Nintendo. Big decisions like Hello and the popularity of online gaming through Xbox Live helped solidify this for a while. But Microsoft messed up the launch of the Xbox One in 2013 with pushing non-playable content like TVand the signal did not start well. I am often confusing Xbox Series X / S generation, The company just fell behind.

There are many reasons for this, but arguably the worst was Microsoft’s very expensive push for subscriptions. On paper it made sense: Streaming services like Netflix were promoting the film and TV format, so maybe the same thing could happen to the game. Microsoft made a big bet on this uncertain future, spending billions of dollars to acquire studios and publishers in an attempt to create a huge Game Pass library that would attract subscribers.

And while Game Pass was initially popular, it grew, which meant Microsoft spent all of its money on a business that didn’t grow anywhere near as expected. (The service currently has about 30 million subscribers, while Microsoft hopes to hit 100 million by 2030.) This wrong play was also associated with “This is an Xbox” advertising campaign, which stated that the Xbox was not a single console but a Game Pass device, causing more confusion around the brand.

How bad are things? As head of product for Sharma and Xbox Matt Booty he wrote in a “reset” memo“With the exception of Activision Blizzard King, in the past five years, we have spent more than $20 billion on products, platforms, and hardware subsidies, but our annual revenue has decreased by about half a billion during that time. Going forward, this cannot continue.” Meanwhile, Activision’s partnership, a total of 68.7 billion dollars. The company spent all that money just to make it less clear what Xbox is.

Last February, there was a big shake-up in the Xbox segment. Former boss Phil Spencer, who oversees the brand through the Game Pass push and its expensive purchases, he retiredwhen Former president and COO Sarah Bond has left the company. Although he had no doubts about the exercise – his first role at Microsoft was as head of the CoreAI division – Sharma’s early days gave reason for optimism. He seemed ready to listen to the fans things like backward compatibility and exclusions, they ditched the unpopular Microsoft Gaming brand in favor of Xbox itselfand removed the brand from the controversial AI system. He also changed the strange and superficial, like refurbishing Xbox as XBOX.

But it’s clear that Xbox news goes much deeper than a simple name change can fix. Sharma took over a business that spent a lot of money and had little to show for it, and now the bill is due. What makes this even sadder is the list of games involved. My friend Tom Warren said it too that Microsoft has decided to close at least five studios, which includes the likes of Arkane – well known for its powerful. To be mocked series – by Double Fine Productions, the beloved team behind cult hits like Psychonautsand recently Keeper and Kiln. These are several teams full of talented people with some of the most popular games ever created. Now they are being dumped because of bad choices they never made.

But even within the apocalyptic setting, the Xbox news feels like it exists. Its hardware and subscription businesses are both collapsing, and now it’s hurting its game development teams as well. Tom also said that layoffs are expected to begin next week, and it’s still unclear how widespread they will be. Part of the uncertainty is that we don’t know what will happen to these studios; some may be hit with layoffs, some may be closed entirely, and some may be rebranded as independent organizations.

Whatever happens, the Xbox will look very different when it’s finished. And given the difficult situation of console gamesthis may not be the last update on Microsoft’s gaming division.