I get what you mean and you’re right, but they want more money. They don’t want to fund stuff that will just be a drain in their books. It is what it is, but they are not the only ones doing it. Sony cut some talented studios. Bungie is not funded properly right now and they might be next.
Nintendo has been selling Pokémon games with PS3 graphics for years and most first party games are not graphical showcases. They are not in the same category and I appreciate that to be honest.
Still weird to me why they greenlit Senua after the failure of Hellblade 2
“No you see umm, this was all our genius plan to make Ninja Theory look good to sell. It’s actually us being kind.”
This is such bull with no excuses from anyone at Microsoft or Xbox. I’ve never had so little trust in the brand. This isn’t the case of mixed messages from different leadership. Matt Booty was in charge of overseeing all content and studios under Phil and he got a promotion to oversee even more and be a closer partner for Sharma. Sharma has also been there for four months leading up to the showcase and we’ve been explained that she was there even longer trained. Not to mention Sharma apparently knew these cuts were coming well enough to allude to “tough decisions” in memos and interviews and then immediately after the showcase post that God awful ominous xbox wire post. There’s so many people at Microsoft and Xbox who had to have been aware of this situation and just let it happen. They let gamers sit back and watch a first party game appear that could easily be canceled or become published by a different entity who doesn’t have to keep promises supporting game pass. They forced the studio to go through this idiotic hoop jumping.
There’s no excuses here or blame game here. This responsibility just falls on Xbox and I don’t know how they expect us to have any trust in the brand after a decision like this. Yeah, they’re a business not a person and care about money most of all. But consumers won’t spend money in an ecosystem that they don’t feel like they can trust. Sharma herself said that and supposedly did everything she did for that. Yet the absolute worse outcome still came to pass. This is more damaging to Xbox’s trust that anything to do with exclusives, and freaking cosmetic updates on the console won’t repair it. Revealing and marketing a game for first party and for game pass that’s supposed to release in months, not years but MONTHS, only to know they plan to either close, sell, or part ways with the studio. Hell, no that’s not how you treat your customers or employees. My Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription is up for the first time in a long while in March (2027) and I did not think I’d be so unsure about extending it. I didn’t think I’d ever be so unsure about buying the next Gen Xbox.