Two More Xbox Games Are Being Cancelled, Including Perfect Dark

They hyped that studio so much and in the end it was for nothing. Similar to everwild, can't say i am surprised, years and years of just nothing

F. That trailer last year looked awesome.

fffuuuu....

Man, the gameplay made such a splash, and Spencer was using it to promote the anniversary at the showcase.

Man at this rate Clockwork will be cancelled alongside ES6

It's a combination of leadership direction in the studio, social media pressure, and questionable and or misaligned talent capabilities for game development.

I just hope State of Decay 3 is OK, or I swear it's the end for me with these clowns.

Damn, Perfect Dark looked really good

Seriously?! Another cancellation?! This just keeps getting worse by the minute.

Damn. I said this would confuse me in the other thread given that it looked so good in the last trailer - but I bet it was still years and years away and just made to look good for footage.

Cant see them canning it if it was less than two years from shipping. If it did have years left on it, the overall cost just wouldn't have been justified.

Games cost a bomb to make. The longer a game takes to make, the more it has to sell to break profit - and this was in dev for a good while as is...

So far it just seems to be the teams that drag their heels and as harsh as it sounds, this should keep the safer teams on their toes.

The trailer made it look like it was coming along well, that's a damn shame

Well, that is slightly surprising and not great news since the game did look at least mildly promising. And yeah, that trailer made it look pretty far along. Really, after the 2024 showcase, I wouldn't have expected Outer Worlds 2 to get a release date and then this to get cancelled.

Serious question, why is Phil still in a job? He's the one who's overseen countless failures over the past decade and its not getting any better

I don't understand how Phil keeps his job. What other gaming company has this many games in development hell? The inability to get games over the finish line, the constant changing of the direction of the platform, doesn't it fall on Phil's desk? Xbox is truly on death's door...

So many projects have been cancelled and so many studios have been closed by the big publishers this generation. The closure of The Initiative, I can understand, and this is the first time I say something like this, because they have been arguing with each other and rebooting the game since 2018, plus they had nothing to show until, like I have said one hundred times, Crystal Dynamics came to their rescue, a team that funnily Square Enix got rid of and Microsoft did not acquire then. The Initiative was a mess, but they also missed a chance back then.

However, I can't believe that the game has been cancelled, because it looked - not just graphics but gameplay - and sounded great and at least part of the development staff (Crystal Dynamics and part of The Initiative) did a great job, so those deserve to keep their jobs, finish the project and we long-time fans that have been waiting so long deserve to play what is/was one of our most anticipated games.

It did make sense to reorganise the Xbox teams that were not doing fine, replacing staff if needed, but the completely hands-off approach and freedom that Microsoft grants only works with studios that are virtually flawless. You can see it when those were helping other teams and making their own great games, while others were roaming aimlessly, with one of them not even making a single game on their own.

You absolute son of a bitch - one of the best highlights from last year's showcase, now cancelled 😡....If the gaming industry continues like it is, we could be seeing another crash a la 1983 😔

This would funny if it wasn't so sad.

@fbnaulin

Sadly it's been rumoured that SoD 3 has been shelved for some time.

Ugh. The hits keep on coming. I hope those impacted land on their feet.

Doesn't look good😯

They showed us the game and gameplay last year just to cancel it... Ridiculous...

I swear Microsoft is so pathetic, the only studio they didn’t buy ended up being closed before shipping one game, plus that means the demo we saw on last year’s showcase was nothing more than vaporware.

Not totally surprised by the MMO cancellation considering they already own ESO and WoW. Not to mention the genre’s been slowly declining for a while.

Bring WoW to Next-Box and give it a 2nd life!

@fbnaulin I'm praying more for Clockwork Revolution. Kinda like with Perfect Dark at last years showcase, lots of gameplay & no release date.

Dam it gets more worse and sad for those.

I was hoping Perfect Dark wasn’t on the chopping block

Just how much development time and money has this all wasted.

If the studios were managed properly we could have had probably two amazing big AAA games out by now.

My jaw dropped. Why are Microsoft just so bad at managing the studios they bought? This is one of the reasons why everyone doesn’t trust them buying game studios and publishers because of how badly they tend to manage them, but its crazy how they even manage studios they establish themselves badly as well. And the fact they also cancelled two games at the same time is a double whammy…

Sucks since I was actually really interested in the PD reboot after that trailer from last year, and I was interested in seeing more of Everwild despite how long they took developing it. Those were the only two upcoming Xbox exclusives I wanted to try out. Stings knowing PD is once again a dormant IP that’s probably never going to make another comeback ever again after how disastrous development on the reboot apparently went…

Hoping that the people affected can land back on their feet as soon as possible, because the layoffs, combined with the cancelled games absolutely sucks.

@Kaloudz You don’t have to excuse them for everything, I see you’ve been trying to put a positive spin to today’s news but this has been yet another brutal day for Xbox.

I honestly feel way past the point of trying to excuse them or even finding legitimate reasons for their actions, yes games are expensive to make but Microsoft is quite literally the wealthiest company on earth, plus the “gameplay” they showed just last year wasn’t even real, everything around Microsoft/Xbox these days are deceptions, broken promises and disappointment after disappointment.

@UnusedBabyWipes I'm worried about Clockwork too. It's taken a while to dev (and they seem to be punishing that ATM) and I can see some ***** exec going "we already have Outer Worlds and Fallout, do we need this?"

Seriously perfect dark is cancelled now??
How does that make sense!!
Sack the people who came up with starfield it was dull as dish water🙅
I was looking forward to the perfect dark reboot!
How far was this game along before pulling the plug I think this is a big mistake!!

Gutted about Perfect Dark. I just hope Fable and Clockwork Revolution are okay

The first AAAA title in history… and it’ll never see the light of day.

@IOI I'm not excusing them at all, and I'm not putting a positive spin on anything. I just don't see how people can be shocked that these have happened. In fact, of the studios under the MS umbrella, none so far have massively surprised me.

Many of them have either dragged their heels or not hit the highs they used to on release of recent projects. Studios cost a bomb to run, and MS aint in the business to break even.

It's a shame and all, but it is what it is... I mean c'mon, who did you think was at risk when these layoffs were teased last week? Honestly?

The studio being shut i can kind of get, the game may have been 2 years away from release for all we know and got rebooted multiple times. That's nearly 10 years dev time for their first title.

Surely though, another team like id or machine games, or someone with experience could have taken the game and finished it properly. Why not finish and release it to get some sort of return on the funding put in.

@abe_hikura I wouldn't worry for clockwork that looked amazing and possibly further into development I'm pissed about perfect dark but how the game would play and ultimately be was still up in the air!!
Clockwork looks like a sure thing perfect dark never was but I still was looking forward to it 😒

@Ricky-Spanish As I said earlier, The Initiative was a mess, but shelving the game doesn't make any sense when Crystal Dynamics is the one that fixed it. They should just give the game to Crystal Dynamics. I was looking forward to Perfect Dark. It's a radical decision and I'm sure that this comes from someone not emotionally attached to video games like Nadella. Obviously, like I said before, the people that did a good job should still work on their project, whether they were part of Crystal Dynamics or The Initiative. Cancelling Perfect Dark is a very bad decision, even for the higher-ups that think it doesn't matter, because it was a long-awaited reboot and its own thing.

Only thing gaming wise I’m saddened about today is Perfect Dark. Really was looking forward to that but also obviously and more importantly my heart goes out to all those affected as well.

Okay this is it. I am done with Xbox.

Jesus. With this kind of mismanagement, how can Phil Spencer justify his position? It's been steady streams of blunders, under delivering and cancelations during his time as the head honcho.

Well done so all this Perfect Dark Hype for nothing. What about Contraband? Clockwork? Judas? Idk, this is a real gut punch. Sad just sad

And Copy of Duty (Call of Duty) remains intact...

Why cancel Perfect Dark and not Call of duty ?

@Banjo- Yeah I totally agree the game should of still been made outscorced or not it had the potential to be a good game especially now it would of eventually been multiplatform!!
It could of been a very good game we will never know now unless they decide to reboot it again ina decade!

I have no words.

I was canned from Microsoft back in February (I was a consultant, not a game developer).

Microsoft has been doing big and small layoff rounds somewhat regularly.

NOTE: I had a new job offer within a week, so I am okay.

Well I’ll be that guy and say I thought Perfect Dark looked bland and ordinary, plus it betrayed my memory of Perfect Dark. I’m not really surprised it wasn’t seen as a potential winner.

HOWEVER. I do not support the decision to shut it and the studio down, wasting years of people’s hard work. As such happens with every cancellation. It should have been given a chance, I can’t possibly imagine it was unplayable garbage.

Phil Spencer should not have a job. He can't ship a game to save his life. NOTHING he has announced has been a banger of a game and most of the things he showed at the launch of the Series X have been cancelled and now more studios are being closed with thousands of layoffs.

Well that was a big mistake. I would have been all over Perfect Dark.

@Kaloudz You’re trying to make it seem that it isn’t so bad because it was expected as layoffs were rumored since last week but respectfully you’re fooling yourself, many studios indeed have been mismanaged but whose fault is that? It’s clear now with so many studios that it’s Microsoft’s.

Now if they’re not in the business to break even why did they buy studios like Ninja Theory or Double Fine? I love their games but I really doubt ‘Keeper’ is going to even break even and I now fear for the future of the studio.
Also, all this recent multi platform pivot stemmed from the idea that studios needed more revenue, but now it seems they won’t even give them a chance?

It’s pivot after pivot after pivot, everything just highlights that there’s no strategy or even a long term vision for Xbox and more importantly for all the studios and the talent they spent billions into buying and now they’ve now just laid off, studios don’t work without talent, for me the big red flag that made me distrust Microsoft/Xbox was the closure of Tango, it was so insulting having the first great Xbox game in years only to strip away the exclusivity to “foster the IP” and then close the studio, and today they’ve done it again, showing solid but vaporware “gameplay” of a game 12 months ago only to cancel it, reminds me of Scalebound but worse since this was a first-party studio and will no longer exist.

Lol yeah this is it for me. Reluctantly sony here I come I'll

Why am I not surprised?
Next on the chopping block, "Fable"?

@BossBE What do you mean? Did you forget Skull and Bones came out? 😆

Things were, indeed, not ok at Xbox.

Sack Phil and ceo it make me sick every year Xbox show comes on and saying all these amazing games and no they start cancel the game why can’t them feed them out to other studio who may want the ip

The cancellation of the new Perfect Dark game is so disappointing. I dislike where this industry is headed with its focus on live services and battle passes.

I'll be keeping gamepass, but this is the last straw. I'm never buying any games or hardware from these clown again. Makes me feel better about recently buying a ps5. (Death stranding 2 rocks btw).

@IOI

"everything just highlights that there’s no strategy or even a long term vision for Xbox"

Those not with their head in the sand have known this for some time.
But you're always going to see a strong amount of spin and damage control from the Xbox faithful. I even understand why given how much they've invested in the brand. I'd like to think the realisation that Microsoft/Xbox are not their friends and are a business like any other might now sink in...but I doubt it.

It really is the equivalent of Saddam Hussein's Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, claiming everything is fine as the city burns down behind him.

I think Call of duty should be cancelled but the live service micro-transactions are more important instead of the games that age well & appreciate over time.

Perfect Dark looked great and it's trailer received a very positive response wtf

This is ridiculous. Perfect Dark looked incredible. Moreover, it looked like it was in a playable state and could be released soon. At this point, I don’t want to hear any excuses any longer - this is becoming inexcusable, and it’s poor management from the top down. If I’m being honest, Microsoft - and by Microsoft I mean the Xbox brand itself - needs to do a complete restructure with their staff, particularly management.

A shame. This is what happens when you go on an acquisition spree and then need to make the shareholders happy.

Phil and the gang yet again showing hiw utterly useless at running dev studios. Apart from playground the dev teams they built have sucked.

@Juanalf no it didn't, it looked terrible with horrible animations, what we saw looked like cg and not in game even. It was shaping up to be another Redfall or worse, Phil wouldn't know a good game if it snacked him in the face. He really should move on. He fooled me , I thought he would save the brand, but he seems to know nothing about gaming or what gamers want, how to sell consoles or manage game studios

@IOI Tango made zero sense to me whatsoever. That would have been the last team I'd ever expected MS to shut down - given their need to a good rep in Japan. I'll never make heads nor tails of that.

But as for anything else you said on the matter, I cannot see MS closing studios that make more than they cost to run. I very much expect them to cull those that cost more to run than they make in return. Rare, Initiative, Turn10 - so far, can easily fall in the former than the latter.

Truth is, we will never know. We can speculate until the cows come home, but if this falls down to money and money alone - as many of you say - then MS will only be shutting shop on the costlier studios that are not making enough greenback to offset their own keep.

Surprised they would cancel Perfect Dark after showing it at last years showcase!
Are these layoffs a reaction to losing money on their AI investments or just the current games industry trend?

@NishimuraX It seems that SoD3 is OK, and Undead Labs has been reduced to 80 employees.

I was really looking forward to perfect dark, now that it's officially cancelled is ......

@Kaloudz Tango was unexpected, indeed!

But, I don't remember where I read it, maybe that particular shutting down had to do more with some internal issues at Tango. As far as I understand, Shinji Mikami wasn't so hot about the studio being owned by MS, and some of the higher ups, Mikami included, left Tango some time before MS shutted them down finally.

Well, that's just my impression, but we will never know.

P45 - this is an Xbox.

Brand is going down the toilet quick.

@HarmanSmith I didn't know that. I'd only heard of the closure and don't recall following the news of it much past that. Interesting. Good of MS to let them keep their studios though. People overlook that when sharpening the pitch forks.

@HarmanSmith Yes, that's correct and the main producers had also left, so the studio kind of stopped making sense after the major departures. That said, I loved The Evil Within and Ghostwire Tokyo more than Hi-Fi Rush. I'll always check out whatever Mikami does. I still wish he stayed at Capcom and kept working on Resident Evil.

@NeutronBomb my problem is I have been playing on the xbox since 2003, if I buy a playstation I literally have nothing I have to start from scratch, very difficult to leave the xbox behind me and literally start over now

@BossBE I think Skull and Bones was supposed to be a AAAA game 😊

I'm done. Goodbye. Xbox sucks. All those IPs wasted. Zero games.

This is why I can’t get excited for Microsoft games anymore. Maybe we’ll still see switch 2 get a master chief collection 🤞

@Banjo- I get you my man! I love what I've played of Ghostwire and I'm still dreaming about another Evil Within sequel (a man can dream, right?). Yeah, I think Mikami is one of the greats, love his eye for interesting and sometimes far out projects (like Killer7 and God Hand).

@Kaloudz You’re again spinning your argument that it makes sense closing studios and canceling games because those studios make no money, avoiding answering why did MS spent billions to buy them in the first place (or showing vaporware gameplay), you say you still feel good about the future and let me ask you, after the last couple of years what will it take for it to be otherwise? Cancelling Clockwork Revolution? Closing Turn 10? (Laid off half the staff today btw) Cancelling first-party hardware? Closing Ninja Theory, Double Fine, Compulsion and half the Xbox Game Studios that make no money? Because I honestly see all those as a real possibility.

I truly respect your opinion and your trust in Microsoft’s decisions but blind positivity can be very toxic for yourself, don’t spend your time and money spinning trying to make sense on this bs.

Today is a great reminder of me of the darkest day of my gaming life, when Microsoft bought Rare. Rare was Nintendo through and through and never recovered. I often imagine all the great games we have missed out on. Really disappointed this and Everwild are cancelled, it’s an absolute shambles!

@fbnaulin

I hope so, my friend. SoD 3 was very much near the top of my list.

@FraserG whats your opinion on all this? I know you try to be neutral but just wondering.

ABSOLUTELY INEXCUSABLE TO CANCEL PERFECT DARK!!!!!! My favourite FPS of all time, PD, was finally going to get a worthy new entry after that embarrassment that was PDZ. Absolutely unbelievable. I'm in utter disbelief... F*** MICROSOFT!!!! 😡 😡 😡 😡 😡

@Kaloudz whats your honest take on all this? I know you try to be optimistic most of the time...this sounds to me MS will lose talent if continue like this. and we know thats not the final layoff. Unless you are a COD, WOW, ES6 or Forza horizon dev you are in danger.

But, but, but GamePass, GamePass, GamePass, yeah it’s doing WONDERS for them!!!

@Dreamcaster-X This pretty much proves that GamePass, combined with poor console sales, is losing Microsoft a ton of money. In theory it's "good" for gamers, but I've always questioned the financial feasibility of GP.

Perfect Dark.... I am crushed... 💔😭

Damn... That one hurts. That was at the top of my anticipation list. Really does feel like the AAA Industry is collapsing in on itself. Which honestly might be a good thing. Too many selfish greedy publishers ***** things up. It's time to revaluate where our priorities should be as an industry and art medium.

Everwild and Perfect dark..poof...just like that. I hope SOD 3 isnt dead

@EVIL-C Oh 100%!!! They did it as a desperate ploy to catch up to Sony & it backfired in the worst way possible, you got the bottom dwellers who don’t wanna buy games leeching off the system. They you’ll get a small but vocal minority saying well I played this on GamePass & bought it…but that’s just it, it’s a small minority that do that. The numbers show this, numbers don’t lie, people
Lie but numbers don’t.

I’m actually pretty gutted about perfect dark that looked great last year.

MS really love a bit of self destruction it seems. Big shame.

@TheCityPop Yeah, at least it is, for now. Geoffrey from Undead Labs said in BlueSky: "Studio is still here, project is still intact, but there are now fewer of us, and the people we lost were GOOD."

Heartbreaking news. Perfect Dark fans can't catch a break anymore than the studios that good old Philly keeps laying off, it seems. I still have yet to regret selling my Series X.

this is ******g awful. this is the worst console generation of all time. to say that this era of gaming is better than the ps4/360/og xbox era is a BOLD LIE!!

@IOI @Millionski You've both asked openly, so I'll answer openly - and fully expect to be flamed by a few for it, but my opinion is my opinion and I can only stand by it.

My honest take? I think people get far too caught up in corporate affairs at times like this. Let's face it. No one, no one, that isn't an affected dev, a relative of an affected dev, or a friend of an affected dev, is losing sleep over this news. It's sad, bad news, but the world will continue to spin...

Do I, as a consumer, particularly care about the talent being let go over the games that have been cancelled? No. If I could wave a magic wand and fix their personal issues I absolutely would, but do I really care on an emotional level? Not in the slightest.

I think people get irritated by business issues that are far beyond their understanding, and I think people bemoan about these issues as if they have all the facts. We don't have all of the facts. We don't know whether or not PD was internally stated to the higher ups to be another four years away. We don't know whether or not Everwild was another three years away.

These games have been in the oven for too long, adding more years to that just means that not only are the studios going to cost more than the game will make, but even more so when we account that if they have nothing else in the pipeline, the cycle goes on once again (when they finally ship, and start another project) for another decade.

Studios cost a bomb to run, and like it or lump it, if a studio is dragging their heels and not making more money than the cost of the upkeep of their studio, they're going to get culled. It's not nice, but it's cost effective.

I'm not putting a positive spin on anything, I'm simply trying to be subjective. It sucks, but MS aint here shutting down shops that make more money than they cost to run. That alone, by definition, would make zero sense. I'm not saying MS have always made sense (Tango, for instance) bug given their remarkable output stride as of late, this is clearly a case of separating the wheat from the chaff.

People blaming MS for mismanagement need to remember that MS has a very hands off approach, and tends to let studios do their own thing. Sadly in this case, and many other cases like this, it's bit them in the rear.

I can't see Clockwork being canned as the reception to that was outstanding at the last showcase and was touted as the highlight of the show. I could be wrong, but I'd be surprised if I was. I think games close to completion, or studios that have more than one thing in the oven and a decent output - are safe. Like Booty said, there's heaps and heaps of active projects, hardware is still safe, and PS isn't going anywhere soon.

This is just a bad week, nothing more. Sure, we lose a couple of games through cancellations, but, with everything that's on the platter, it's small fry. Call me optimistic, but that's just how I view things...

Give me Xbox. I'll fix it in a year.

@Simu001 Judas isn't an Xbox game, it's made by Ken Levine's independent studio

Again....not following The 6 Month Rule leads to issues. They never learn.

@Sambuc live service may be popular but live service has nothing to do with games getting cancelled, if anything, they fund games

@Kaloudz Are you being paid to write these essays or what? It doesn't matter if Booty reassured customers - Spencer said Everwild was on track in February. It doesn't matter what they say - it's all subject to change

Xbox, where franchises and development studios come to die.

Man, this is freaking sucks! Was looking forward to this one. Xbox's touted "hands off" approach to their devs is backfiring. Devs need deadlines and a kick in the pants sometimes when they are stuck in development hell. It's time to ratchet down on these devs that are taking too long to make games. Perfect Dark was announced in 2020 for Pete's sake!

@Kaloudz it's a fair take, but I suppose bigger picture Xbox just seems to have an uncanny habit of shooting themselves in the foot (and I say this as a quite new Xbox fan)

Take the AMD partnership announcements last week. Sarah Bond announces it, we're all buzzing and then a week later all the news about layoffs come out. It damages the perception of the brand.

Cerny has a similar announcement about partnering with AMD but people trust him because he comes across well (most recently in the ps5 pro announcement and the follow-up interview with Oliver from DF) - Sony's brand is strengthened in the consumers eye.

I do want Xbox to thrive but they don't half make it hard to love them 🤣

Only way this makes sense if is that gameplay trailer was completely fake. As if not, nobody in their right mind would cancel a game looking like that in late development stage.
Either way, I'm disappointed as I believed it would be a fun experience.

@vrubayka Paid for speaking my mind, god, can you imagine? Wouldn't that be an amazing job. And... isn't everything in this world something that can be subject to change?

@Coletrain I can totally get behind that. In fact I can get behind all of that. Xbox does seem to have a difficult time not taking one step back for every two steps forward, but, I don't know, as a consumer, I cant complain all too much. They've done right by me for years now.

And yup, they definitely need to work more on boldening their inward viewership, they've been quite messy this gen. Hopefully though, this is the last time they have to perform a culling on this scale for quite some time.

Damn ..everwild I am kinda happy is put to bed.....but perfect dark didn't look to bad...and obviously would of loved another

7 years and not ready to release? obvs cancel it

@The-Chosen-one 😱 didn't you hear? They saw your comment, immediately rehired everyone, and those two games will now be released next week. That's how important you and your opinion are!

@nomither6 show me one person that was alive and old enough to actually experience that era that says that lol?

One reason why I never like Microsoft and Xbox in general. Couldn't even keep Perfect Dark alive.

As unfortunate as it is, I don't care, they deserve it, is it people's lives, sure, but it was up to them to execute it well, if they didn't, good bye, no sympathy, whether marketing, whether artists, animators, programmers, designers, QA, HR, etc. I don't care if I sound heartless, it's on them.

If any of them were useless or not capable of good ideas, or executing them, good riddance.

Everwild kept going on too long and looked unfocused and Perfect Dark was getting there but was also taking too long/unfocused.

Why would a publisher keep them around if the staff contributions and leadership wasn't good, staff were particular what direction and it shows.

I wouldn't continue keeping them around either. If the conversations, direction and execution isn't good, get rid of them, no matter their skill, if they make it through sure, if they don't well, they had to keep up in some way.

Make a more focused game with the right themes, art style, gameplay and story in under a few years. Many other better studios do.

Not all have to be Obsidian, but they have had more games out, and sure quality varies for them then the others or the scale of those projects but them and many others show they can for the audiences they cater to, Sea of Theives does as a live service, State of Decay 3 will see with that one.

What others go or stay as well.

Veterans that are too sad, sure but they have their reputation and skill, but for the others not so much. I care about creative projects or ones that do enough for business, I don't care how much delight chats they had.

Turn 10 are a joke so good riddance to many of those useless/uncreative staff. If the rest do a good job with smart strategies, less staff, support or main project, fine, if they are useless staff too good riddance.

I don't have sympathy for useless staff and bad projects. It's on them.

If the more creative and effective ones stay good, if many of those are gone that will be unfortunate but if many useless ones go, not fussed to see them go at all.

PD was my most anticipated game, bar none.

The brutal news today is making me rethink my optimistic views on the future of Xbox for the first time.

Perfect Dark looked promising. What a damn shame.

Xbox game studios has 0 upcoming games I want to play now.

PS6 next gen, I don't want to be forced to become a windows pc gamer.

Now the Perfect Dark franchise is being carried by the N64 game's decompilation-recompilation project and the modding community that will attract.

@XBOX045 Yeah, that why you keep your current Xbox. I'm not saying throw em away. I'm just not buying from them anymore.

@vrubayka And in shockingly short order most of the time.

Well, this all blows

@Wizzle8899
Important enough for a cry baby to reply hahah weazel.

This one really is sad. I can kind of get it since the game has been in development for several years now and progress seemed to never move past the very early stages. Saying that though it seemed like there was finally direction after the big gameplay reveal and now nothing.

Put a fork in it Xbox is done.

@axelhander Exactly how I feel. Put me in Phils position and I would have this whole brand turned around before they knew what happened. It's like Microsoft has the worst people in charge of everything right now and they are allowing them to just burn everything down.

@IOI they didn’t buy The Coalition and 343 Indistries.

I can’t wait to sell my series X. I’m more than done, I’m freakin over it! These are the most dysfunctional people ever bro. They can’t let me down any more, they can’t lower the bar any further. And just the way they behave is so disgusting too, they’re a bunch of ghouls man.

Oh man I don't want Pure Xbox to go away, I hope Hookshot and you guys can get ahead of the cancellations of Xbox and cover Microsoft game studios. These studios and games getting cancelled are bad for the overall ecosystem including games media, 3rd parties, 1st parties and the gamers. Sad to see it. I honestly was curious what power this IP has given it's only been a couple solo games and we aren't really clamoring for more. Just feel it's the fact these things are promised then abandoned.

Perfect Dark, Everwild and that MMO have been in developmental hell for 7 years. Why care if they got canned, if the games are not coming together scratch em and put your focus on games that are actually going to release. As for The Intiative, again don’t care. They couldn’t produce a single game in their near decade of existence? I don’t get how people see game development from any other job, your employer wants you to create a quality project. If you can’t deliver the project at all you lose your job, if you can’t put forth a quality effort, don’t be shocked if you get let go.

If ‘The Initiative’ hadn’t managed to produce anything worthwhile in seven years then the writing was on the wall. I can feel sympathy when people get laid off if a game isn’t a success, but seven years and no result? There’s the door.

@MasterTanookiChief

Had Intiative being a bad studio, it should be shut down and being replaced with a new aqcuired studio like Crystal Dynamics. Microsoft doesn't seem to aqcuire new studios to replace the bad ones, so that means that they are reducing the production of first party single players game, while they are focusing to their popular IPs such as Halo, Doom, Diablo, Call of Duty, Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Forza etc which makes the most money.

Now, regarding first parties, I think they will replace the reduced first party production with agreements for day one games from third party companies. That is, for every Perfect Dark that is canceled, we will have an additional Expendition 33, Wuchang, etc...

Also, I do not rule out the possibility of outsourcing the smaller IPs to second party companies. We already know that Microsoft has closed commercial agreements with Toys for Bob, which was its former studio and is considering hiring them to make a Crash Bandicoot.

So it seems that Microsoft will focus first party production on big IPs, while increasing second/third party partnerships with third parties in order to fill Game Pass with day one releases.

What a ***** disaster.

Is State of Decay and Fable also never coming out? Why do games take so long to make these days? What's the excuse?

@Phil-Spencer-Gate Crystal Dynamics is owned by Embracer last I heard. They should be focused on the IP that people want, while allowing studios that can release quality titles creating new IPs. If a game is single player or multiplayer, both are needed.

There hasn’t been any reduction in first party games, all three of those games have never been on a release slate, they have just been taking up resources.

As for outsourcing, Xbox still and always has done this with very mixed results. From what Booty said they still have over 40 games in development. They need to focus on the studios that can actually release products and cut the teams that are just sucking up resources. I don’t understand why people are being so dramatic about any of this, we lost nothing and if anything this may speed up progress on projects more worthy.

@MasterTanookiChief

Embracer is in weak financial position because of their bubble of massive acquisitionwhich they run out of money. They aqcuired Gearbox and they sold it to Take Two. They aqcuired Saber Interactive and sold it to Beacon. Microsoft could make an offer to buy Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal for a good price.

There is a REDUCTION of first party studios. Tango Gameworks, Toys for Bob and Initiative were all former first party studios which could make game like Hi Fi Rush, Perfect Dark and Crash Bandicoot. All these studios were closed or left XBOX without being replaced by new studios or increased workforce.

I don't care either about outsourcing if that means bringing good content on Game Pass with games like Expendition 33 etc. However, the point is that Microsoft is shutting down studios and projects which reduce total first party production of new games. Microsoft is not replacing all these lost studios with new ones or making new single player games. They are just cutting workforce and focusing to already popular IPs that makes the most money.

@Phil-Spencer-Gate it is also worth noting that Crystal Dynamics was reportedly in developmental hell with the new Tomb Raider as well so they are probably not the best example to use here. They could acquire a new studio but I don’t think they need to. They have plenty and are now 3 publishers under one umbrella.

You do know games are canceled all the time right? We just don’t hear about it unless it leaks out to the public. A good example of this is all the Sony games that recently got canceled. It sucks but it’s not as uncommon as you are making it sound.

You say they are not focusing on new games or IP but what would Clockwork Revolution be? Keeper? South of Midnight? Avowed? Grounded? Towerborne? Contraband? OD? Project Mara? They should be focused on their larger IP, but also they have studios that will continue to create new IP. Again I don’t know why you are so fixated on if those games are Single player or multiplayer. And again they have over 40 games in development right now. I don’t think there are any other publishers that can say they have that many projects in development. Also keep in mind the smaller studios they bought like Obsidian, Undead Labs, Ninja Theory, Double Fine, Compulsion all doubled in size since being acquired. Some studios, like Playground Games even got second teams.

Man, PD cancellation is a real pity, but I'm sure it'll come back eventually at some point.

Sorry for the people who lost their jobs of course, but The Initiative was hyped as @@@@ and was founded in what 2018? never released a single game. I'm not defending big corporations, but from an internal point of view I think it's easily justifiable, you can't have 7+ (probably was going to be close to 10) years development cycles. They just don't allow that kinda thing anymore on the big companies.

@Stamnoso No no, you're absolutely right. Folks quickly forget how expensive it is to run these studios. Like I've said a thousand times on the matter - MS aint closing down studios that make more money than they cost to run. They're clearly targeting studios that cost more than they make.

Sure, it's a shame and all, but for a studio that's not released anything in 7 years (and for all we know PD could have been another few years away) it's absolutely merited. The same can be said about the Everwild team, and as for Turn10, they dropped the ball a few times as is...

It's just business. It's wicked, of course, but if they've had to do a cull per-MS instructions, why would they target the studios that actually have the crap together?... People saying "Meh, they're a trillion dollar company"... they didn't get that far being charitable and burning money.

I like the Perfect Dark IP! Perfect dark zero was great. I’m Glad this one got canceled as judging by the trailer and character design I wasn’t interested. Hopefully in a few years it will be made when there is a different ethos at Xbox gaming internally. Same for all of Xbox! There is so much potential among the entity.

@Stamnoso

When you close one bad studio, you need to replace it with a new one. If you don't replace it, then that means you reduced production and content from your workforce.

Not only has Microsoft pushed my back to PC gaming, but they've also made sure that I will not be touching their future releases until Nadella is kicked out.

Oh well, more savings for me!

@Kaloudz

Microsoft is not replacing bad studios with new ones, it doesn't replace failed project with new ones, they are just reducing total workforce and reducing total production of first party content. They just decided to abandon an number of small projects and focus their remaining resources to popular IPs that brings more money and profits. This new strategy is to make quick profit to please shareholder without any long term vision for the XBOX.

After the disastrous failure of the XBOX ONE, there were rumors that Amazon wanted to acquire XBOX. We know from corporate history that Amazon has a philosophy of reinvesting all its profits back into production to grow the company. This is why Amazon showed little to no net profit until 2018, because it invested all of it back into production. XBOX, which had benefited the most from a regular reinvestment of profitability back into production for at least a decade. That is, in practice, this would mean that it would give more money to produce new games than to pay dividends to shareholders.

Legally, every public company on the stock market has the right to use its profits as it sees fit. If shareholders are not satisfied with the dividends, then they cannot sell shares and reduce the value of their company by showing their dissatisfaction. But that doesn't mean the company itself is doing badly financially. And Nintendo is notorious for not paying out much in dividends, so it has low market value, but it remains solid in terms of production quality and a healthy financial base.

@Kaloudz it’s ok to criticise when criticism is due.

You don’t have to defend every choice

I have to ask - did this game ever stand a chance?

1. Brand new studio given absurd amount of money with the expectation that they make "the world's first AAAA game". No other coherent design philosophy or past experience that glues the team together.
2. Modern games don't have brand attachment to Perfect Dark. Fans of the game are at least in their 40s now, it's like 25yrs old. Only a small percentage of those fans are attached enough to the game that.
3. Go en that nobody involved in the original is attached to the project, choosing Perfect Dark just smacks of "we need the money".

This game was probably gonna be good but would hardly have justified the stupid amounts of money sank into it.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I'm not defending every choice. I've said a bunch of times that their closure of Tango was mind bogglingly stupid, as was their, IMO, letting go of Toys-for-Bob. Neither of those made any sense to me whatsoever, but I can only assume that business dealings made it make sense behind closed doors. It's basic maths. If a studio is raking in more than it costs to run the studio, they're bound to be safe...

@Phil-Spencer-Gate Microsoft is not replacing bad studios with new ones, it doesn't replace failed project with new ones, they are just reducing total workforce and reducing total production of first party content. They just decided to abandon an number of small projects and focus their remaining resources to popular IPs that brings more money and profits. This new strategy is to make quick profit to please shareholder without any long term vision for the XBOX.

I could normally get behind that, but unless they reveal a slew of new acquisitions - that wouldn't make much sense. The way I see it, they've shut up shop on the studios that just aren't pulling their weight. Let's take Everwild and Perfect Dark as examples.

Everwild was first concepted in 2014 according to reports. That's 11 years ago. The lid was lifted on the game in 2019. That's 6 years ago. Let's assume that behind closed doors, Rare informed MS that there's still three years left before it's ready - that's a development cycle of 9 years (at the very earliest) and nearly 15 years (at the very latest).

Everwild is not making a return on the cost it has cost MS to run that team within the studio. Given that Rare has nothing else in the oven, why would MS take a gamble with hundreds of millions for Rare to release Everwild (likely making no profit) and to then start yet another costly development cycle?

You can apply the exact same concept to Perfect Dark. As for Turn 10, sure, they make some solid track racers - but the cost of upkeep via licences and tech alone, will be sky high. And that's one game that would not be hugely successful as a cross platform release given that Gran Turismo occupies the same space on PS.

Again, I'm not excusing anything or anyone, but, nor am I getting my pitchforks ready for practical business decisions. It is what it is at the end of the day.

@Phil-Spencer-Gate You have a pathetic copium to make cheap excuses. You're missing the point of my argument, and you're telling irrelevant answers that no one asked.

Copium? I don't need to find a coping method for any of this because when it boils down to the point - I don't have a care either way. I'm not missing the point you're getting at whatsoever, I'm overlooking the principle of it.

If these affected studios were making more money than the cost of their upkeep, they'd likely have been safe (or safer). As for the last part - which didn't make a lot of sense to me (you're telling irrelevant answers that no one asked) isn't that the whole point of a comment thread? To speak open-minded... It'd be a strange place indeed if we only commented on things people asked lol.

I said that the problem is not to shut down problematic studios or projects that had development hell that cost a lof of money - the problem is that you don't replace studio closures with new one.

I never said it did? I said that of all the studios they have under their umbrella, the ones most likely to be culled are the ones not pulling their weight. They'll be saving money in the long-run rather than upkeeping a small portion of studios that cost more to run than they make.

@Phil-Spencer-Gate I agree as long as MS's objective is to expand/maintain production outputs, which I think it's a fair assumption to make as today's business is all about growth growth growth.

I think in cases like the initiative and these massive long developments (i.e. due to constant restarts of dev etc.), for me the big questions is why? Why are some of these studios struggling to deliver?

My point being, you can close a studio, sack people, open a new one, hire new people; but if the problem has a root in things that are outside the studio jurisdiction (e.g. wider MS business processes hindering development), then there is a decent chance some of these new studios would find themselves fighting the same fights again.

@Stamnoso There is a mismanagement from Microsoft to handle succesful all these studios.

However, Microsoft doesn't care to replace failed studio and project with new ones. They want to reduce workforce, cut costing via layoffs and focus their remaining workforce to big IPs that make the most money.

Microsoft wants to scale down their own first party production in order to save money from projects that don't have high profitability and focus on IPs that make the big money and profits(Call of Duty, Warcraft etc)

It's all about maximizing profits and have returns for the shareholders. There is don't even care about a long term plan to make Game Pass bigger in terms of revenue and subscriber growth. Because a long term plan for Game Pass requires massive investment back to production lineup instead of shareholders dividends.

@Phil-Spencer-Gate You just copium by making stupid excuses about Microsoft "taking hard decision to shut down Perfect Dark because it wasn't profitable". Again, this is a pathetic copium to justify Microsoft new strategy.

You're making no sense when you say this to me. You're literally running around saying different things. I mean, you said this to me on the matter of this topic...

The problem is that you don't replace studio closures with new one. You shut down one bad project, but you don't offset it with a new one

...and then went on to say this to someone else.

When you close one bad studio, you need to replace it with a new one. If you don't replace it, then that means you reduced production and content from your workforce.

I'm happy to have a friendly conversation about anything on here, but much of what you're saying either makes no sense, or contradicts something else that you've said. One thing I do agree with is the closure of Tango and TfB being nonsensical. Those closures made zero sense to me. Zero sense whatsoever...

Initiative and Perfect Dark were shut down without being replace.

Everwild was cancelled and Rare had massive layoffs.

Yes, most likely because the games were still likely years away and there was little reason keeping studios open that aren't delivering the goods. Why continue to pay for the massively expensive upkeep for negative returns? Only for both studios to go back to another new project and start another lengthy dev cycle all over again...

As for production lineups being affected, that's for them to micromanage and sort out. I'm fairly sure that the studios have the capacity to continue work in good time - otherwise they'd probably have just been shuttered too.

So far, the vast majority of the axing makes sense as it's affected studios that either just drag their heels, or haven't really released a heavy hitting title (Turn 10) for a good while now. The problem is, we consumers only know half the story. We don't have the backend facts, so all of us can all but assume for the time being with our own beliefs.

Will more closures come in the coming days? More than likely. If one or two are in there that make no sense to me, I'll call MS for it, but what I wont do is jump a bandwagon for the sake of crowd pleasure. That's not me...

@Phil-Spencer-Gate I won't waste any more time and energy "debating" with you.

That's probably for the best, seeing as again, it's hard to make heads or tails of what you're saying and rather than try to define your point, you're resorting to childish insults. Now, please excuse me, I have to find my pompoms for my cheerleading practice. Have a nice day.

@Retrokingdan
The fact it showed no actual gameplay despite being in development for years is not normally a good sign

@ZuneTattooGuy yeah it did come to light it wasnt an actual gameplay trailer, after all the time in development you'd have thought there would've been something to show other than that vertical slice

I’m a bit late with my comment/opinion but I have been reading the articles and comments since last night.

Just wow. The mismanagement is unreal, how have they let it get to this point? Phil and co have got to change the way they manage their studios going forward because it can’t keep going the way it has.

Even though I’m disappointed with all this, I’m still going to be invested into the Xbox ecosystem by still subscribing to Game Pass every month playing on my Series X and buy their next gen console but I now definitely don’t see them the same as I did since 2001 and before all of yesterdays news. I can understand some people being done with the brand after all the controversies over the years but the day I’m done with Xbox is the day they stop with console hardware and game pass and go full 3rd party publisher.

You gotta be freaking kidding me man! One of the most anticipated Ips from microsoft! This is another "rare" cancelled IP next to Timepslitteres 4!

Agreed! If you are closing another studio, it has to replaced with another. I cant believe perfect dark got cancelled man. This is a VERY bad for me, it was one of my most anticpated games from them. Played the "series" since n64@Phil-Spencer-Gate

@fbnaulin It was announced for Xbox One…

Fable cancellation coming in 3… 2… 1…

@Benjamin Nah. Show me an official source where it was announced for Xbox One. Even the first trailer doesn’t have any console logo.

@fbnaulin It was announced when Xbox was committed to cross-gen releases.