In regards to MS's reasoning for announcing Senua despite knowing they will not actually release the game. I feel that section of your write up here lacks a bit of really important context. Can you elaborate/follow up on these questions:
- Did you ask Ninja Theory for comment/clarification how much they were involved in that move? And if yes, did the staff know? Since when? Did you reach out?
As for why it was done:
- Also Xbox did benefit from the announcement as it helped to present a strong brand for their comeback tour. The audience and engagement for the showcase was significantly bigger then for the later clusore news, right?
- They explicitely advertised Game Pass using the Senua annoucement, stating "Play it day one on game pass!" even though they knew the studio no longer supported to finish the game.
- Also the drummed up investors would have to purchase NT from MS, correct?
I feel these three points are important notes. Just going with "Drum up investor interest for the studio", while the studio needs an investor to survive makes it appear that MS is doing NT a solid here, while I think in fact they just squeezed out whatever dollars they could with a shady move. Opinion, I know. But that context helps for one at least.
I haven't heard back from Ninja Theory. As I'd noted in my piece, I don't know if anyone in Ninja Theory was in on the plan around the announcement. When I'm saying that the source I cited is familiar with Microsoft's plans, that's Microsoft management; I didn't know about NT management's knowledge or perspective, nor the studio workers'. I imagine there will be continued reporting from me and others as this story and the stories around other Microsoft studios continue to develop. Wish I had more details for you now.
As for the idea that the reveal would benefit the studio, there can be multiple perceived benefits (and drawbacks) from a reveal for a game from a studio that management doesn't plan to keep. As you noted, it can promote the overall Xbox or Game Pass brand, can promote the studio, can excite fans. And it can also potentially damage trust, sow confusion, etc.
Yes, outside investors would need to be interested in the studio. We could be talking about an external buyer, such as another game publisher. We could be talking venture capital or private equity. I have no idea. But the thinking, as I understand it, is that Ninja Theory is more attractive to outside money if it has a new project that got some buzz among the public vs being a studio that was last seen releasing a game that didn't seem to be a hit.
Some key unknowns on my end: the timeline for a decision around Ninja Theory and Senua, who knew/didn't know, who might have been operating on an older plan of just doing a conventional reveal.
Stepping away from this particular instance, I've spoken to gaming execs involved in and overseeing studio shutdowns or spin-offs before. And, as you would expect, they don't see themselves as the bad guys. They'll talk about doing all they could to help the studio: to have explored potential buyers, to have looked into sales back to management, to have tried to stave off lay-offs. In those instances, the companies are obviously also simply trying to avoid the bad press and morale hit of being seen as a studio-killer. I'm reminded of how my own previous job ended. My prior employer wasn't going to fund my gaming newsletter for the next year but very clearly didn't want to be seen as shutting it down. So they gave me a ton of notice, lots of time to look for work, let me promote my next thing, Game File, while working there.
Sorry I don't have anything more concrete to share with you at the moment.
Thank you so much for the elaborate response and additional insights.
You probably noticed, that i struggled to keep a neutral position while processing that particular paragraph about NT, which is due to a personal studio closure experience. In any case I appreciate your time and clarity on that answer.
Will keep an eye out for updates, including from game file. Thank you. :)
You know what, I'll buy that Microsoft "over-extended" themselves (per their memo) and are now in the position of having too many studios for the money that Xbox brings in as a whole. Corporate strategies change, the market changes, blah blah blah.
What I'm grumpy about is that none of this bodes well for Game Pass. The thinking a few years ago was that Game Pass as a whole would bring in money and provide a security blanket for Xbox's quirkier first-party studios to experiment and develop more innovative concepts. They wouldn't have to worry about sales targets, because the goal in part was to keep Game Pass fresh, interesting and diverse. Let them make smaller titles more frequently and you may just find some surprise hits on your hands.
(I am not surprised Ninja Theory are one of the ones on the list; the time taken between their titles would have tested any publisher's patience. I wonder how much it cost to develop Hellblade 2.)
There's so many games coming out nowadays and only so many Game Pass subscribers. Microsoft has the numbers; maybe these studios are being out-competed by indie titles of the same ilk on the service. Sad news regardless. At least they're not closing them outright.
Game Pass is a very strange thing at this point. The curation remains terrific. The people who add games to that service have really good taste. I mean, they had Clair Obscur in it at launch. This past spring, they've had Steam's most-wishlisted game (Subnautica 2), a critical darling (Mixtape), an intriguing puzzle adventure game (Call of the Elder Gods), a game about bug collecting (Kabuto park), a new game from the co-developers of viral 2025 game Peak (Crashout Crew), a classic JRPG (Final Fantasy VI), the next game from the makers of the viral A Game About Digging a Hole (Solarpunk), plus Forza Horizon 6 and a slew of others!
There is always something interesting in it to play. They are constantly adding games. But.... do you have time to play all those games? Do you have time to play ANY of them? I barely do, because many of them fit in the nice-to-have part of my playing list. I spent part of my weekend mopping up end-game quests in Pragmata. I'm now catching up with Assassin's Creed Shadows, since it just got a major update. I've been really into a puzzle game on my Steam Deck.
Game Pass is great for people with infinite gaming time and infinite curiosity. I think Microsoft has found in recent years that the size of those groups is limited.
Y'know reading your list of notable GP titles there, I realise I should revise my statement. The closure of some smaller first-party Microsoft studios probably doesn't "bode" for GP as much as I felt - everything you just named there was third-party!
In an era of gaming abundance like this maybe Microsoft just doesn't *need* their own smaller studios to keep Game Pass fresh.
We're coming up on ten years of Game Pass now. I don't think it's going away anytime soon. I think its existence has taught us some interesting things about the console and PC markets.
• It makes enough money that Microsoft want to keep it around. Important in that calculation is that it's stable, predictable, recurring subscription money.
• It *doesn't* make so much money that it can justify including gigantic blockbusters like CoD without significant price hikes.
• It makes enough money to make it worth bankrolling third-party indy development, partially or fully.
• It *doesn't* make enough money to justify running several of your own "indy" studios.
• Subscribers will only tolerate price increases up to a point (MS seem to have found the ceiling with last year's Ultimate increases).
• On console, where many of their customers would have previously subscribed to Xbox LIVE anyways, it's an easy upsell.
• On PC, where the competition is the (near) monopoly storefront of Steam with the crazy discounts and deep reservoir of well-earned customer goodwill, Game Pass is a much tougher sell.
• On console, it's not a big enough selling point to attract customers away from Sony.
That is a good question and I thought the same thing. If Microsoft has invented their own metric for corporate profit/loss I would love to know exactly what it entails. My gutinstinct is that, knowing just a little bit about Microsoft's business practices, that this "accountability margin" is NOT identical to "profit margin"; the word "accountability' somehow implies that it might be some metric that compares profit to either expenses or costs (depending on how those words are defined by their internal accounting system).
Thanks for your reporting, Stephen! I never played any of their games, but have a soft spot for DoubleFine since watching the 23 hour Psychonauts 2 documentary PsychOdyssey. The sigh of relief among their developery when they were acquired by MS, because they had been fighting for funding practically since forever and were hopeful those days were done, still rings in my ears, especially now. I really hope they can keep making those wonderully quirky games, with or without MS.
Off topic and absolutely whatever: Couldn't help but chuckle at the graphic's creator's name, which loosely translates to "toilet seat" in my native tongue German. 😅
Somehow you included Turn 10 but didn't mark it with a single red line, despite the entire Forza Motorsport part of the studio being laid off, except the leadership. It's like just because Forza Horizon exists (made by Playground Games) and T10 publishes it, nobody realizes or really cares that the actual Turn 10 was basically erased.
I went back and forth on whether to put a line through it, but decided not to because, ultimately, where do you draw the line, given that many of the studios have had sizable cuts. But, yes, Turn 10 was decimated last year. I reported a bit about that here: https://www.gamefile.news/p/video-game-layoffs-lists-washington
Hey Stephen,
In regards to MS's reasoning for announcing Senua despite knowing they will not actually release the game. I feel that section of your write up here lacks a bit of really important context. Can you elaborate/follow up on these questions:
- Did you ask Ninja Theory for comment/clarification how much they were involved in that move? And if yes, did the staff know? Since when? Did you reach out?
As for why it was done:
- Also Xbox did benefit from the announcement as it helped to present a strong brand for their comeback tour. The audience and engagement for the showcase was significantly bigger then for the later clusore news, right?
- They explicitely advertised Game Pass using the Senua annoucement, stating "Play it day one on game pass!" even though they knew the studio no longer supported to finish the game.
- Also the drummed up investors would have to purchase NT from MS, correct?
I feel these three points are important notes. Just going with "Drum up investor interest for the studio", while the studio needs an investor to survive makes it appear that MS is doing NT a solid here, while I think in fact they just squeezed out whatever dollars they could with a shady move. Opinion, I know. But that context helps for one at least.
Anyways. TYSM
Good questions
I haven't heard back from Ninja Theory. As I'd noted in my piece, I don't know if anyone in Ninja Theory was in on the plan around the announcement. When I'm saying that the source I cited is familiar with Microsoft's plans, that's Microsoft management; I didn't know about NT management's knowledge or perspective, nor the studio workers'. I imagine there will be continued reporting from me and others as this story and the stories around other Microsoft studios continue to develop. Wish I had more details for you now.
As for the idea that the reveal would benefit the studio, there can be multiple perceived benefits (and drawbacks) from a reveal for a game from a studio that management doesn't plan to keep. As you noted, it can promote the overall Xbox or Game Pass brand, can promote the studio, can excite fans. And it can also potentially damage trust, sow confusion, etc.
Yes, outside investors would need to be interested in the studio. We could be talking about an external buyer, such as another game publisher. We could be talking venture capital or private equity. I have no idea. But the thinking, as I understand it, is that Ninja Theory is more attractive to outside money if it has a new project that got some buzz among the public vs being a studio that was last seen releasing a game that didn't seem to be a hit.
Some key unknowns on my end: the timeline for a decision around Ninja Theory and Senua, who knew/didn't know, who might have been operating on an older plan of just doing a conventional reveal.
Stepping away from this particular instance, I've spoken to gaming execs involved in and overseeing studio shutdowns or spin-offs before. And, as you would expect, they don't see themselves as the bad guys. They'll talk about doing all they could to help the studio: to have explored potential buyers, to have looked into sales back to management, to have tried to stave off lay-offs. In those instances, the companies are obviously also simply trying to avoid the bad press and morale hit of being seen as a studio-killer. I'm reminded of how my own previous job ended. My prior employer wasn't going to fund my gaming newsletter for the next year but very clearly didn't want to be seen as shutting it down. So they gave me a ton of notice, lots of time to look for work, let me promote my next thing, Game File, while working there.
Sorry I don't have anything more concrete to share with you at the moment.
Hey.
Thank you so much for the elaborate response and additional insights.
You probably noticed, that i struggled to keep a neutral position while processing that particular paragraph about NT, which is due to a personal studio closure experience. In any case I appreciate your time and clarity on that answer.
Will keep an eye out for updates, including from game file. Thank you. :)
You know what, I'll buy that Microsoft "over-extended" themselves (per their memo) and are now in the position of having too many studios for the money that Xbox brings in as a whole. Corporate strategies change, the market changes, blah blah blah.
What I'm grumpy about is that none of this bodes well for Game Pass. The thinking a few years ago was that Game Pass as a whole would bring in money and provide a security blanket for Xbox's quirkier first-party studios to experiment and develop more innovative concepts. They wouldn't have to worry about sales targets, because the goal in part was to keep Game Pass fresh, interesting and diverse. Let them make smaller titles more frequently and you may just find some surprise hits on your hands.
(I am not surprised Ninja Theory are one of the ones on the list; the time taken between their titles would have tested any publisher's patience. I wonder how much it cost to develop Hellblade 2.)
There's so many games coming out nowadays and only so many Game Pass subscribers. Microsoft has the numbers; maybe these studios are being out-competed by indie titles of the same ilk on the service. Sad news regardless. At least they're not closing them outright.
Game Pass is a very strange thing at this point. The curation remains terrific. The people who add games to that service have really good taste. I mean, they had Clair Obscur in it at launch. This past spring, they've had Steam's most-wishlisted game (Subnautica 2), a critical darling (Mixtape), an intriguing puzzle adventure game (Call of the Elder Gods), a game about bug collecting (Kabuto park), a new game from the co-developers of viral 2025 game Peak (Crashout Crew), a classic JRPG (Final Fantasy VI), the next game from the makers of the viral A Game About Digging a Hole (Solarpunk), plus Forza Horizon 6 and a slew of others!
There is always something interesting in it to play. They are constantly adding games. But.... do you have time to play all those games? Do you have time to play ANY of them? I barely do, because many of them fit in the nice-to-have part of my playing list. I spent part of my weekend mopping up end-game quests in Pragmata. I'm now catching up with Assassin's Creed Shadows, since it just got a major update. I've been really into a puzzle game on my Steam Deck.
Game Pass is great for people with infinite gaming time and infinite curiosity. I think Microsoft has found in recent years that the size of those groups is limited.
Y'know reading your list of notable GP titles there, I realise I should revise my statement. The closure of some smaller first-party Microsoft studios probably doesn't "bode" for GP as much as I felt - everything you just named there was third-party!
In an era of gaming abundance like this maybe Microsoft just doesn't *need* their own smaller studios to keep Game Pass fresh.
We're coming up on ten years of Game Pass now. I don't think it's going away anytime soon. I think its existence has taught us some interesting things about the console and PC markets.
• It makes enough money that Microsoft want to keep it around. Important in that calculation is that it's stable, predictable, recurring subscription money.
• It *doesn't* make so much money that it can justify including gigantic blockbusters like CoD without significant price hikes.
• It makes enough money to make it worth bankrolling third-party indy development, partially or fully.
• It *doesn't* make enough money to justify running several of your own "indy" studios.
• Subscribers will only tolerate price increases up to a point (MS seem to have found the ceiling with last year's Ultimate increases).
• On console, where many of their customers would have previously subscribed to Xbox LIVE anyways, it's an easy upsell.
• On PC, where the competition is the (near) monopoly storefront of Steam with the crazy discounts and deep reservoir of well-earned customer goodwill, Game Pass is a much tougher sell.
• On console, it's not a big enough selling point to attract customers away from Sony.
Question: Do you know/seen what actual constitutes “accountability margin”?
Have Xbox very publicly stated what it has been in the past?
That is a good question and I thought the same thing. If Microsoft has invented their own metric for corporate profit/loss I would love to know exactly what it entails. My gutinstinct is that, knowing just a little bit about Microsoft's business practices, that this "accountability margin" is NOT identical to "profit margin"; the word "accountability' somehow implies that it might be some metric that compares profit to either expenses or costs (depending on how those words are defined by their internal accounting system).
Thanks for your reporting, Stephen! I never played any of their games, but have a soft spot for DoubleFine since watching the 23 hour Psychonauts 2 documentary PsychOdyssey. The sigh of relief among their developery when they were acquired by MS, because they had been fighting for funding practically since forever and were hopeful those days were done, still rings in my ears, especially now. I really hope they can keep making those wonderully quirky games, with or without MS.
Off topic and absolutely whatever: Couldn't help but chuckle at the graphic's creator's name, which loosely translates to "toilet seat" in my native tongue German. 😅
Somehow you included Turn 10 but didn't mark it with a single red line, despite the entire Forza Motorsport part of the studio being laid off, except the leadership. It's like just because Forza Horizon exists (made by Playground Games) and T10 publishes it, nobody realizes or really cares that the actual Turn 10 was basically erased.
I went back and forth on whether to put a line through it, but decided not to because, ultimately, where do you draw the line, given that many of the studios have had sizable cuts. But, yes, Turn 10 was decimated last year. I reported a bit about that here: https://www.gamefile.news/p/video-game-layoffs-lists-washington