Tommy

Game dev in my free time. Trying to bring a little cheer onto the internet. Working on the second greatest game you’ve never seen using @GodotEngine

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

@opinali This feels like a CD Projekt Red NVIDIA collab waiting to happen. Idk if it’ll be in Cyberpunk or Witcher 4, but they’ve been debuting a lot of features like this

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

Still sad about this. id Tech 8 might only ever be used for Doom: The Dark Ages. Such an amazing piece of tech going to waste

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

wtf, coders? At id?!?

What on earth are they thinking just letting talent like that leave the building, let alone *firing* them

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

@thicc_stick_boi Good for the company and their products (which I generally like)

Bad for 3,000 people who just lost their job

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

wtf, coders? At id?!?

What on earth are they thinking just letting talent like that leave the building, let alone *firing* them

[Scott Miller - Apogee/3D Realms Founder ☢️ @ScottApogee]

This post was about the insider news I got this morning that a majority of Id's studio is being laid off, including most (if not all) coders.

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

@Greystone719 @_MINECRAFT_LIVE Idk, it sounds like creative control on the base game will remain mostly the same. I imagine she’s mostly interested in the Marketplace side of things

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

Preserving my PlayStation games by throwing them in the bog

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

@RealJaffar @Canadianguyehh Yeah, they aren’t running a charity after all

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

@Cade_Onder We weren’t getting Starfield 2 for like 20 years anyway, but it still makes me sad

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

@RealJaffar @Canadianguyehh Good for Xbox, but it’s still 3,000 people out of a job. Not fun

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

I’m concerned about too much meddling with Mojang. Please don’t kill the Golden Goose.

But if your investment comes with better technical engineering, that would be appreciated

[CharlieIntel @charlieINTEL]

Xbox CEO is moving Minecraft and Candy Crush (King) business units to report directly to her, instead of being part of the content business

Xbox CEO reportedly believes the company has failed to properly invest in Minecraft

[via @stephentotilo]

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

@XO_SPlay @charlieINTEL @stephentotilo Candy Crush is a business dream. Very low development costs and absurd revenue.

Obviously a big change from Xbox’s legacy, though

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

@HazzadorGamin Pour one out for the GOAT

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

Also, the fact that management is being *reduced* to no more than five layers is crazy.

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

Good on Xbox for avoiding any studio closures. Still a huge tragedy that so many talented people will lose their jobs.

I’m not surprised by the focus on Mojang/King. Those studios have to just be printing money at this point

[ASHA @asha_shar]

This is an important email I sent today to all employees at XBOX:

Team,

We are beginning the most significant restructure in XBOX history. After careful consideration, I've made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 throughout FY27. This will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today, and in addition, four studios will leave XBOX to new management. I recognize that a year-long restructuring creates additional challenges. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make all the necessary changes in a single day, and I wanted to be direct about the scale.

I know this is painful. These changes will directly affect people who have poured their creativity into building XBOX. Many joined us through acquisitions, while others were recruited here, or sought us out because they loved this industry and loved XBOX. Today's decisions do not reflect their talent or dedication.

Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3–10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset XBOX.

First, we will reset our content portfolio.

Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined. We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset XBOX, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision.

Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will return to management and transition to independent studios with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3. In France, Arkane’s management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options.

We are also making reductions across other units, and in some cases, shifting investment to focus on higher priority projects. These changes vary in size across Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and XBOX Game Studios. None of our first party publicly announced games or projects are being cancelled as part of these reductions.

In addition, Mojang and King will now report directly to me. These two studios have increasingly become platforms and are our largest by monthly active players. They bring critical geographic, demographic, and differentiation to XBOX.

Second, we will reset our platform.

We know that great technology gets better when it gets simpler, not bigger. Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. Our platform teams are 40% larger than they were at the start of this generation, even as our player base and playtime have declined. That complexity has slowed decisions, blurred accountability, and made it harder to deliver for players. As we reset XBOX, we will simplify.

We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. And we will streamline how we work across our tools, with a cleaner code base, shared services, and 50% reduced vendor spend.

Third, we are resetting how we operate.

As XBOX grew our headcount, we became more fragmented. Teams, studios, and functions often operate independently, and it became harder to work towards a shared goal, make the right tradeoffs, and get things done.

For the first time, we are establishing a Chief Operating Officer with end-to-end P&L responsibility across content, hardware, platform, and services. Helen Chiang has been promoted to this role and will report directly to me. Over nearly two decades at XBOX, Helen has helped build some of our most important businesses, from XBOX Live to leading Mojang and the Minecraft franchise. She will bring our businesses together under one operating model, making sure we make clear investment decisions, learn from our successes and failures, and hold ourselves accountable for results.

Thank you, Dave McCarthy, who is retiring after 17 years with XBOX. Dave has played a defining role in building the platform that millions of players rely on every day and has been a trusted partner through many of the biggest moments in XBOX's history. We wish him all the best.

These changes are about a bigger future for XBOX, not a smaller one. The next decade of gaming will be larger, more global, and more creative than anything we've seen before. This year, we'll invest as much in XBOX as we ever have, but we'll invest with greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity, all in service of making XBOX where the world plays and creates.

I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect. I know we can achieve this goal. XBOX has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history, talented studios around the world, and we will return to growth in 2027.

History is full of companies that mistake longevity for inevitability. We will not be one of them.

Asha

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

@stvulture Either that or a certain price threshold (like sub $10 or smth) where the window is smaller

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

I do still think there’s a wide-open hole in the budget market right now <$400 that’s currently filled by iPads and old Switch 1s. Won’t be possible to easily fill it until after the RAM crisis, but I’d be curious to see what a $199-299 console could be capable of these days.

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

This is why I think Helix is the right approach (even if it will be crazy expensive for a console).

The market for locked high-end consoles is rapidly shrinking. You can either have consoles like Switch 2 that are very affordable, or full PCs.

[Mario_Tierra @Tierra100able_]

Ojito, poco se habla de la posibilidad de que muchos vayamos a por Xbox Helix y no a por PS6

PS6, en este panorama, está descartadísima por mi parte

¿Pero y si Xbox Helix tiene Steam?
¿Y si se confirma el online gratis?
¿Y si mantiene lector para thirds, retro, etc?

Cuidado

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

@gaseth1028 @ARAARASHINIGAMI PS5 and Xbox had the convenient and easy TV interface advantage, but now even that is gone.

Couch gaming on PC is pretty plug and play atp

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

Tho tbh I just go by what Wikipedia says, because they surely only settled on that after fierce debate

[Tommy @otterthingsco]

I love Switch gen 9 truthers because it’s just this meme:

[Hating Is A Sport @HatingIsASport]

fixed it for you since you had the generations wrong

Xbox - 24 M
Gamecube - 21 M
PS2 - 160 M

Xbox 360 - 84 M
Wii - 101 M
PS3 - 87 M

Xbox One - 58 M
Wii U - 13 M
PS4 - 117 M

Xbox Series - 28 M
Switch - 155 M
PS5 - 93 M

N/A
Switch 2 -19 M
N/A