Atleast she is very open about it and in less than 100 days we will know more :)

Imo, she's trying to keep Xbox console player retention as best as she can for the remainder of this generation. Phil dramatically raising GP pricing and completely abandoning console exclusives led to Xbox losing millions of GP subs and a lot of players questioning the future of the Xbox console and if it's even worth spending anymore money on the platform.

Asha lowering Game Pass pricing to bring sub numbers back up, returning to console exclusives to get the current console playerbase excited for the future, and therefore, getting them to spend again will help somewhat in bringing revenue numbers back up.

The remainder of this gen is a lost cause. They're not gonna try to increase console marketshare, because they can't. Matthew Ball, the new Xbox CSO, believes this shortage will continue for another 2 and a half years, and until Helix releases, the best they can do is get the current console playerbase excited for the future so they can return/stay subscribed, and/or purchase games in the Xbox ecosystem to stop the bleeding. Having a LE X25 console is another thing to get console players excited for the future, but we know that thing is gonna be STUPID limited in supply lol.

Definitely! Which is a breath of fresh air. Even Matthew Ball came out quickly to address some misinformation on an interview he did regarding in-game ads.

Something the old guard would NEVER have done.

There have been talks about an ad tier of Game Pass for a year or 2 at this point. Unlike TV shows/movies/music having ads play during the middle of playing a game can be very disruptive. Maybe have it play 2-3 minutes of ads when you first open a game?

Hmm, I've never heard of this news site before. Need to subscribe to read the article.

I'm guessing she puts Obsidian and maybe even an assistance studio like Eidos Montreal on Fallout 5 or a New Vegas like Fallout game right away instead of letting Bethesda wait until TES releases in probably 2028 or 2029 to even start Fallout 5, with release being like 2034 in that scenario. They need big moneymakers and they need them fast, and Avowed and Outer Worlds 2 both performed under Xbox expectations, it's just good business to put Obsidian on Fallout when their last Fallout game sold like 12m and Fallout itself has since grown significantly in popularity with 4 reportedly selling over 30 million since it released. The rumored and leaked Fallout 3 remake will be out within a year probably, which can hold people off until Obsidian can get their Fallout finished. 

It would be so interesting if in North America and the global market in general that Xbox Series X/S supply can't meet demand. The demand has been pretty low the last few years, but confidence in XBOX could change that.
And we'll see if Project Helix is coming out Holiday 2027, but costs are certainly going to make that tough. Asha wants something financially appealing. $900 or more for Helix won't be.

Big grain of salt on this one considering the source, but a ResetEra user claims they have a friend who works for Compulsion Games and that they received notification that Compulsion is closing as part of the layoffs. Guess South of Midnight wasn't very successful if true, Asha and her new team must not have been happy with the sales or Gamepass numbers for it. If true, hopefully the only studio closure, with others only being hit with rounds of layoffs.

"Inside Xbox's margin crush" - Jez Corden article    ( https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/inside-xboxs-margin-crush )

names games that underperformed expectations / flopped:

"Avowed,
Keeper,
Kiln,
South of Midnight,
Hellblade 2,
Forza Motorsport,
The Outer Worlds 2,
Minecraft Legends,
Ninja Gaiden 4,
Minecraft Earth,
Bleeding Edge,
Battletoads,
Towerborne,
Ara: History Untold,
and "among others".
"

Jez Corden claims he heard that from his sources.

Honestly yes, if "We happy few" and "South of Midnight" did poorly... and Contrast (their first game) was like a 60 metacritic game...
I could see Compulsion Games being in the line of fire.

This studio has been around since 2009.
It has made 3 games since, that all basically did poorly.
I feel like having 17+ years to prove yourself is long enough tbh.

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.