Xbox almost certainly plans to lay off a significant number of employees next month. Reports of looming cuts have some people fearing for their favorite small Xbox-owned studio, and early follow-up on the layoff reports suggests Xbox users worried about those studios are right to be afraid.
The impending Xbox layoffs could lead to studio closures.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma hasn't directly confirmed that she and her team will potentially be putting thousands of people out of work this July, but she did acknowledge that things have to change. Bloomberg reported that there would be widespread layoffs at Xbox, and Sharma shared a memo circulated internally in response to Bloomberg's claims.
In it, Sharma acknowledged that Xbox will end this fiscal year with a liability margin of just 3%, and that Xbox's annual revenue is down $500 million after spending $20 billion over the past five years. Again, there's no word on layoffs, but further reporting from The Verge suggests cuts could include studio closures or changes to the Xbox studio lineup.
People are worried about double fines.
This additional information has Xbox users fearing the worst, that Xbox could swing the studio-closure axe. Top of the pile is Double Fine. The legendary studio always has the next Psychonauts to point to when asked what it's cooking on Xbox, but Double Fine's last two games have actually been personal projects that don't appear to have generated much revenue for their publishing majority owners.
Double Fine plans to release Keeper in late 2025. No sales data is available for the title, but it seems unlikely that it would secretly sell for millions of dollars. This year Double Fine released Kiln. We don't have sales data, but we do know that the game didn't perform as well as Xbox had hoped due to the number of players on Steam.
Another studio that future Xbox owners fear is Rare. Again, like Double Fine, Rare has a big game to point to whenever Xbox asks what's up, thanks to Sea of Thieves. It's a successful live service game that definitely helps. However, with Everwild canceled, it's unclear what exactly Rare is currently working on for Xbox in terms of new games.
Some have suggested that smaller studios under the Xbox banner should talk to Toys for Bob and ask how the studio that announced the new Spyro game managed to escape the clutches of Xbox ownership. This is a costly endeavor for any studio that wants it, as it means regaining their independence, and if any studio closes next month, it's almost certainly too late.
- brand
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microsoft
- original release date
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November 10, 2020
- Original MSRP (USD)
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$499
- operating system
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Proprietary (Windows-based)
- processor
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Custom AMD 8-core Zen 2 3.8GHz
- solve
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720p – 4K UHD
