Microsoft to close Xbox Entertainment Studios

The back pedaling from the original revel of the Microsoft Xbox One continues. While the company is taking on water in multiple different divisions, Xbox is profitable and keeping it afloat. However, Microsoft will be adding another cost cutting measure to the Xbox One, in closing Microsoft Entertainment Studios.

More from Entertainment

When the Xbox One was introduced, original programming was a highlight of the show. Also of note, the Kinect along with “always-online,” and cloud based gaming were focal points. Now, all three of these areas have seen a highly reduced role, or gone away completely. With the closure of Xbox Entertainment Studios, the company will no longer be scheduling original programming for the Xbox One.

Only two projects, seeing as though they are already in development, will survive. Halo: Nightfall as well as the Atari documentary, Signal to Noise, will both continue on.

Xbox has confirmed the closure to GameInformer and also provided a copy of the email Xbox head man, Phil Spencer, sent out to employees today.

I hope you have had a chance to read today’s mails from Satya. I wanted to take a moment to share a few thoughts on what this means for our team and some of the changes we are making as a result.

In last week’s mail outlining some of the steps towards creating the culture and organization to bring our ambitions to life, Satya called out the strategic importance of Xbox as a strong consumer brand, a creative center for gaming and a leader in bold innovation. Every member of Team Xbox should be incredibly proud of the impact and reach your work has within the walls of Microsoft, with our developer community and most importantly, with consumers.

Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for a mobile-first and cloud-first world, and games are the single biggest digital life category in a mobile-first world. Success in this category, by growing a robust Xbox business, brings additional value to Microsoft. I have stated this before, but for Xbox to be successful, we must remain committed to being a consumer-driven organization with the mission of meeting the high expectations of a passionate fan base, to create the best games and to drive technical innovation.

As part of the planned reduction to our overall workforce announced today and in light of our organization’s mission, we plan to streamline a handful of portfolio and engineering development efforts across Xbox. One such plan is that, in the coming months, we expect to close Xbox Entertainment Studios. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the accomplishments from the entire team in XES. They have built an impressive slate of original programming and pioneered interactive entertainment on Xbox, such as the innovative reality series ‘Every Street United’ that succeeded in uniting audiences around the globe during the recent World Cup. I am pleased that Nancy, Jordan and members of the XES team remain committed to new, original programming already in production like the upcoming documentary series ‘Signal to Noise’ whose first installment takes on the rise and fall of gaming icon Atari and of course, the upcoming game franchise series ‘Halo: Nightfall,’ and the ‘Halo’ Television series which will continue as planned with 343 Industries. Xbox will continue to support and deliver interactive sports content like ‘NFL on Xbox,’ and we will continue to enhance our entertainment offering on console by innovating the TV experience through the monthly console updates. Additionally, our app partnerships with world-class content providers bringing entertainment, sports and TV content to Xbox customers around the world are not impacted by this organizational change in any way and remain an important component of our Xbox strategy.

Change is never easy, but I believe the changes announced today help us better align with our long-term goals. We have an incredible opportunity ahead of us to define what the next generation of gaming looks like for the growing Xbox community. I have a great deal of confidence in this team and know that with clarity of focus on our mission and our customers we can accomplish great things together. We already have.

Thank you again for all you do for Xbox.

Phil

Obviously a significant blow to the gaming company and its endeavors, it seemed that the original programming the Xbox Entertainment Studios sought to bring, never really got off its feet. At this point, the company can only hope that Halo: Nightfall as well as Signal to Noise, are warmly received.

Home/Entertainment