Report: Multiple Xbox Studios In 'Active Negotiations' With Microsoft To Avoid Closure

DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH DOUBLE FINE MICROSOFT! I WILL FIND YOU! NO MERCY! 😡😭

Absolutely horrible. This should be a last resort for such a massive company.

Stand back everyone, here comes Microsoft to save the games industry!! Wasn’t that what was said a few years ago when Microsoft were buying up everything in front of them? Wow.

Jeez may be worse than we thought. I hope not. But there has to be some squeaky bum time in some of these studios.

Ludicrous to contemplate, but they’re actually considering new possible mergers and acquisitions. People better pray it’s tech/infrastructure related and not more studios to stand in line for the chopping block— “Going forward, we’ll evolve and rebuild our stack and look at capabilities across all of XBOX and potential M&A to help us win in hardware, PC, mobile, and streaming.”

This quote from Asha and Matt Booty must be particularly offensive to those possibly at risk of losing their jobs at the affected studios—“We are the fortunate stewards of industry-defining franchises that have enormous potential and player demand, but we have not adequately funded them to compete and win.”

Both quotes from the most recent “100 Days” memo

@Camble_Refuge Many will arrive here claiming “it’s tough but has to be done” without even questioning what got us here in the first place, ignoring all their previous comments cheering for Microsoft to keep buying more and more studios or money hat third-party games, hell some are still suggesting it even with this dire state of the brand…

After watching this, who on earth would agree to being sold to MS. All companies have closed studios but this is another level. The mismanagement at xbox is utterly, utterly astounding.

@FraserG Do you know what it would take for these studios to get an exit where they retain their form without being terminated or closed down? I know it’s a loaded question, but I think what we all want to see is that the studios negotiating for their existence somehow remain with independence in a way that Toys For Bob did (and could maintain partnerships likewise afterwards). Anything you can touch on helps, this is honestly devastating to hear for the devs who will be affected. Many thanks 😎

The sky is falling, every studio is getting shutdown, oh the hue manatee!!! Breathe folks, these typically sound way worse than they end up being.

Man really not a good sign it's the non-franchise studios

@FraserG That crossed my mind as well. It seemed a really odd answer at the time but in hindsight, it sadly makes sense.

One thing is for certain, it's going to be a very bumpy ride for us fans but even worse for the developers who's livelihoods are on the line.

I hate to see people lose their jobs first and foremost. This kind of stuff is never good. I feel for all people and studios involved.

Almost half a dozen studios begging for their lives, but hey, Gears E-Day is an Xbox Exclusive now! They're listening guys!

The three studios I predicted. This industry has become volatile with all the big publishers selling or shutting studios down, staff moving from one studio to another constantly, developers fired after releasing a game, etc. I hope that it's like Tango, that the ones that wanted to stay in the studio stay and the others find a position elsewhere, or Toys For Bob, that became independent and now work with Xbox. What I can say is that if you really care and want to support your favourite studio or IP, buy its games.

It's not just the games underperforming, though. I love single-player games and I have played these three, but Compulsion took seven years to make a short single-player game. Ninja Theory took seven years to develop a shorter single-player game. Double Fine invested four years of development in a very short game. The first one is fine but rough. The second, I think, is the most impressive Unreal Engine 5 game, but shorter and linear and with little gameplay. The third is a very nice game, but even shorter. The development time of these three games is another reason that I knew they considered.

Yeah baby. Exclusivity coupled with the expression of the CEO to monetize games better.

No reason for me to be buying myself into the Xbox ecosystem again. Just as I have left Playstation’s ecosystem once their CEO expressed his addiction to growth.

The only reason you want to grow is to please shareholders. And I do not want to be the one getting milked to do so.

Nothing surprising. None of these studios have really done much of note. Double Fine made niche games that didn't pay off commercially. Ninja Theory has basically only been putting out Hellblade, which is kind of a niche title and not for everyone. Compulsion Games had Sweet Baby Inc. involved. Arkane hasn't really released anything significant lately either. They're just throwing money away

Man. Phil really broke Xbox with that ABK stunt.

It’s unfortunate to see but let’s be honest: the aforementioned studios haven’t exactly lit the world on fire have they?

The only positive that can come from this is that Asha Sharma builds Xbox back up with the best first party studios she can gather and take it from there.

Btw, this all goes back to the ridiculous spending spree of Phil Spencer back in 2018. He should never have bought those studios. Having said that, PlayGround Games was a great get.

@somnambulance you probably noticed in the last couple of years that indeed, Xbox is run in the moment by Nadella. He doesnt plan ahead. He just looks at the numbers once every 6 months, issues his expression that things have to drastically change, management implements drastic changes, alienating the player base further, things settle, but then Nadella looks at the numbers again.

Rinse and repeat every 6-12 months.

Tragic! Absolutely tragic and horrendous to see all these developers getting devastated because a 3 trillion dollar corporation has to balance the books, so that it can invest even more in the black hole that is AI. Oh lest we forget the top brass at Microsoft probably get paid more in a year than any savings the shuttering of these studios will bring/make.

Edited: Oh yes, let’s bring back exclusives so we can have another round of culling next year 🤦

People are going to freak out, but Ninja Theory, Double Fine and Compulsion haven't produced hit games.
Microsoft is paying for these entire studios and hundreds of employees and that adds up. For smaller games like these studios create they could just money hat the game itself and spend far less money than having to pay for entire studios to operate for 5-6 years between games.

@Tasuki It's 100% the right move to trim the fat. These studios make smaller games that don't sell well.

closing down double fine would cause the mother of all angry mobs

@beltmenot What have they done that was successful in the past 10 years? What have they done that couldn't have been money hatted if needed and not require paying an entire studio for 6 years to create?

@Sol4ris there was no point buying any of these studios in the first place. They have put out exactly the type of games they always have but MS's determination to buy up the industry saw no reason or rhyme beyond bringing in subs.

And the folks who cheered these buy outs on are still doing so while trying to justify these closures. Ridiculous.

What a generation, Xbox basically falling apart and Playstation switching tact and chasing that live service golden egg.

@Banjo- Unfortunately the industry has always been volatile. That's way I didn't get into it after leaving uni nearly 20 years ago. No job security at all. The industry has gotten bigger and games cost more to develop so when things go wrong and targets aren't met it can go very badly.

MS to spin off all of them into a new company and then buy that company again in a few years time... 😂

@TheGameThrifter Save that message for when Xbox end up with nothing but playground games, Halo studios, the coalition, Activision and Blizzard. These smaller studios were bought to boost the games going onto gamepass. Keep the content flowing with indie and AA games. While the bigger studios worked on their games.

@TheGameThrifter the odd thing about this is they were doing alright before MS got involved. Then its years before anything. It all boils down to management.

Ninja Theory, Compulsion, Double Fine, I get. They've not really been pulling their weight. Arkane surprised me, but perhaps the top brass aint happy with slow progress? It's a guess for anyone as to where they're even at with their project.

A lot of this is poor management on MS part, but a lot of it is on heel dragging studios too, that cost hundreds and hundreds of millions to run, and then you have small teams like (for example) Sandfall, a 30+ team that pulled off a game like Expedition 33 in 5 years, on a $10 million budget, it shows a lot.

Christ alive. I thought maybe two at tops, not 3+. I really hope Xbox just lets them go.

I'm not pinning the entire of blame of this on Asha, she basically was given a dumpster fire strapped to jet boosters blindly bouncing around a city and told to deal with it. Not that it makes things any better, but all these acquisitions really seemed to do nothing for Xbox in the end.

I said it a few days ago, no more studio acquisitions. Xbox has proven at every step of the way that they're incapable of dealing with them, the only two that have really shown anything of note are Coalition and Obsidian. (And I suppose Rare, but that's from a different era.)

Go back to the strategy used with Gears of War; partner with developers, handle marketing and publishing for an ambitious team. No more buyouts. The entire slate has to be cleaned, corporate/leadership included.

Never again should acquisitions be considered. And on that note, this house cleaning needs to end with a new marketing lead, too. I don't know what Aaron Greenberg does for most of the year outside of their E3/summer showcase event.

@TheGameThrifter What is this hat and hatted you mention? Double fine have released 3 games and published 2 others since they got bought over by MS. So it's not like they've been doing nothing for 6 years.

@Kaloudz Phil has a lot to answer for in stuff like this. He greenlit devs like Compulsion taking 7 years to make South of Midnight, Crackdown 3 taking ages. Whatever's been happening with State of Decay 3. A lot of this leads back to him for sure. Not all of it, I imagine, but a lot.

I think the safe studios will be:

Halo Studios
Playground Games
Bethesda Game Studios
Studios that make COD
King Mobile Game

Who might get some smaller cuts

Machine Games
Most Activision Studios (Spyro/COD)
King Mobile Game
Most Blizzard Studios

Who will get cuts:
Obsidian
InExile (Once Clockwork Ships in 2027)
Undead Labs (Once State of Decay Ships in 2027)

At high risk:
Double Fine
Arkane Lyon
Compulsion
Ninja Theory

Other smaller/lower revenue teams.

@Nexozi Right and it's not just selling or shutting studios down, but part of the staff is fired after releasing a game, or development is outsourced with poor work conditions. The only positive thing I see is that the talented people seem to find another team easily. This business has become bigger than the film industry and than the music industry.

@Elbow the report from Jason Schreier actually says several studios including these ones. There could be even more than we know of to follow.