A lot of the frustration behind the cuts internally at Microsoft apparently stems from the disappointment behind Call of Duty’s recent poor performance. First-party Xbox teams believe they’re being punished, as Dring puts it:
“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.”
All eyes are now on next week as Microsoft confirms exactly what it will be doing with the five — and potentially more — internal studios that have been named as being at risk.
Having most recently produced Avowed and The Outer Worlds series, Obsidian also created Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Alpha Protocol, and the second Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game.
[source thegamebusiness.com]