Layoffs at Xbox raise questions about its future, and Rovio needs the greenlight from Sega | Week in Views

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The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can’t let go of…

So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we’ve created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.

Report: King loses 10% of staff as Microsoft makes games division cuts

Another wave of layoffs has hit Microsoft’s Xbox division. This time, we’re seeing the impact on the likes of King, Rare, and The Initiative.

This has also led to the cancellation of titles such as Perfect Dark and Everwild, while Warcraft Rumble will also be stopping new content development. It’s tough once again to see job cuts at Microsoft, and it makes me wonder, what is the Xbox brand today and where is it heading? 

Let’s start with the core of what Xbox has focused its strategy on. Game Pass. As a consumer, I’ll admit that I love Game Pass. It’s good value for money in my eyes. I get wide access to a library of titles without needing to pay full price for something that I’ll likely finish within a week.

It’s great that it has allowed me to try games I’d usually never have looked at. But when I look at it outside of being a consumer and think in business terms, there are glaring issues. 

Simply put, Game Pass hasn’t met its growth expectations. I suppose there was always this idea of being the ‘Netflix of games’, but it doesn’t work the same for TV as it does for video games.

Unlike a TV series, which people binge-watch and move on to the next thing, many gamers split their time between just a few titles or dedicate much of their time to one or two online games that they keep coming back to. 

One issue that stems from Game Pass is that it creates a space where there’s really no longer an incentive to actually buy games anymore. If all of your biggest, most anticipated title drop on Game Pass day one, I don’t need to ever consider actually buying it outright.

I personally haven’t purchased a single Xbox game this year, because I haven’t had to. I’ve got my money’s worth out of Game Pass, which is great for me, but is it great for Xbox as a business? 

Perhaps the answer lies in moving away from day-one releases for big triple-A titles, or offering more limited time access to new games, so there’s an incentive for players to actually purchase games. As it stands, I like the idea of Game Pass and what it brings, but it doesn’t feel sustainable in its current state.

Xbox hasn’t made the most of some of its most loved IPs, and despite massive acquisitions like Activision Blizzard, there’s little to show for it so far.

And mobile? For a company that now owns King, there is no clear Xbox mobile strategy, despite repeated claims about the importance of mobile to their plans. The long discussed Xbox mobile store? Well, that’s still not a thing and honestly I’m wondering if it ever will be. 

As a longtime fan of Xbox, it’s a shame to see it struggling to grasp what it actually wants to be. In the future, it seems the company is set to embrace this game anywhere idea, but I worry that with such a huge goal in mind, Microsoft will forget the simple core essentials. It’s better to do one thing brilliantly than be average at a range of things. 

In the end, I feel for those affected by the layoffs, and I really hope this is a serious wake-up call regarding the issues at Xbox. 

Angry Birds Bounce game lead talks brick breaker genre, development under Sega and “a great deal of interest on Apple Arcade”

The latest instalment in the Angry Birds franchise is here, available exclusively to Apple Arcade subscribers.

Ahead of its launch on July 3rd, I spoke with game lead Bryan Cook to learn all about Angry Birds Bounce’s creation – from its ideation years ago, to design decisions, to why a brick breaker game was the right fit for Apple Arcade.

Of course, we also talked about Bounce as the first Angry Birds game developed under Sega. In fact, the title was greenlit just weeks before Sega completed its $775 million acquisition of Rovio, so the vast majority of its development time was spent under the Sonic owner’s wing.

Cook claimed that Sega has been quite hands-off, but willing to help when needed. However, he also revealed that, going forward, Rovio needs Sega’s approval to advance projects beyond the ideas phase.