JRPGfan said:
"Inside Xbox's margin crush" - Jez Corden article ( https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/inside-xboxs-margin-crush ) |
Makes sense, most of these we already knew underperformed. The only new info here is Ara: History Untold and Ninja Gaiden 4 underperforming I believe, the rest of these we have already heard underperformed.
Only 1st party studio that worked on one of these that I could see fully closing is Compulsion, We Happy Few and South of Midnight did both underperform afterall. As for the rest:
- Obsidian will be needed to work on Fallout since Asha just said she wants to speed up Fallout releases, so unless they protest working on Fallout again and beg for Avowed 2 or something, they should be safe. They already said that Outer Worlds 3 wasn't in development after 2 underperformed.
- Double Fine is likely safe, Asha knows they have fairly big IP for a AA studio, before Keeper and Kiln they worked on Psychonauts 2 which was successful, and they own other successful older IP like Costume Quest and Broken Age they can make sequels to. They also aren't big to start with, like 70 devs and they are fairly quick at development. I think she will just want them to focus on their successful IP instead of making experimental new IP frequently.
- Asha just allowed the 3rd Senua game to be announced at the Summer Show instead of removing it, so Ninja Theory should be safe. They already laid off the multiplayer team that did Bleeding Edge. Could definitely see them closing after Senua if it underperforms as well though, that would be 3 underperformances in a row for them.
- Turn 10 already suffered layoffs from Forza Motorsport flopping, they are now just an engine management and support studio for Playground, she likely won't leave Playground to upgrade the ForzaTech Engine alone
- Mojang will just see layoffs from some of their spinoff teams probably, but not the main game team or Dungeons team since those are successful and she just put Minecraft on her list of big IP's she wants to do more with
- Ninja Gaiden 4, Battletoads, Towerborne, and Ara were all 2nd party, not 1st, sequels won't be greenlit but no one to layoff there since they don't own the studios
The bulk of the layoffs will probably just be "skimming the fat" off the top of most studios honestly, excess developers she thinks are doing more harm than good in a speeding up development time vs salary scenario. AAA development in particular has grown rather bloated over time, what was once 50-100 devs in AAA in the early 2000's grew to 100-200 by 2010, 200-300 by 2020, and now more like 250-400 at most AAA studios. Middle management is often oversized and gum up the works contradicting one another, asking the grunts to work on various different features they want at once instead of just doing them one at a time, focus split all over the place slowing everything up. We heard about that exact thing happening at Undead Labs in fact, so if Undead hadn't already been sorted out under Phil and Sarah, I'm sure that Asha will. 343/Halo Studios is another we have heard alot of bad things about in terms of development there, Asha will definitely need to get them in order for their next mainline Halo they are currently working on.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 13 June 2026
