Xbox may now be more selective in which games get greenlit

Xbox may have 'learned a lesson' to avoid product mismanagement following sizable employee layoffs, entire studio closures, and project cancellations.

Xbox may now be more selective in which games get greenlit
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Senior Gaming Editor
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1 minute & 45 seconds read time
TL;DR: Following significant layoffs and project cancellations, Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios is adopting a more cautious, strategic approach to greenlighting first-party games. This aims to reduce costly project failures, avoid future layoffs, and ensure better resource allocation amid industry uncertainties and shifting market trends.

Following rounds of heavy layoffs, Microsoft may be more careful and selective in which games actually get greenlit at Xbox.

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It sounds like Xbox's management may now be more deliberate and methodical with its first-party game approvals. A bit ago, Microsoft conducted hefty layoffs across its entire company, with the Xbox segment laying off hundreds of workers across Xbox Game Studios, ZeniMax, and Activision. Microsoft also shut down The Initiative, a studio that had been working on a costly Perfect Dark project since 2018--that game was also cancelled. The layoffs have significantly harmed Xbox's reputation at a time when the public sentiment around the group is already at an all-time low.

Microsoft doesn't want this to happen again--this process has been grueling, costly, and ultimately has led to a lot of wastage--wasted spending on creating a product that will never actually release--in the entertainment division. According to Craig Duncan, who now leads Xbox Game Studios, the ultimate goal is to ensure Microsoft can avoid "having to" cancel projects, lay off hundreds of workers, and shut down entire content studios.

"Sometimes business decisions have to be made, which have wide reach and impact. We don't like doing that. So the lesson is: how do we make sure we don't have to do that? That's really the goal there," Duncan said in a recent interview with GamesRadar.

Duncan goes on to say that Xbox is constantly weighing its decision-making process, but the tough part about the games industry is that there's a considerable amount of time between when a game is greenlit and when it's released onto the market. It's almost impossible to adequately prognosticate a success rate because trends can change over time, and so can the economy itself, leading to more expensive production costs while in mid-development.

"As an overall portfolio, we're always looking at how everything is going; at whether everything is set up well, at whether or not we have got the right resources to go and deliver on our aspirations for all of our games."