Xbox’s ongoing restructuring, which began in July with 1,600 layoffs, has led to a severely diminished Halo Studios, World’s Edge being cut in half, and Ninja Theory potentially primed for closure. Oblivion is now reporting to Bethesda, Turn 10 and Playground are one, and Activision is developing the next Halo.
And while mixed impressions abound about, well, everything, one person is feeling confident about the whole situation: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. On Alex Heath’s Sources Podcast, Nadella said he feels “fantastic about the IP we have right now. If I look at the studios, the IP portfolio we have, and our ability to then take that and produce great games going forward, I feel fantastic.”
Regarding Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s resetting of the division, he remarked, “There’s some amount of streamlining the team is doing, and Asha is doing, which is great to see.” The next step is to “invent the right sustainable business model that allows us to deliver gaming to more and more people,” which has seemingly “always been the goal.”
“We want to be a great publisher and a great platform provider for games, across both PCs and Xboxes. That is sort of our goal, and I think Asha and team have said that Xbox is gonna get back to growth this next fiscal year, and that’s the plan they’re executing on, and in that process do a bang-up job of producing some great games.”
Which all sounds good in theory, but in practice, Xbox is still battling against declining hardware revenue, memory shortages (which seem all but likely to affect Project Helix), and price hikes. A return to exclusives, as seen with Gears of War: E-Day this October and Clockwork Revolution in 2027, is certainly daring, but given the former’s large budget, there’s more pressure than ever to surpass expectations.
In the meantime, Xbox is probably content to hedge its bets on the likes of Call of Duty, especially with Modern Warfare 4 coming up and looking far better than past entries. It’s out on October 23rd for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, and, for the first time in the series, Nintendo Switch 2.
