IbizaPocholo
NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

The Xbox we knew is dead
Opinion: The failure of the Xbox project comes at a price, and we're seeing that play out

I'll begin by noting that Xbox isn't the only games company to have made multiple rounds of lay-offs in recent years. And it isn't the only one to close studios.
Perfect Dark and Everwild, the two announced games that Xbox has cancelled today, were troubled projects. Sometimes game development just doesn't work out.
And although Microsoft and Xbox may be delivering strong numbers, it's fiscally irresponsible to continue investing in things that aren't working. Not just for shareholders, but existing employees, too.
All of that is true. But what is also true is that the last ten years for Xbox has been defined by a persistent failure to deliver.
Xbox never did recover from that 2013 Xbox One launch, when it lost ground to PlayStation and has continued to do so ever since. In an effort to recover, the company embarked on a strategy that centered on a subscription service (Game Pass), with a new console that featured a higher and lower-end variant (Xbox Series X and S).
But it couldn't deliver the games. Halo Infinite and Starfield, two important tentpole releases, arrived late and failed to connect with fans. Some of the studio leaders blamed ineffective and small marketing campaigns, which was a consequence of Game Pass eroding the margins on these first-party releases. But the games were also not quite good enough.
You can have the best strategy in the world, but if you can't deliver hit games, then it counts for nothing.
The Xbox project has failed. And as a result, Xbox is now a third-party publisher. One with a console and a subscription service, but a third-party publisher all the same. It is committed to hardware, but its partnership with Asus on the Xbox handheld, and the news of a Windows-focused future for its platform, suggests a different commitment to the one we're used to.
Messaging this transition to its loyal and confused fans has been tricky, and the company appears to have adopted the 'boiling the frog' approach of gradually releasing more and more games on PlayStation. Xbox gamers may not like it, but hopefully this will help the company deliver better financial results for its games and studios… even if it comes too late to save its console business.
- Mass layoffs & studio closures
Microsoft's Xbox division has laid off hundreds of employees, shut down its own studio The Initiative, and canceled high-profile projects including Perfect Dark and Everwild- Challenged leadership and strategy
Dring argues Xbox has "persistently failed" over the past decade to deliver the exclusive, impactful games needed to justify its hardware — with early missteps dating back to the troubled Xbox One launch in 2013- Game cancellations reflect deeper issues
These cancellations are not unique — development uncertainties are natural — but Xbox's inability to launch standalone hits like Halo Infinite and Starfield further eroded consumer trust. These titles were criticized for late launches, weak marketing, and being "not quite good enough"- Shift in business model
Xbox is moving away from its console-first identity toward becoming a platform-agnostic third-party publisher. While it still makes consoles (e.g. through its partnership with Asus for handheld hardware), Microsoft is increasingly focused on a Windows-centric and subscription-oriented (Game Pass) future- Conclusion: a transformed Xbox
Dring concludes that the "Xbox project has failed." What remains isn't the console-driven force it once aspired to be, but rather a multi-platform publisher built around services and third-party partnerships — a fundamentally different entity from its origins
TL;DR
Xbox has downsized its internal development, cancelled major exclusives, and drifted away from a hardware-first console strategy. Now it mainly operates like a third-party publisher, emphasizing Game Pass, software on Windows and other platforms, and hardware collaborations — a stark departure from the Xbox of old.
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