When the first rumors of Xbox's massive 3,200-role restructure started circulating weeks ago, just days after the Xbox Games Showcase, the Xbox community was awash with opinions on how Xbox should handle its lower-performing studios, and deserved criticism awaited the management that had allowed all of this mess to happen.
We've seen this play before: a spreadsheet-driven mega-corp consolidation normally means a beloved studio gets wiped off the map, and its intellectual property is discarded into a black hole, never to see the light of day again.
In a "best of a bad situation" twist, today Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has announced that in an effort to combat Microsoft's losses of 64 cents for every dollar invested in these teams, Compulsion Games and Double Fine are going independent. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs, on the other hand, will transition to new publishers.
No projects have been canceled (yet), no studio doors have been shuttered (yet). These studios now have a lifeline and a chance of survival outside the clutches and "14 layers of management" of Microsoft.
Following all this, I plead with the Xbox community: if you genuinely care about the survival of these studios beyond social media soliloquies, then it's time to put our money where our mouths are and support them.
RELATED: Xbox's big "reset" cuts: Compulsion, Double Fine, Undead Labs, Ninja Theory to leave Xbox — 3,200 roles to be removed
