Thousands of layoffs, a couple of booted studios, and a re-organisation of Obsidian away from its newer projects and onto Fallout later, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has reportedly taken to an internal town hall and talked about the importance of new IP.
The transcript, as shared by Windows Central, goes as follows: "We're backing our strongest franchises. I want our great games to become great global billion-dollar franchises. I would also like to see us continue to create enduring new IP. We will not survive if we only revive [sic] on the past. We have to find new ways, and courage, to have invention on new IP, that reaches new sets of audiences."
This is, to put it gently, very confusing. As part of Xbox's "Reset", the studio has done the following:
- Cancelled multiple projects from Obsidian and told it to go make a Fallout game.
- Made Double Fine go independent.
- Did the same to South of Midnight studio Compulsion Games.
- Put its sights on Arkane Lyon.
- Is, at present, in consultation talks regarding Ninja Theory after attempted sales failed.
That doesn't smack to me of the kind of courage and new IP invention that Sharma is talking about—most of these studios had either just made interesting new IPs (South of Midnight) or are in the business of doing cool, inventive new stuff (Double Fine).
From a numbers-driven, capitalistic point of view, were they making bank? Likely not, but the phrase "trying to have your cake and eat it too" exists for a reason. The mouth isn't talking about what the hand is doing—waxing lyrical about courage and new IP while making some of the most cutthroat industry cuts we've seen in an already-dire decade.
The one counterpoint to this is that Xbox has picked up Hideo Kojima's Physint. Which is technically a new IP. Not an IP that Xbox personally funded the most of, and it's being created by a beloved auteur, but hey. There is that.
All of this isn't to say what seems to be Xbox's actual strategy—"backing our strongest franchises", as Sharma puts it—isn't understandable from that same ruthless abacus point of view. But given how sore its existing developers understandably feel from the sword dangling over their heads? I'd leave that town hall very confused.
