https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brookbank_opentowork-xbox-gamedev-activity-7346234177589022723-se-C/

State of Decay 3 developer Undead Labs hit with layoffs.

What.......the literal hell?!? Game was still in pre-production?!?

That's a good thing, if these reports are accurate. Just as it would have been good for Concord to not get released. 

But Jez Corden said multiple times that perfect dark development was going well or shaping up nicely and he's so reliable!

Turns out it was a train wreck the whole time.

Probably. Its just that the other game seemed so obviously uninteresting to everyone, on top of being a paid game in a free-to-play genre, that it was very surprising it made it to launch.
While I don't think there was anything in particular in Perfect Dark's trailer that suggested an incoming disaster.

Did those reports give insight into Perfect Dark's development?
I only saw the memo from Booty.

Apparently nothing's been made apart from various different vertical slices, with no clear vision of what the game is even supposed to be. 

Phil needs to fire Matt Booty. Promote Feargus Urquhart to Matt's position. Then resign.

At this rate, I'm seriously wondering if Xbox would be better off as an independent company. Might be better for everyone if Microsoft just spun Xbox out as an independent company. Shit I'm even wondering to myself if Apple would be a better owner than Microsoft and I dislike Apple a lot, Lol. Microsoft just seems totally clueless.

I will concede that I do understand fully the reasons for PD and TI being shutdown now, but I still cannot agree with Everwild and losing Gregg Mayles/Louise O'Connor or cancelling Project Kestrel and losing Matt Firor. Nor do I agree with many of the other layoffs across other studios and divisions and uprooting peoples lives all to save a few $ which is what this clearly was considering the timing and it impacting all of Microsoft. It's just a coincidence that The Initiative and Perfect Dark ended up being a disaster worthy of closing, Imo.

Microsoft will do these layoffs on a yearly basis anytime they need to end a quarter strong or start a fiscal year strong, I still stand by that Microsoft doesn't understand the creative medium and is it any surprise? 90% of Microsoft is business focused with a current goal of replacing their employees with AI. Yes, other companies are having mass layoffs too and they are shit too but I do feel like Microsoft is one of the worst right now in just pure greed and uncaring attitude towards the creative medium.

I must apologize when I argued with you all (except one) that Everwyild is probably cancelled, it is clear now that Everwild is going to be a GOTY contender and will be huge.

Anyway I could say so much more but why bother 'You guys were right' and I was wrong, and we see the aftermath now...

But...You was still wrong? Everwild wasn't cancelled when we argued about it, it was cancelled now, Lol.

Don't let employees losing their livelihoods stop you from continuing to be annoying though and improve on your personality. You could just take the high ground but instead want to come in with some condescending attempt at mocking anyone that dared argued against you. Also when someone is constantly non-stop assuming the worst like you do, they're eventually going to be right about something negative, even if you weren't actually technically right about this, Lol.

JFC. When I say this thread is like a community to me, you're like the annoying uncle, Lmao.

I could say so much more so I'm going to say more and pretend like I didn't say more. 🙄

Multiple things can be true.

MS was gonna do some amount of layoffs regardless.

The cancelled projects probably all had good reason to be cancelled. Perfect Dark I wouldn't have guessed, but the reporting on it now make a lot of sense. And let's be real, the only reason we're getting those reports, is because with all the links in the chain caused by the massive outsourcing of the project, there's gonna be a lot more people to talk about the state of things. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some potential animosity between the idea team at The Initiative and the guys at CD that are supposed to be doing the bulk of the work. People are gonna talk when there's clashing going on.

When it comes to Everwild, or the Zenimax MMO, those projects being all inhouse is gonna lead to far fewer people in the know and talking openly about what's going on. The only comments you're gonna get is from people on or around those teams who wanna be optimistic about their work, cus they're invested in it. But they've had enough time to present something viable. If not to us as consumers, then certainly internally within the company. Especially the MMO. You think MS wouldn't LOVE to know they've got another money printing live service game on the way if they just gave that team another couple years maybe? You really think that if there was something there that just needed a bit more time to cook, they wouldn't jump at the chance to see if they got another decade long running MMO on their hands? Yea right. If they had some great internal demos or pre-alphas or something and development was going well, MS would be thrilled. That was probably ages behind schedule at best, and in development hell at worst. If it was coming along even remotely well, MS would have gladly found other places to make cuts.