Xbox president Sarah Bond has responded to the recent studio cuts at Bethesda, describing the decision as “our commitment to make sure that the business is healthy for the long term”.
Bond was interviewed at the Bloomberg Tech Summit yesterday, following the news earlier this week Microsoft has closed a number of Bethesda studios: Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog Games.
However, the interview has since gone viral due to Bond’s seemingly weak answers that provide little insight into the decision.
Firstly, Bond was asked about the current lack of growth in the video game industry, something Phil Spencer said he was “most concerned” about following the company’s decision to lay off 1900 people.
“The last year or so in video games, largely the industry’s been flat,” said Bond. “And even in 2023, we saw just some tremendous releases, tremendously groundbreaking games. But still, the growth didn’t follow all of that.
“A lot of that’s related to our need to bring new players in and make gaming more accessible. But all of that has been happening at the same time that the cost associated with making these beautiful triple-A blockbuster games is going up, and the time it takes to make them is going up.
“And so, so much of our focus as Xbox is about how we do things to help the industry all up, while also ensuring that our brand, everything that we do, is there through this moment of transition.”
Bond was then asked more specifically about the recent studio closures.
She replied: “It’s always extraordinarily hard when you have to make decisions like that… When we looked at those fundamental [industry] trends we feel a deep responsibility to ensure that the games we make, the devices we build, the services that we offer are there through moments. Even when the industry isn’t growing, when you’re through a time of transition.
“The news we announced earlier in the week is an outcome of that, in our commitment to make sure that the business is healthy for the long term.”
She continued: “But that said, our commitment to having our own studios and working with partners to have games large and small, we’re a platform where you can play GTA, but you can also play Palworld, where you can play Call of Duty and you can also play Pentiment, that doesn’t change. And frankly, our commitment to Bethesda and the role that it plays is part of Xbox and everything we do.”
She then pointed to the success of the Fallout TV show, before adding: “Right now for us and our teams, our focus is on the people impacted and doing everything that we can do to help them through this hard transition.”
Next, Bond was asked directly about the closure of Tango Gameworks considering the perceived success of the award-winning Hi-Fi Rush.
“You know, one of the things I really love about the games industry is that it’s a creative art form, and it means that the situation and what success is for each game and studio is also really unique,” said Bond. “There’s no one size fits all to it for us, and so, we look at each studio, each game team, and we look at a whole variety of factors when we’re faced with sort of making decisions and tradeoffs like that, but it all comes back to our long-term commitment to the games we create, the devices we build, the services and ensuring that we’re setting ourselves up to be able to deliver on these promises.”
Bond provides a non-answer here, dodging the question. Success may be unique for each game and studio, but clearly the success of Hi-Fi Rush was still not enough.
Ironically, the interview has gone viral for a camera cut during the interview showing a graph of year-over-year growth of Xbox.
A more positive note was the announcement of Microsoft’s web-based mobile game store this summer.
Bond was also asked about the release of previously exclusive Xbox games on PlayStation. Just yesterday, Sea of Thieves was announced as the top-selling download game on PS5 in Europe last month.
“It’s early days yet…but we are really encouraged by the reception of our games,” said Bond. “One thing I think it’s important to note is as Xbox we’ve been putting games on other platforms for a long time. Minecraft is available pretty much universally. The teams at Bethesda have had games on other platforms, the teams at Activision Blizzard have games on other platforms. So it’s a decision we make on a game-by-game basis as we continue to move forward and execute on our strategy.”
Addressing core gamers, Bond reiterated her comments from the Xbox podcast in February, that her focus is “engineering and building that next generation hardware experience” to tap into the needs of core gamers, be that power and performance, taking their game libraries with them, and a commitment to playing everywhere through cross-play, cross-progression, and cloud saves, as well as continuing to launch games on day one in Game Pass – including Activision Blizzard, or “across the whole slate”.
The news of studio closures at Bethesda was met with widespread condemnation across the industry, especially as Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin were reportedly set to work on new games in their respective franchises.
For more on why Xbox is making cuts, check out our exploration from GamesIndustry.biz’s Chris Dring.
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