Xbox's sole goal over the last decade has been to increase subscriptions to Xbox Game Pass — the wave of acquisitions overseen by Ex-Xbox head Phil Spencer was all in pursuit of turning Game Pass into a thriving service on par with Netflix.
Unfortunately, Game Pass started well but failed to sustain the growth needed to justify Xbox's spending spree. The service also had the additional consequence of depriving studios of guaranteed revenue from their core audiences, turning $40-$70 releases into $10, as people subscribed to Game Pass, finished the day-one release and then unsubscribed from the service.
The release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 day-one on the platform was a 'final gambit' for Spencer's grand plan, but clearly the growth needed to justify the revenue lost from the Call of Duty faithful—who were going to buy the game anyway—wasn't achieved.
Now, Xbox Game Studios is undergoing successive waves of mass layoffs, as new management closes studios and cancels projects in an effort to bring the Microsoft subsidiary back to profitability.
In a recent interview with MinnMax, Mike Brown, creative director of Forza Horizon 5 who departed Playground Games in 2023, offered his take on...
