And this certainly kills any chances Xbox Japan had, I take it.

Reading the related articles that you linked, it really seemed MS doesn't really know what they should do. The objective seems clear, to conquer the whole gaming world by "XBox" replacing even PC gaming, but they don't know how to react to the pressure from digital stores not controlled like them (Steam, EGS, Ubi, EA, even GOG I guess), a gaming handheld running Linux becoming relatively popular etc., and of course the relatively lackluster sales of the XBox console itself.

It even mentioned MS would allow these competing stores to the XBox ecosystem, and would allow other manufacturers to make XBox-compliant consoles... but they even admit themselves that makes it harder for them to make money how consoles normally make money. I mean, if the competing stores reap big part of the game sales, and MS wouldn't try to make profit with unit sales either?

Maybe it really is then they are just trying to embrace and extinguish, ie. destroy the competition in the long run, and trying to move gamers, especially PC gamers, to play on Azure on cloud computers. Paying a hefty monthly fee for that privilege, of course.

Well, I tend to see Microsoft as two non-communicative halves. There's the lucrative enterprise half where they can sucker people into SaaS type deals and get them to pay forever for software that could be a small shell script, or a MySQL database instead of an overwrought Excel spreadsheet.

And then there's the consumer products division that used to be their breadwinner, but became a headache of having to support 40,000 years of legacy software & hardware, including things that it was never made for. While it can be lucrative to trot out forever support via paying though the nose to keep a decade old OS running, the fact remains that I think they want to wind this side of the company down. The thing is, they can't make you buy multiple site licences for the latest Gears of War. You buy one, and that's it.

And at the end of the day, consoles have become pointless since they're all running the same x64 based architecture, so it's just an expense to them since most of the money is getting new idiots to pay forward a Windows licence.

Sounds plausible, but then they don't seem to be able make up their mind, like letting the less lucrative parts just go. They prolong it trying to figure out how to get normal PC users and gamers to the SaaS model, running the software in the Azure cloud, including games. Maybe they fear SteamOS and ChromeOS will conquer the PC users/gamers, and if they leave the console business, they just leave it for Sony and Nintendo.

Maybe they have a clear vision where they'd want e.g. PC users and gamers to end up, but they can't just get these stubborn PC users to become MS Surface, Windows X and ultimately Azure users.

About the linked videos complaining how could MS close these studios, I think the videos are a bit naive about the corporate world. The big companies do not reward e.g. a studio making a couple of successful games, by granting them a 10-year guaranteed employment in the company. If some higher-up feels it makes financial sense to close a studio that made Prey over 10 years ago (I know Prey has become some sort of cult classic, but did it ever sell that well anyway?) or some sleeper hit 2 years ago that sold well, they don't see that as a guarantee that studio will make money 2 years from now with their mere existence. Just reposition some of the best people from e.g. Arkane and let the rest go. Employees are mere faceless assets in HR departments' and CEOs' eyes, no person nor studio is irreplaceable, and they don't want them to be.

That's just how especially bigger companies work, and probably I would probably do the same if I was some CEO or a middle-manager in such a company. Thanks for your past work, but we just don't need you anymore. If you are not working in the division of the company that is growing and the company wishes to grow, you can go. Has happened to me too and I just took it as "it is what it is, I never owed them anything and I guess they don't owe me anything either".

Now that I work in a smaller company which is not part of some bigger company (unless the owners decide to sell it), I feel more than a mere asset, I am an expert that even the higher people or even CEO tend to rely on in certain issues. I also feel ready to make an extra mile when needed, unlike in a big company where stretching yourself thin does not guarantee work for the following years (unless you are able to reposition yourself into the growing divisions).

As for "why did the Xbox head make it sound like the studios would have guaranteed jobs for years to come, and then suddenly dissolve them?", maybe he genuinely hoped that would be the case and tried to keep up the good spirit in his division especially so that important people wouldn't leave the company/division, but then he got an ultimatum from the CEO (Satya Nutella) that he must slash expenses by 20% to keep the bean counters happy, and there you go.

And indeed, the other side of the counter; most gamedev prospects don't have anything resembling job security. As long as the gun shoots damage at things in the right general direction, most of their skillset is expendable as far as most companies are concerned.

(→_→) Their niche Xbox Japan platform? Probably. If anything, Microsoft latest investment in Japan is the AI fever public relations display. Japan aims to semiconductors AI technology, not software like Microsoft's. And that tech area has smaller budget compared to energy and regenerative medicine. I agree, Microsoft don't know what they do~

It is indeed a conspiracy, about as much a conspiracy as water being wet at this point. Your denying of reality doesn't change reality.

Absolutely awful what went down w/ all of the closures.

We know around 70% left during Redfall at Arkane b/c this imm-sim making club wanted to make that kind of game, not a looter-shooter always-online GAAS game -> https://www.escapistmagazine.com/redfall-development-lost-70-percent-staff-arkane-austin-prey/

We know Shinji left Tango and created a new company -> https://www.eurogamer.net/resident-evil-director-shinji-mikami-founds-new-company

We know that an update coming this month from Arkane would've added offline mode too -> https://www.gameinformer.com/news/2024/05/08/redfall-was-reportedly-set-to-receive-a-big-offline-play-update-this-month-before

I dunno why Microsoft and Xbox didn't just ramp these studios up and find some new leaders if needed at Tango for more Evil Within games & more Hi-Fi Rush.

Dunno why they (Microsoft) just didn't let Arkane finish up the rest of the Bite-Back DLC Content for this October.

Fun fact - technically, water by itself is not wet.

Interesting insights from a former MS exec, Brad Hilderbrand, on why Game Pass has a lion's share of why these studios had to close.

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2024/05/former-microsoft-exec-gives-two-reasons-why-xbox-closed-bethesda-teams

Seems pretty incisive, hard to argue with.

Interesting read.

If I understood it right, partly it is MS trying to figure out how to make enough money from GamePass subsciptions? I have no idea how the pricing model goes and how much money publishers get from GamePass exposure, is it similar like Spotify where the artists constantly complain they get peanuts from the service, like Weird Al Yankovich revealing he got a couple of bucks from people playing millions of times his song(s) on Spotify, or some weird shit like that?

EDIT: Oh yeah, Yankovic had over 80 million Spotify streams last year, and earned around 12 bucks from them. Weird. I guess one can also stay away from services that don't pay much of anything.

https://www.tiktok.com/@consequence/video/7307101074328964382

Related?

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2024/05/xbox-reportedly-considering-game-pass-price-hike-to-accommodate-call-of-duty

Ie. yes, MS is trying to make GamePass profitable enough, at least to justify releasing new AAA games in the service.

I heard a theory by youtuber Rurikhan that investors bought in the idea to buy so many studios simply because of the pandemic gaming market boom and, naively, they thought the market was going to stay with the same numbers after it.

Thought process would be something like this:

More people at home > More revenue to gaming companies > Huge boom > Investors bought in > After pandemic, gaming revenue / gamepass drops down > Chaos with investors that need to see the numbers green > Microsoft starts closing studios and maintaining their IPs which are always profitable to maintain in the long run > What we have today.
Which is associated with that indirectly, if I understood correctly.

Pretty much yes. A game being on Game Pass from day 1 kills its regular sale window and the Game Pass revenue is shared between all the games on it.

So drastically reduced normal sales and very low income from being on Game Pass. By the time a game leaves Game Pass, a big chunk of people has already moved on and will never actually buy the game. There is also a trial you can use, which costs $1 for a month. And I don't think there is much preventing you from just making new accounts and doing that any time there is something interesting to you on Game Pass.

So the games have basically no chance of actually turning a profit that way, being doomed to financial failure. Most of the companies, for some reason, seemed to assume the covid boom would last forever. The rude awakening is now happening and it's basically all starting to crash down, with layoffs, studio closures etc. Not just in this case, but the industry in general as everyone is trying to stabilize from the over-inflated numbers going down.