In a new Xbox Wire blog post, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and Chief Content Officer Matt Booty shared a memo sent to Xbox employees. The memo itself is far too long to cover in full here, but I'll go over some of the most important details.
I've also already covered Bloomberg's report that Xbox is expected to make major layoffs next month, so with that out of the way, let's take a look at what Sharma and Booty had to say:
“We expanded our studio system when we needed a pipeline of content to meet multiple strategies across subscription, streaming, and devices. In the process, we have found ourselves over extended as we executed on changing strategies in a landscape of more readily available content. We are the fortunate stewards of industry-defining franchises that have enormous potential and player demand, but we have not adequately funded them to compete and win. At the same time, as we saw this past weekend at Showcase, a reliable pipeline of first- and third-party exclusives and new IP are critical to our success. We need to reassess the balance between these and our investment priorities for the next 5 years... Our current platform infrastructure is not built for the battle ahead. Our systems are overly complex, spanning hundreds of dependencies, which hinders our ability to move fast. We’ve become too reliant on vendors to operate our systems and must become more self-reliant as an engineering culture to build for the future.”
It's a lot to digest, and honestly, it's a brutally honest message from Xbox. To me, it sounds like the company believes some of its biggest franchises weren't receiving the investment they needed, despite strong demand from players.
At least from my reading of it, Xbox appears to be rethinking where it's spending its money. That's probably good news for those of us who enjoy franchises like Halo, Gears of War, and Forza, but perhaps less so for smaller projects and franchises that may struggle to compete for resources.
For now, we don't know exactly what this will look like in practice. However, with reports suggesting the next 100 days could bring significant changes, including potential studio closures or adjustments to Xbox's studio lineup, it's clear the company believes its current approach isn't sustainable.
Whatever the case, the next 100 days are going to be extremely interesting for Xbox. There are clearly some difficult decisions ahead, but hopefully they aren't all bad and ultimately help put the company on a stronger path forward.
With that said, let me know your thoughts on the whole situation in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll above.
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