xbox studio closures – Trekking with Dennis

Cancelled Games I Wish We’d Got To Play

The recent cancellations and studio shutdowns in the games industry – and at Xbox in particular – got me thinking. There are a lot of games that just never made it to the launchpad for one reason or another, and some of them sounded genuinely fantastic. Given how poor a lot of corporate decisions are, I don’t buy the argument that “any cancelled game would’ve been bad; that’s why they cancelled it!!1!” – which is something some armchair critics like to say. That seems to be a bit of a “cope;” a way to brush off the cancellation of a title that could’ve been a ton of fun.

So today, we’re going to take a look at ten cancelled games that I really wish had seen the light of day.

You don’t have to tell me, I already know the argument: some of these games might’ve been crap, and maybe there were good reasons behind their cancellations. Noted. Got it. We don’t need to go over that again!

A selection of arcade machines. — Let’s talk about some cancelled games.

If I may suggest the obvious counter-point: some of these games might’ve been good! Some of the titles on this list seem to have been cancelled not for any reasons pertaining to quality, but for financial reasons, changes in priorities, or studios and intellectual property changing hands. Those things have next to nothing to do with the actual game, and while it’s true that not every decent-sounding cancelled game would’ve been great… I still wish we’d been able to see them and judge the finished products for ourselves.

As always, everything we’re gonna talk about is the entirely subjective, not objective opinion of just one person. If I highlight a game you think sounded awful, or ignore a title you think is obvious on a list like this… that’s okay. There ought to be enough room in the gaming community for differences of opinion. The games are listed in no particular order.

With that out of the way, let’s jump into the list.

Cancelled Game #1:
Agent (a.k.a. Rockstar’s Agent)
Early 2010s

The game’s logo.

Agent was first teased in 2007 by Sony, purportedly as a PlayStation 3 exclusive from Rockstar Games. Further details weren’t announced until 2009, when it emerged that the title would feature a secret agent in a 1970s Cold War setting. Obviously, the first point of comparison was James Bond, and that was more than enough to pique my curiosity! I didn’t own a PlayStation 3 until late in the console’s life, but Agent was perhaps the title I was most interested in after The Last Of Us.

Rockstar went radio-silent on Agent for years after the 2009 announcement. Occasional “leaks” would emerge, but there was nothing concrete. Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two, renewed the “Agent” trademark twice, and seemed to imply to investors as late as 2013 that the game was still being worked on. However, another 2013 project, Grand Theft Auto V (and its online mode in particular), seems to have redirected Rockstar’s development resources.

Leaked screenshot of Rockstar's Agent showing a character at the foot of a staircase. — One of the leaked screenshots.

By 2015, the project seems to have been abandoned, and I really do believe that Rockstar’s change of focus to Grand Theft Auto Online is the main culprit. Comments from at least one former Rockstar developer suggest that team members were reassigned from Agent to support Grand Theft Auto V after 2013, with the popular and financially successful online mode clearly being more of a priority for Rockstar and Take-Two.

It wouldn’t be the last project Rockstar would sacrifice at the altar of Grand Theft Auto Online. A single-player expansion was planned but never released, Red Dead Redemption II’s online mode was ignored when it failed to generate the same kind of revenue as GTA’s, and you better believe we’d have seen Grand Theft Auto VI, and perhaps other Rockstar titles – like a sequel to Bully – if the studio hadn’t gone all-in on GTA Online after 2013. Agent seemed like it had the potential to live up to stealth-action titles like GoldenEye and the Hitman series, and its ’70s setting sounded particularly fun.

Cancelled Game #2:
Star Trek: First Contact
1998-ish

Pre-release screenshot of Star Trek: First Contact showing Picard and a Borg. — A game based on *First Contact*? Cool!

MicroProse created one of my favourite games ever: 1997’s Star Trek: Generations. Yes, the game is a pretty basic “Doom clone,” and yes it came out three years too late… but it was a ton of fun to play through an expanded version of the Generations story, with little connections to other episodes from The Next Generation. MicroProse had the Star Trek license in the mid-late 1990s, and after releasing Generations in 1997, the studio began work on an adaptation of First Contact.

For an action game or a first-person shooter, you could hardly pick a better Star Trek story than First Contact! Battling the Borg on the lower decks of the Enterprise-E, teaming up with Picard and the crew… it could have been a genuinely fun and exciting Star Trek experience. I doubt First Contact would’ve really crossed over to the mainstream and brought in a bunch of new fans… but you never know. A few years later, Elite Force managed to do just that.

Pre-release screenshot of Star Trek: First Contact showing Data, Worf, and two Borg. — A leaked screenshot of an early build of the game.

MicroProse’s financial problems seem to have impacted its ability to work on this game, though. The studio planned to use the then-new Unreal Engine, which would’ve allowed for better graphics and fully 3D models (Generations used a much older engine designed for DOS games that relied on 2D sprites for the most part). The jump in quality would’ve been noticeable, and First Contact could’ve been a good-looking game by 1998 standards!

A title based on First Contact is still one of my fantasy Star Trek games all these years later. Retaking the lower decks of the Enterprise-E, battling the Borg in close quarters, and perhaps having to rely on hand-to-hand combat and thrown-together weaponry… it just sounds so tense and exciting! It could also be a great horror-tinged game, with the Borg being a genuinely difficult and frightening antagonist. There was a ton of potential here, and it seems as if the game was cancelled through no fault of its own.

Cancelled Game #3:
Super Mario 128
1997-99

Screenshot of Super Mario 64 showing Mario on the castle's secret slide. — Whee!

A sequel to Super Mario 64 was planned for the Nintendo 64’s disc drive accessory – but the hardware failure led to the game’s cancellation. There’s a bit of confusion surrounding this title, because Super Mario 128 also refers to a completely different project that was in early development for the GameCube! But the 64DD version would have been much closer to Super Mario 64 than Mario Sunshine.

Originally, Super Mario 64 was supposed to include multiplayer, with the second player being able to control Luigi via split-screen gameplay. It sounds like Super Mario 128 was going to pick up this idea, using the 64DD’s more powerful capabilities to include a two-player mode. Luigi was confirmed by developer Shigeru Miyamoto to have been part of the project throughout its development, and rumours have suggested that Peach’s castle from Super Mario 64 would’ve returned as a location.

Screenshot of Super Mario 64 DS showing Luigi getting a star. — Luigi would eventually be playable in *Super Mario 64 DS*.

Another idea that Miyamoto supposedly had for Super Mario 128 was spherical levels or environments. We’d eventually see this idea in Super Mario Galaxy a decade later, but I’ve always wondered what it might’ve looked like if even one level had been like that back in the Nintendo 64 era! A direct sequel to the events of Super Mario 64, perhaps re-using and upgrading some of the same levels and environments just sounds like a lot of fun, and having a two-player couch co-op mode with Luigi and Mario together would have been fantastic.

Ultimately, the failure of the 64DD doomed this version of Super Mario 128. It seems that Nintendo kept the name, for a time, and the project was either switched to the GameCube or a new GameCube project was created with the same name shortly after the turn of the millennium. Elements of Super Mario 128 have appeared in several 3D Mario games over the years, including spherical levels in Galaxy and a return to Peach’s castle in Odyssey.

Cancelled Game #4:
Perfect Dark Reboot
Late 2020s

The game’s logo.

After showing off Perfect Dark just a few months ago with an action-packed, exciting trailer… Microsoft and Xbox have now cancelled the project. Not only that, but the studio Xbox had created specifically to build Perfect Dark has been completely shut down and its staff have largely been laid off by Microsoft. This feels like a pretty shocking turn of events, and I think it’s a colossal disappointment that we aren’t going to get the promised Perfect Dark reboot.

Perfect Dark was Rare’s follow-up to the smash hit GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64, taking the same gameplay style but transposing it to a corporate-dystopia futuristic setting. Protagonist Joanna Dark was compelling, and the game was just a ton of fun both in single-player and multiplayer back in the Nintendo 64 days.

Screenshot of Perfect Dark showing the player character sliding in combat. — A glimpse at the game.

There aren’t that many single-player-focused first-person shooters any more. There’s id’s Doom series, and occasionally a title like Deathloop will come along, but for the most part, modern FPS titles focus almost exclusively on lucrative multiplayer modes that can be monetised to death. Perfect Dark represented something different – a bit “old school,” for want of a better term – in a modern gaming landscape dominated by those kinds of titles. And at a time when Microsoft’s biggest FPS franchise, Halo, has been flailing around, Perfect Dark could’ve been a much-needed boost. Heck, if it was good enough it could’ve even eclipsed Halo, taking Xbox in a different direction.

The gameplay that we saw a few months ago is real – though it was a “vertical slice” of a very incomplete game at the time it was produced. There really did seem to be a lot of potential in a return to this series and this style of first-person shooter. Maybe there were more problems behind-the-scenes than we’ve learned so far, and maybe Perfect Dark was just taking too long to be ready. But it’s a disappointment that we’ll never get to see it for ourselves.

Cancelled Game #5:
TimeSplitters 4
Late 2000s

An early version of the game’s logo.

TimeSplitters 2 is genuinely one of my favourite games of its era. Fun, fast-paced, with a unique story and art style… it was just a blast to play either alone or with friends. A third TimeSplitters game was also well-received – though I didn’t play that one for myself! Developers Free Radical Design announced that a fourth entry in the series was coming, but then they switched to develop the critically-panned Haze.

Haze’s failure seems to be what doomed TimeSplitters 4. Free Radical Design went into administration, and although it was initially announced that TimeSplitters 4 might be able to be saved, it didn’t happen. The studio was shut down, and the TimeSplitters license eventually ended up at Embracer Group after passing through several other hands.

Screenshot of TimeSplitters 2 showing a tommy gun, a car, and the game's 1930s Chicago level. — The Chicago level from *TimeSplitters 2*.

TimeSplitters’ unique level design – jumping through different time periods and using weapons from those eras – made it something a bit different, and there was something about its fast-paced gameplay, especially in multiplayer, that was just plain fun. I have wonderful memories of playing TimeSplitters 2 on the original Xbox with friends, kicking back after work with a game that was different from anything else on the market and just really entertaining to play. The single-player campaign was great, too.

TimeSplitters 4 feels all the more disappointing because the game seemed, for a brief period in the early 2020s, to be getting a reprieve. However, a second cancellation was confirmed a couple of years ago, with the resurrected Free Radical being shut down for a second time. Again, this seems not to have been the fault of TimeSplitters 4, but rather due to issues within parent company Embracer Group.

Cancelled Game #6:
Shenmue III
2003-ish

Screenshot of an unreleased Shenmue II/Shenmue III environment showing Ryo with a temple. — Is this what *Shenmue III* would’ve looked like circa 2002?

Before you get angry and start screaming at me that “Shenmue III came out in 2019!!1!” – I know. I’m not talking about that version of the game. What I’m lamenting is that the original Shenmue saga couldn’t be continued on the Dreamcast, and that fans had to wait almost twenty years for a sequel to Shenmue II that wasn’t what it was originally supposed to be. If the Dreamcast had been a success and Shenmue III had been created in the early 2000s, it would have certainly been a different game – and probably a longer one, too.

There were rumours back in the day that Shenmue and Shenmue II could’ve been ported to the PlayStation 2 after the Dreamcast’s demise… and that could’ve also been something that saved the series. I firmly believe that the Shenmue saga is one of the best stories ever told in the medium, and it’s positively criminal that it’s never been concluded. There were chances in the early 2000s to salvage the Shenmue project, but its reputation, high pricetag, and connection to the failed Dreamcast all counted against it… as did the second game’s low sales.

Screenshot of an unreleased Shenmue II scene showing Ryo and Shenhua in bed. — Shenhua and Ryo.

If Shenmue had continued, one way or another, in 2003 instead of 2019, I think we’d have gotten a much larger game for starters. And without the intervening couple of decades, this version of Shenmue III would undoubtedly have been closer to fans’ expectations – and possibly exceeded them. One of the reasons Shenmue III felt disappointing to some fans, in my opinion, is that the 2019 version wasn’t able to take advantage of years’ worth of changes and improvements in game design.

Shenmue III in the early 2000s would’ve also been a stepping-stone – one part of an unfolding story. I can’t speak for every Shenmue fan, but I genuinely expected the crowdfunded 2019 game would conclude the game’s main story. It didn’t – and that alone convinced me not to even buy it at first. But in 2003, that would’ve been a non-issue, so even if the story and settings of Shenmue III had been exactly the same, I believe the game would’ve been far better-received. Unfortunately, Shenmue was a masterpiece that was, in many ways, ahead of its time. Players in the early 2000s weren’t as interested in what the first two games had to offer, and the Dreamcast’s shaky position in a market that was about to be dominated by the PlayStation 2 sealed its fate.

Cancelled Game #7:
Life By You
2024-26

One of the game’s promo images.

Life By You was one of a handful of Sims-inspired life simulator games that were all in development at the same time in the 2020s. And it was probably the one that appealed the most to me! Electronic Arts has monetised The Sims 4 to death – it costs, at time of writing, more than £1,300 to buy all of the available add-ons and expansions for that game. That’s a consequence of EA having the life-sim genre basically all to itself for years. Titles like Life By You threatened to change that.

I don’t know what Life By You’s monetisation might’ve looked like. Developer and publisher Paradox is not exactly known for being light on the DLC with its grand strategy games, many of which have DLC totals that can run to several hundred pounds. But I think competition in the life-sim genre is a good thing, and as someone who enjoyed The Sims in the early 2000s, I was definitely interested to see what another big studio could’ve done with the same basic gameplay idea.

Promo screenshot for Life By You showing the game's build mode. — This looks like it would’ve been the game’s build mode.

inZOI and Paralives are two other new life simulators that are both coming out soon, though I would note that inZOI’s early access seems to have been a little *too* early! But both of those games are by smaller teams – and while there’s nothing wrong in the slightest with smaller studios, new studios, and indie developers, the bigger name behind Life By You was at least part of the draw, in my opinion. I’m still very interested in those other games, and I hope they both give The Sims 4 a run for its money! But if they don’t, or if they aren’t as good as people are hoping, I really think we’ll come to regret the cancellation of Life By You.

We don’t know what happened behind-the-scenes, but Paradox put out a statement saying that “a version we’d be happy with was too far away,” seeming to indicate that development was not progressing at a pace the publishing side of the company was happy with. It’s worth noting that Paradox was able to write off a significant portion of the game’s development costs against its annual income… which may have also been a factor in the game’s cancellation. Paradox also called the game “high risk,” and claimed in a meeting with investors that they’d be less likely to invest in similar titles in the future.

Cancelled Game #8:
Whore of the Orient
2013-16

Leaked screenshot of Whore of the Orient showing a man, a staircase, and a window. — The only image of the game that ever leaked.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: that’s a horrible title for a video game! But setting the title aside, Whore of the Orient sounded genuinely interesting. It was the brainchild of the people behind L.A. Noire, the police investigation game published by Rockstar in 2011. Team Bondi was eventually rolled into a new studio to develop Whore of the Orient, but most of the senior team stayed to work on the project.

Whore of the Orient would’ve made use of the same facial capture technology as L.A. Noire, but targeting a PlayStation 4/Xbox One release, I think we’d have seen some noticeable improvements on that front. The game was to be set in Shanghai in the 1930s, with political intrigue, the rise of communism, and criminal gangs. We don’t know much more about its story, but that premise sounds like something genuinely different, and potentially very engaging.

Photograph of Shanghai, circa 1927. Black-and-white image from an elevated position looking down on a waterfront packed with boats. — *Whore of the Orient* would’ve been set in Shanghai, circa 1930s.
*Photo: Shanghai, 1927*

We haven’t seen another game quite like L.A. Noire, and I’d have loved to see what the original developers could’ve done with the improved hardware of the PlayStation 4 generation. L.A. Noire hasn’t really aged well, with its facial capture stuff feeling just a bit too janky, but the same technology running on more advanced hardware could’ve really been something special.

As to the story, there aren’t any games I can recall that are set in 1930s China, so that alone would’ve made it stand out. We don’t know why the game was cancelled, only that parent company KMM Interactive pulled the plug sometime between the final update on the project, which was in 2013, and June 2016, when the news was belatedly announced to the public. Perhaps the story never came together, maybe the technology wasn’t working right, or maybe the game got too big and ambitious for its budget. In any case, it’s disappointing that the L.A. Noire folks didn’t get a second chance to tell a different story.

Cancelled Game #9:
Half-Life 2, Episode Three and Half-Life 3
Late 2000s

Concept art for Half-Life 2, Episode 3 showing an icy environment and a shipwreck. — Promotional art for *Episode Three*.

Half-Life 3 has become a meme at this point; the ultimate example of a video game that we’re never gonna play! But there was a time when either Episode Three or a full Half-Life 3 were very much on the agenda. But that was before developers Valve decided to dedicate all of their time to Steam, Dota 2, and the Counter-Strike series. As above with Perfect Dark, there’s a gap in the market for single-player first-person games, and the Half-Life series should be well-positioned to fill it.

Half-Life’s story is incomplete. Worse, it just… ends. There’s no conclusion for any of the characters or storylines, just a big, almost twenty-year-long void. And at this stage, despite occasional rumours… I don’t think the Half-Life series would print money in the way the first two titles did. It’s been too long, a whole new generation of players have come along who don’t even know that Valve used to make games, and quite honestly, I’m sceptical about Valve having the talent to produce a top-tier single-player game after so much time has passed.

Pre-release screenshot for Half-Life 2, Episode 3 showing a first-person perspective, an icy environment, and several enemies. — A leaked screenshot of an early build of *Episode Three*.

There was that VR game a couple of years ago, and rumours occasionally fly about a potential new Half-Life title. Valve, unlike many of the other developers on this list, is still around – and still printing money hand over fist thanks to Steam. But the company’s focus has changed, and I don’t think most of the folks there are interested in another entry in the Half-Life series. It’s just sad that such an interesting setting and cast of characters can’t get any kind of conclusion, and it’s frustrating that there’s not really a good reason. If the studio had closed or if the previous entries in the series had flopped… fair enough. But Half-Life is held in high esteem and Valve clearly has the resources to invest. They just never did.

I also think we’re at a point now, for fans of the series, where any new game would struggle to meet expectations. It’s been so long, and Half-Life 3 has seen its status massively inflated, so any announcement would generate insane levels of hype. No game – no matter how good – could realistically reach the heights players would set for a new Half-Life… so maybe it’s better this way?

Cancelled Game #10:
Star Wars: Project Ragtag
Mid-2010s

Concept art for Project Ragtag showing several characters. — Concept art for the game.

After the Walt Disney Company acquired LucasFilm in 2012, they also acquired the game studio LucasArts… and promptly shut it down. Disney handed the Star Wars license to Electronic Arts, who commissioned Dead Space developer Visceral Games to create a Star Wars third-person adventure game. Project Ragtag was being helmed by Amy Hennig, who had written and directed the Uncharted trilogy. Everything seemed to be coming together, and a genuinely great Star Wars game was in the offing.

But in 2017, EA didn’t just cancel the game, they closed down Visceral Games as well. According to Hennig, this decision was taken months before the team was made aware of it, and EA apparently planned to re-use some of the work Visceral had done for a rebooted open-world title. That project never saw the light of day, either.

Pre-release screenshot of Project Ragtag showing an empty level. — An early build of an in-game environment.

Project Ragtag was supposedly a “heist game,” being set sometime during the events of the original Star Wars trilogy. Last year’s Star Wars Outlaws sounds kind of similar in theory, and I think that’s a good starting point, at least, when considering what Project Ragtag might’ve felt like to play. I’ve long argued for more stories set in the Star Wars universe that don’t just rely on the Jedi and Sith or on bringing back familiar faces, and I felt Project Ragtag had the potential to be a wonderfully engaging experience.

The director and studio both had pedigree, so there were plenty of reasons to be optimistic. Maybe the game wasn’t coming together… or maybe Electronic Arts was desperate for open-world, always-online multiplayer titles that seemed like better monetisation prospects in the second half of the 2010s. EA would go on to publish Jedi: Fallen Order a few years later, though, so maybe they learned their lesson!

So that’s it.

Stock photo of Sega Mega Drive games and a control pad. — A selection of Mega Drive/Genesis games.

We’ve talked about ten cancelled games that I really wish we’d been able to play!

Some of these have been sore spots for decades; others are new, but still sting. Sometimes a game being cancelled does ultimately lead to something better, either because the creative folks move on to different projects, or even because some of the work done on a title can be repurposed. But there’s no point in denying it: a game I’m looking forward to getting cancelled just hurts.

There are a few titles where cancellation feels reasonable under the circumstances or may have been expected. Some games sound too good to be true and may have proven too ambitious, or just didn’t come together in the way their developers hoped. These things happen, and as I’ve said before: game development is not a sure-fire thing. There can be all manner of reasons why a decent-sounding project struggles when the concept comes up against the real world.

Promo photo of a woman working on a computer with two monitors. — Game development is not a straightforward process!

But all of these games sounded good to me, and I regret that they were cancelled before I could try them! As someone who follows the games industry – and who spent a decade working on the inside – I keep up to date with upcoming games, and even allow myself to get excited, sometimes! That inevitably brings with it a degree of disappointment when a title either doesn’t live up to expectations, or doesn’t even make it to release.

I hope this hasn’t been too depressing. And who knows: maybe some of these games will get a reprieve one day. If Age of Empires IV can be developed sixteen years after Age of Empires III, or a new 3D Donkey Kong game can launch in 2025 – more than a quarter of a century after Donkey Kong 64 – then maybe there’s still hope!

All titles listed above may still be in copyright with their respective developer, publisher, and/or studio. Some screenshots and images courtesy of IGDB, DJ Cube, and Shenmue Dojo. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

What’s Going On At Xbox?

Sat 18.05.24Dennis

Uh, Xbox? You okay there?

I’m genuinely flummoxed by recent decision-making over at Xbox. I’ve said before that, while I’m a Game Pass subscriber on PC, I don’t own either of the current-gen home consoles – so I’m not coming at this from some kind of console war/fanboy perspective. But it’s pretty concerning to see Xbox flopping around like a dying fish, seemingly unable to turn its massive and ever-expanding gaming empire into anything remotely profitable.

If you haven’t heard the news, Xbox recently announced the closures of four subsidiary studios. One of those is the beleaguered Arkane Austin, developers of Redfall – which was one of the biggest flops of 2023. I’m never in favour of a studio being shut down after one failed project – especially when that studio has a previous track record of success. But I could at least understand why something like that might happen; we’ve seen it often enough with publishers like Electronic Arts, for example. Blame for a failed title gets pushed onto the developer – often unfairly, as studios are increasingly pushed to work on titles outside of their areas of expertise by publishers – and then they end up being closed down. It sucks, but it’s happened before.

Arkane Austin, the developer of the ill-fated *Redfall*, has been shut down.

But what I honestly cannot understand is Microsoft’s decision to close Tango Gameworks – developers of Ghostwire Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush, both of which have been successful titles for Xbox and Game Pass, with the latter even being launched on PlayStation to great fanfare. Closing down a studio after a high-profile failure is one thing, but after releasing critically-acclaimed titles that achieved more than anyone could have expected? It makes absolutely no sense – and seems to be indicative of a company in disarray.

Microsoft and Xbox may have bitten off more than they could chew with the recent Activision-Blizzard acquisition. Although that side of the company is one of the only profitable spots for Xbox at the moment, the massive outlay to purchase the company in the first place has clearly burned a hole in the once-infinite pockets of Microsoft, and that appears to have led to some very short-term thinking on the part of some executives. They’re scrambling, looking for any and all money-saving options.

Twitter screenshot showing a post by Aaron Greenberg. — VP of Xbox Marketing Aaron Greenberg hailed the success of *Hi-Fi Rush*… shortly before the developer that made it was shut down.

Xbox has been running way behind PlayStation since the end of the Xbox 360 era, and that shows no signs of changing any time soon. PlayStation 5 consoles are outselling Xbox Series S and X consoles by a huge margin, and Microsoft has been struggling with that for a while. But Xbox’s ace in the hole should be Game Pass – as I’ve said more than once, subscriptions seem to be the direction of travel not only in the gaming marketplace, but in media in general, and Xbox has been first out of the gate with the biggest gaming subscription around. There have even been calls in some quarters for Xbox Game Pass to launch on PlayStation, such is the demand for the service.

But Game Pass is, as we’ve also discussed, somewhat of a double-edged sword. More people signing up naturally means fewer direct sales of games – because any player who’s joined Game Pass is incredibly unlikely to shell out extra money for a copy of a game they can already play. When some critics of Game Pass tried to spin this as a major “problem,” I pushed back on that, saying it was a silly argument. Microsoft and Xbox know what they’re doing, I argued, and a short-term hit to individual sales will have simply been an expected part of the equation as Game Pass establishes itself. But apparently I’ve over-estimated the intelligence of some of Microsoft’s executives…

A promo graphic for Xbox Game Pass. — Does Microsoft not know how to handle Game Pass?

Senior folks at Xbox have been seen in public expressing concern over “flat” sales, and the company doesn’t seem to know how to handle its own Game Pass subscription service – you know, the platform it set up with the explicit intention of changing the way in which Xbox and PC players pay for and engage with games. How on earth that managed to happen is just beyond me, and some of this ridiculous short-term thinking on the part of senior management at Xbox seems to run completely counter to the company’s stated longer-term goals.

Maybe Game Pass isn’t doing as well as Microsoft hoped. It seems, from publicly available data, that the service hasn’t seen a huge influx of new subscribers over the past twelve months, even with the release of major titles like Starfield. But as any film/TV streamer could tell them, building up a user base takes time, and there are bound to be bumps in the road along the way. Hitting the panic button after a few rough months and closing down studios that should be making exactly the kinds of games that Xbox claims to want to prioritise is so stupidly short-sighted that it’s almost incomprehensible.

Screenshot of Starfield (2023) showing three citizens in New Atlantis. — *Starfield* doesn’t appear to have led to a massive influx of new Game Pass subscribers.

Not for the first time, I feel echoes of Sega’s rather unceremonious exit from the console war some twenty-plus years ago. Perhaps that’s the next step for Microsoft, with its gaggle of newly-acquired studios. Rather than becoming a gaming powerhouse like Nintendo or Sony, producing a glut of high-quality exclusive content, Microsoft is instead going to end up as another Electronic Arts – a publisher owning a number of different studios, ready to close all of them at the drop of a hat if there’s so much as a whiff of underwhelming sales numbers.

That would not be good for gaming. Whatever you may think of Xbox consoles or Game Pass, the games industry needs competition in order to innovate, grow, and provide some semblance of consumer-friendliness. With Nintendo not directly competing with PlayStation for the same audience – being off to one side carving out its own niche – it’s up to Xbox to be the competitor that the gaming landscape needs. If Xbox is indeed failing, in danger of crashing out of the market… that’s not going to be good for anyone in the longer-term.

Packaging for an Xbox Series X console. — An Xbox Series X box.

I don’t believe for a second that this will be the end of the line for Game Pass, nor for subscriptions in gaming in general. Those things are here to stay – even if Microsoft and Xbox can’t figure out how to make them work properly right now. The direction of travel in media is still toward subscriptions and away from box sets and physical discs, and I don’t see that changing in the short-to-medium term. Game Pass, while it may be struggling to attract new users right now, is still an exceptionally good deal and a great way into current-gen gaming for players on a budget… but it’s on Microsoft and Xbox to find a better way to take advantage of that. Top tip: shutting down studios that could produce brand-new titles to add to the service that would attract new subscribers is categorically not the way to do it!

On a personal level, it’s hard not to feel for the folks at Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and the other studios that Microsoft has killed off this month. And for the dozens of other studios that other big publishers have shut down. The games industry in general feels quite unstable right now, with high-profile flops, studio closures, and large numbers of people being laid off left, right, and centre. Corporate greed accounts for a huge chunk of that, by the way, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Many of these decisions are being taken to boost already record-breaking profits and to provide even more money for shareholders and investors.

There was no need to shut down Tango Gameworks.

All of this self-inflicted bad news for Xbox comes just a few weeks before the company’s big Summer Showcase event, at which several new titles are supposed to be revealed. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Avowed, Flight Simulator 2024, and Starfield’s Shattered Space DLC are all likely to be shown off in detail at the event, and there’s even going to be a special Call of Duty-themed presentation following Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. But it’s hard not to see that event being totally overshadowed by recent closures and lay-offs, and the general sense that Xbox as a brand is struggling to find a direction and an identity right now.

For players who might tune into the Showcase, or who might be subscribed to gaming news publications that will cover the event… what are they to make of Xbox, when the company seems to be all over the map with its exclusives, lack of exclusives, new studios, and studios that have just been shut down? With some of Xbox’s precious few exclusive titles already making their way to competing platforms, and studios that developed popular and successful titles being unceremoniously killed off, how can any player have faith in Xbox and the upcoming titles it wants to highlight?

Promo graphic for Xbox's 2024 Summer Showcase. — The Xbox Games Showcase is just a few weeks away.

Suppose Shattered Space doesn’t cut it for Starfield, and player numbers remain low. Will Xbox insist that future development on Bethesda’s attempted space epic is halted? What if Avowed does incredibly well and wins some big awards… but executives decide to shut down Obsidian Entertainment anyway? If I’m looking on as a potential player… why shouldn’t I just wait six months until some or all of these games come to PlayStation or to Nintendo’s next console? What’s the point in buying an Xbox any more?

All of these are questions that Microsoft has opened up by some truly bizarre and desperately short-term moves over the past few weeks and months. If you’d asked me even a year ago what Xbox’s strategy was, I’d have said clearly that there’s a focus on building up Game Pass as a subscription service with a guaranteed income, backed up by some expensive studio and publisher acquisitions to make new titles to add to the platform. But now? What is Xbox trying to do? Where’s the longer-term planning, and where does Microsoft see the Xbox brand in ten years’ time, five years’ time… or even just this time next year? I genuinely don’t know any more.

Promo graphic of an Xbox Series X control pad. — Where will Xbox be five years from now?

It’s a strange time to be following the games industry – and I suppose that’s been true for a while now, really. Despite the predictions of some doomsters, I doubt very much that we’re heading for a 1983-style “market crash.” Gaming has grown so much since those days, and I just can’t imagine a collapse of that nature happening… at least not in the immediate term. But bigger changes may be afoot, and if Xbox is losing money and unable to keep up with PlayStation, well… sooner or later, something’s gotta change.

As I said a few months ago when talking about Xbox and its exclusivity problem, I don’t believe that the company ceasing to produce consoles would be a good move for the market overall. But, as Sega found just after the turn of the millennium, focusing on software instead of fighting a losing battle on the hardware front might be what’s needed to save the brand.

Strange times indeed.

All titles discussed above are the copyright of their respective developer, studio, and/or publisher. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.