Update: Everyone’s favourite video game journalist, Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier has shared a brief post on social media that refutes the report detailed below:
Despite a report this morning, I can confirm that Obsidian is not in negotiations to avoid shutting down. Plenty of details are still up in the air surrounding the layoffs (picture will be clear on Monday) but Xbox is keeping Obsidian, according to people familiar with the situation.
Much ado about nothing then? The Original Report continues below:
Original Report:
With reports over the last few weeks that studios like Ninja Theory, Double Fine, Compulsion Games, Undead Labs and Arkane, a new report suggests that Xbox Game Studio’s Obsidian Entertainment is also ‘deep in negotiation’ with parent company Microsoft over its future.
This news comes via Chris Dring’s The Game Business, where he shares a deeper look at what’s going on with Microsoft as Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and the leadership pivot to ‘reset’ the business.
Per Chris’ report, which you can read here – “Studios such as Compulsion, Ninja Theory, Double Fine, Obsidian, Undead Labs and others are deep in negotiation with Microsoft to avoid closure. The impact of this will likely reverberate across the business.“
He adds a little more detail beyond just adding Obsidian Entertainment to the list of reported studios facing difficulty, saying “There’s a real sense amongst some teams that they’re being punished for the poor performance of Call of Duty. That is the reality. Even if Obsidian had delivered an incredible year, even if The Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed had performed five times the numbers that they did, it wouldn’t have offset the drop on Call of Duty. A game like that, and Candy Crush, and Minecraft, and Warcraft, make a lot of Xbox’s output seem almost insignificant.“
It’s frustrating to read, because only last year, Xbox was touting ‘The Year of Obsidian’ which saw the team deliver not only action RPG Avowed, but also The Outer Worlds 2 and an extra surprise – Grounded 2, in partnership with Eidos Montreal.
With upcoming layoffs set to be announced in detail from around July 6th, all that fans can do right now is wait.
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source playday.one ’
