Reflection on the Xbox reset (Page 2)

Banjo- · 2026-10-05T00:41:09+00:00

There is a very interesting article I found (and Bing translated) that I wanted to share. It's worth reading because it's a reflection on the years of Spencer as the CEO of Xbox and the arrival and reset of Asha. 3DJuegos wrote: The easy thing is to criticize XBOX for the thousands of layoffs, the hard thing is to accept that Asha Sharma's plan (with its flaws) was inevitable. Asha Sharma has undertaken a major restructuring of the studios to try to clean up the accounts and achieve a healthy business. The change in the direction of Xbox occurred just 8 months ago, but time has not passed in vain. After several years where the decline of the brand seemed unstoppable, today there is a different atmosphere. It's still too early to venture how it may all end, but what no one can doubt is that things are moving. Decisions are being made and strategies are being proposed. All regime changes come with a new impetus that promises to change things. In many cases, it is an amendment to the whole of the previous one. After all, if changes of this magnitude occur, it is for a reason. If things worked well and the business was healthy, executives would remain in their posts. There are few entities more conservative than large corporations. If there is a change at the top, it is because a U-turn is needed, a pronounced change at all levels. Phil Spencer did it when he arrived and Asha Sharma does it now. But while the former was an expansion, the latter has to oversee a painful, but not unwarranted, contraction. For too long, Xbox's in-house studios have enjoyed an overly forgiving ecosystem. I didn't get to meet Phil Spencer in person, but his numerous interventions over the years lead me to conclude that he is a good person, a kind guy who wants to get along with everyone and who has infinite respect for creatives. He is a figure far removed from the archetype of the despotic executive that abounds in the management of large companies, and as such, he has always enjoyed exquisite treatment from the press and developers. But the uncomfortable truth is that this aura of a good person has taken its toll on him. During his reign, Xbox has invested more than anyone else, not only in acquisitions, but in financing endless projects with very disparate quality control. At the same time, he went all-in on a strategy that ultimately greatly devalued these same projects once they came to market. The concatenation of these factors and many others came to tighten the rope so much that his resignation became essential. Asha Sharma has arrived at an upside-down house. A house not with simple dampness in the walls, but with structural problems in the foundations, lead in the pipes, infested with rodents and cracks in the walls. A dreadful cash flow and assets in disuse, or at least with a return well below their possibilities. It is profoundly surprising how a person without exhaustive knowledge of the industry and the corporate arm she now leads has been able to diagnose with such precision the ills that afflict the division. But what is even more incredible is the sensitivity with which she has handled the situation, when she could have entered with Milei's chainsaw to the kitchen. Looking back, there are many decisions that Spencer made irresponsibly. And his friendly personality should not be an obstacle to making a fair judgment about them. I firmly believe that Spencer's big problem is the cognitive distortion in which he immersed an entire community, a halo of toxic positivity that led him to make misleading assertions or that were directly lies. The main one? That Xbox Game Pass was profitable, that it does not cannibalize the sales of the games offered there and that its catalog cannot disgust anything, accepting all kinds of experiences, even the most minority, the least economically viable. This cognitive distortion, beyond the user community, mainly affected its developers. Studios that were given a blank check to do what they wanted, without restrictions, without stress, without supervision or feedback of any kind. It was this policy of patronage that has led to eternal and disappointing developments. Hellblade 2 stuck more than 5 years in the kitchen to end up with a game clearly inferior to the first, which was developed without expectations and with hardly any budget. State of Decay 3 has been in existence for 8 years and no one is very clear about its state. South of Midnight is a decent title, but it doesn't make any sense that it ended up costing the barbarity that is being talked about. Double Fine showed everyone that it has the makings to make an outstanding game with Psychonauts 2, but then chose to dedicate itself to other tasks for the next five years. Tim Schaffer may shut us all up next year, but the studio's last two titles were made with their own creative satisfaction in mind rather than a real audience. Even games that have a chance of being excellent like Clockwork Revolution or Fable handle unjustifiable figures. 7 years of development for the first, 10 for the second, a mini RPG of just 20 hours in length. In which head does it fit? Not all of Sharma's decisions I consider to be correct. The evisceration of a studio that has always met the deadlines and quality required as Id Software is tragic. Taking out the checkbook to fund Kojima's latest extravaganza is a very risky move that can go very well or very badly, but one that has undoubtedly deeply many of the corporation's employees. And the very strange return to exclusivity of certain titles, just when they need all the possibilities in the world to achieve profitability, seems to me an unjustified punishment. But what is clear is that it could not continue like this, and that the bull had to be taken by the horns. The way in which they have acted, facilitating independence instead of closing the studios without consideration, reveals a consideration that the competition, when it has been in a similar situation (see the case of BluePoint), has not had. And it is fair to applaud them for this. The stark reality of the creative industries is that without a healthy business you can't create art on this scale. We can debate ad nauseam about executive compensation or the misuse of resources, but games have to be profitable. It is normal that from time to time a project fails, that it does not find its audience due to a confluence of factors unrelated to it. But it cannot be that the vast majority, one after the other, falls short of expectations, both commercial and quality. There is no business that can withstand that. And Spencer's idea that Microsoft could afford to lose money indefinitely for the love of art was very dangerous. Not only because it was obviously a lie, but because it convinced many unwary people on both sides of the industry. Bringing up the Manchester City scandal, I believe in the need for financial fair play in the entertainment industry as well. Losing billions to try to suffocate the competitor is despicable. It's not what ended up happening here, but it's clear that at some point during the Spencer stage it was the prevailing idea. Spoiler: it ends badly. It facilitates a cognitive distortion where projects do not have to make sense, objectives, a specific audience or a reason for being. The consolidation that Sharma has ordered may raise many suspicions, but it seeks to put an end to the farmhouses and put everyone rowing in a single direction. It's what makes sense. And that doesn't mean it doesn't taste bad. Personally, I think it's a tragedy that Obsidian is subordinated to Bethesda, but they had the opportunity to hit the table with their last two RPGs and it wasn't like that. In the reset they are going to pay the righteous for sinners, but we cannot forget how we got to this situation. If things had not gotten out of hand in such a way, perhaps there would be arguments to oppose it. But there are none. Something had to change.

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TeamAndromeda
3 hours ago

Banjo- wrote:

@TeamAndromeda (and @Pigrotto) Phil and his team did a lot of great things for Xbox, most importantly backwards compatibility and the hardware quality of the Xbox consoles, but his last years at Xbox were his worst, and he looked exhausted. He attended to the media while travelling the world and declaring in court during the long ABK acquisition. Even worse, he had to read and reply Jim Ryan's emails! Yes, I would love to earn the money he did, but he is a human being, after all. His expansion strategy was not well developed nor followed up properly. He also alienated Xbox fans with the platform-agnostic approach. The focus should be on consoles, Play Anywhere and Xbox on PC, not on PS5 and Cloud gaming on mobile phones.
Sarah didn't have any good ideas because she had no idea, and looked like a parrot reading a script. The biggest problem Xbox had was bleeding money despite massive revenue and, of course, the blank cheques and the hands-off strategy after acquiring many studios, with inconsistent first-party output and dragged development.

Like you said, Asha has made logical decisions. Some of us predicted a few, like merging the Forza studios. Obsidian working on Fallout again is brilliant, and Halo under Activision should be in better hands. I also think she was clever to make Mojang and King report to her directly. Let's hope that Rare makes something great with their IPs and not waste decades on projects with no gameplay like Everwild, now that Activision is their boss.

Asha and Mathews are also reducing unnecessary infrastructure and layers of management, cancelled Xbox Copilot, "This is an Xbox", requested console updates based on fan feedback and restored the brand identity with exclusives. They reduced the price of Game Pass by 25% and removed day-one Call of Duty. After disinvesting in not successful studios, I think it's a good idea to secure third-party projects like Physint. Searching balanced profitability is something she's doing pretty well, and adjusting Game Pass according to the number of subscribers and the price that they are willing to pay is a course correction built on the best things that Phil Spencer did.

And...

Sega is great! When I was a kid, I loved Sonic, still do, because the character looks cool, Tails is adorable, and their story is environment-friendly. I have my Sonic plushie, and I got the two available Panzer Dragoon games on Series X. 😁

I couldn't agree more, That ABK deal just took it out of Phil and he was never the same

I like what Asha is doing it's a lot like what SEGA had to do after the Saturn with getting its teams more focused and working together & merging a lot of the teams

Look at all that FPS talent you have in the Activision studios, it makes perfect sense to have them work on Halo. Just like it makes perfect sense to have Obsidian join with all that RPG talent in Bethesda
It also makes sense to merge the Turn 10 with Playground

There are all good moves & also like how Asha talks up the XBOX & no more trying to be nice to Sony & like you said he also corrected the price of Game Pass

I love SEGA grew up with their Arcade games and then the Master System & all their consoels latter

TeamAndromeda

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Topic: Reflection on the Xbox reset