{"id":640998,"date":"2026-06-16T04:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T04:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/640998\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T04:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T04:08:12","slug":"several-xbox-studios-at-risk-of-closure-in-talks-to-become-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/640998\/","title":{"rendered":"Several Xbox Studios at Risk of Closure, in Talks to Become Independent"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"South<\/a><\/p>\n

Update #2 [Mon 15th Jun 2026, 9:30pm]: In another update, this time from Bloomberg<\/a> journalist Jason Schreier, it’s stated several Xbox first-party developers are at risk of closure and are currently in talks about being spun out to become independent.<\/p>\n

Among the teams, three of the developers specifically named are Compulsion Games (We Happy Few<\/a>, South of Midnight<\/a>), Double Fine (Psychonauts<\/a>), and Ninja Theory (Hellblade<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Sources speaking to Bloomberg claim the studios are “in active negotiations to spin off as they try to thwart closure”.<\/p>\n

Update #1 [Mon 15th Jun 2026, 6:30pm]: This is a fast developing story, and Kotaku<\/a> has just added the following update to its article:<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to one source at the studio, Compulsion leadership is in \u2018negotiations\u2019 with Microsoft over the studio\u2019s fate, but the details of these negotiations have not been disclosed.\u201d<\/p>\n

These negotiations could potentially culminate in the studio regaining its independence, although we\u2019ll need to wait for further updates to know for sure.<\/p>\n

Original Story: This weekend has been awash with rumours about incoming Xbox studio closures<\/a>, as new leadership wrestles with an almighty mess.<\/p>\n

While the speculation about the layoffs has been awful to witness on social media, Kotaku<\/a> is now reporting that South of Midnight<\/a> maker Compulsion Games will be among the first to fall.<\/p>\n

Total job losses are unknown, although LinkedIn lists about 90 employees at the Montreal-based studio. It was acquired by Microsoft in 2018, months prior to the release of We Happy Few<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Various staff from the studio, including South of Midnight writer Zaire Lanier<\/a>, have indicated on social media that they\u2019re currently looking for work. It\u2019s worth underlining that nothing has been officially announced as of the time of publication.<\/p>\n

The Game Business<\/a> reported earlier today that Xbox Game Studios boss Craig Duncan had resigned from his role less than two years after taking the job; Chief of Staff Louise O\u2019Connor is also said to have left.<\/p>\n

This weekend, CEO Satya Nadella said that Xbox needs to become<\/a> a \u201csustainable business\u201d following 25 years of subsidies, and jibed \u201cthere’s more monetisation of Xbox games happening on YouTube than at Microsoft\u201d.<\/p>\n

South of Midnight, for what it\u2019s worth, won multiple awards \u2013 including the Games for Impact gong at last year\u2019s The Game Awards<\/a>. It released on the PS5 earlier this year, where we described it as \u201cthe most beautiful simple game<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

[source kotaku.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\tRelated Games<\/p>\n

\tSee Also<\/p>\n

\"Sammy<\/p>\n

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He\u2019s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Update #2 [Mon 15th Jun 2026, 9:30pm]: In another update, this time from Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, it’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,555,86,56,54,55,10935],"class_list":["post-640998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-industry","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-xbox-game-studios"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}