Obscure come spin this, MS need good press

They couldn’t even get Perfect Dark going after YEARS when a bunch of 20 something year olds with 1 game experience where able to get it mostly complete in horrible hardware 25 years ago. Then the skeleton crew finished it up.

This is horrible management. There’s probably more managers in studios than actual developers.

Gaming sites really need to put it out there that Perfect Dark has been canceled because of these lay offs. This fact seems to be buried under all this news, intentionally I'm sure. Really bad look for MS and Xbox. RIP Xbox.

Who didn't see The Initiative closing? The hired several top end guys to studio who did not know how to make a game. So they outsourced Perfect Dark to Crystal Dynamics as they couldn't get the game off the ground. So what was the point of the group?

I don’t see why anyone would want to be a developer at this point wild times we live in.

I thought I was harsh on my last comment but holy shit this is much worse than I thought.
The fuck is wrong with Microsoft they're just couldn't seemed to get anything right at the moment.
Just nothing but greed driven decisions and tone-deaf higher ups try maximizing their retirement bonuses, while thousands of people lost their jobs.

LMFAO!!!! Anyone within common sense knew this already.

This comes as a shock. I was actually looking forward to Perfect Dark. The gameplay we saw recently was great. What the hell is going on over there?

There you go, Microsoft Fans. Thats the company you are fanboying for? Ouch.

Fuck Xbox, the leadership and everything they stand for

This is all thanks to the Activision deal, it would have been much better for everyone if it was definitely blocked.
That was the final nail in the coffin for xbox, biggest backfire in the history of gaming.

ridiculous

all that money, and they still lay off people

Obscures copy and paste list is shrinking

The initiative is to hype people up with empty promises, have em buy your product and be excited bout owning said product then hit em with disappointment. Should've seen it coming though, shouldn't take 7 years to make a game.

MS' attempt at monopolising the industry through absurd, huge acquisitions has blown up in their face, that part I love, screw MS and everything they stand for in gaming. I feel for the employees on this creaking ship though, hope they can bounce back soon.

So what have MS achieved with all this?

Xbox consoles collapsed
Gamepass struggling
Basically went full 3rd party
3rd party hardware in future with an xbox sticker

What also makes me sad is all these IPs they bought up, none of them are safe and in the worst possible hands now. Crash is among my favourites, as if that wasn't obvious, that's as good as dead as well.

Phil has been worse for Xbox than Don Mattrick ever was.

PHIL!!!!

Nice. The one project I was actually looking forward to.

Project Dark was my most anticipated game from them and they go and cancel it!!!!!!!

I was hoping to see rare replay on playstation and a remaster of PDZ. Genuinely annoyed right now.

An actual game I was interested in....

I was so pumped for this game…. Why can’t M$ manage l make iconic games from scratch anymore? Gaming needs their contributions, and we all lose when they don’t deliver.

This really, really sucks. The gameplay, even if just a vertical slice, looked fantastic.

It is rather embarrassing for MS to cancel Perfect Dark after Phil Spencer himself pushed for a reboot. MS as whole was profitable, yet that wasn’t enough as executives want higher-and-higher profit margins. Keep cutting jobs and canceling projects so executives can buy more unneeded sports cars and inflate their net worths!

This type of news is exactly why people should be cautious about AI in the future. Many want to blame Phil Spencer for this, but he had nothing to do with it, as the decision came from Microsoft's top executives to cut 4% of the workforce across the company to allocate funds for AI investments.
https://globalnews.ca/news/...
https://www.investopedia.co...

It's not hard to see that Xbox prioritized cuts in teams and projects expected after 2027 (Spencer mentioned that 2025 and 2026 were already full). The real question is, how many jobs will AI replace in the next two years?
Here's are some good articles on the subject.
https://opentools.ai/news/m...
https://www.microsoft.com/e...
https://medium.com/exponent...
https://www.wired.com/story...

operation shattered hearts is in full effect, with no redlines

at least you have E3 to look forward to in 2026

Sorry for your loss my Xbox bretheren. This is some bs

Going to post what I said over at Wccftech:

So just sell the IP to another studio I'm sure someone will buy it and finish the game. Seriously Xbox needs to go, if this is the future we don't need them in it. The whole gaming industry is just turning to shit.

Xbox was a bit of a sinking ship but it was getting the holes patched up at a slow pace. But once that ABK deal was done (a lot of their fans championing it thinking COD was going to be a Xbox exclusive) Things really went south for them.

Advancing our future of gaming!

Xbox division is in tatters. Always trying to play catch-up and failing. Thanks for all your games coming to Playstation though. I will keep supporting that... initiative.

I’m tapped out of MS now… the Perfect Dark remake was the game I was most looking forward too. Scalebound was the previous game I wanted before. I’m pretty over them in terms of gaming

January 2017: Scalebound canceled. Phil said that this would be a good thing for the Xbox eco system. (LIES!)

June 2025: Perfect Dark canceled. Phil / Sarah will lie some more, spinning this as to how its good to lose a game people were looking forward to.

Can we get a full list of games canceled under Spencer's management? It would be shameful.

What!!!! Perfect Dark looked awesome! Wtf

Meanwhile, Phil Spencer continues to get bonus' while his ex employees are forced to look for work elsewhere.
Honestly, Satya Nadella being appointed head of Microsoft and Phil Spencer being lead of Xbox are quite possibly the worst things to happen to the companies. Its only gone downhill since then.

Perfect Dark is gone?! That game shoulda been far along by now. Looked good! What is happening right now?

Didn't they just show gameplay of Perfect Dark like last year and it actually looked good? Wtf. Man they are stupid. I wonder if the Fable reboot is safe.

Xbox is just trash and I’m glad I moved on to PC gaming as my main source of entertainment. I was once a die hard Xbox fan but there’s just no defending this. I was looking forward to Perfect Dark and I’m sure millions of other people also was, at this rate it’s best to just invest in a good gaming PC since they get all of MS’s games and all of Sony’s best 1st party games. Gaming is just not fun anymore and I don’t see it being the way it was much longer…

We truly are in the Karen Apocalypse. Fantastic news!

Makes sense. They've been cooking too long with nothing to show. 7 years...idk how you go 7 years with absolutely nothing.

That's sucks.

After The Initiative and Skull and Bones, I have to imagine the stink on "AAAA" will kill the use of the term for anyone but the most uninformed of gaming PR reps.

WTF MAN! CMON wth are they doing. All this wasted time and money. Damn after 7 years they weren't nearly done with the game?

Where is Obscure Observer? Is he safe? Is he alright?

Joke aside, very sad news for the studio employees. I am forever amazed how deep MS is burying its Xbox brand and reputation…

I swear to God State of Decay 3 and Fable better not get cancelled!

After seven years and a dream team of industry legends, *Perfect Dark* gets the axe—and Xbox fans are left with another broken promise. The Initiative, hyped as a “AAA” studio, never shipped a single game before Microsoft pulled the plug.

Everwild? Gone. ZeniMax’s MMORPG? Scrapped. And for what? Layoffs, gut-punches, and corporate spin—while gamers watch years of passion tossed aside like an unfinished draft.

This isn’t strategy. It’s sabotage.

Shit well this isnt the news i was expecting this morning.

I feel for the people losing their jobs here Microsoft really failed them with piss poor project management

We know perfect dark has struggled and been rebooted a few times but it felt like after the last time they showed it off the game had figured its identity out and was looking great.

Ever wild is unsurprising seemed like it was going to be vapourware for a while.

I mean their main focus, Game Pass, is subscription based, there are no incentives to create anything with high budgets, people who like Xbox would have been subscribed to it already. It is always about the minimal that they need to do to keep people subscribed, which maximize their profits. More and more short filler games will be created while big budget titles would only be green-lighted once in a while. Now they are just removing everything that they don't think would make them easy money.

I don't like Xbox, but I was looking forward to Perfect Dark as well, one of my favourite games back in the days.

Just remember, they offered to buy Nintendo for $25 billion

MS just ruining gaming, IP by IP. Goddamn, they better never buy another good studio. Terrible.

None of this is surprising. Microsoft has been telegraphing these moves for a while.

To the extent possible, they would gladly keep the execs and eliminate as much of the workforce as possible.

There's a lot we can say about this. But if anyone is wondering where they go from here, I'll spell it out for you:

They bought massive publishers, which they needed to do to set things in motion. They even allowed Bethesda to unionize to gain some goodwill.

Today, they're announce these cuts in the workforce and cancelling Perfect Dark while closing The Initiative.

But there's another issue: the insane investment in AI infrastructure. At the same time they announce this, the "Big Beautiful Bill" in the States is on the verge of being approved in the House, with one provision in the bill being that states are not allowed to regulate AI. This is not a coincidence.

Mark my words, they're bribing the holdouts in Congress to get that abomination over the hill.

Always be mindful of the evil that you enable.

lol!

Did I just read that right? They have cancelled perfect dark..............well I wasn't expecting that. I was genuinely looking forward to it 😔

It's sad to see this go down like this. Xbox used to be a place to be and a proud console to own with tons of exclusives

Microsoft may be exiting gaming but don't let that be your reason to stop living.

If anyone is feeling cornered, emotionally lost, deeply depressed, or is thinking about harming themselves or others over this news or for any reason, ask friends and family for help or if you you can't do that but are in the US, call 800-273-talk (8255) or dial 988
For UK residents dial 116 123
In Australia dial 13 11 14
Canada dial 1-833-456-4566
For more information about mental health assistance in your country visit this link https://www.psychologytoday...
Or consult your doctor
Or if in a crisis contact your local emergency centers.

This isn't a joke. No one should feel like this, but if you do, please, be empowered to ask for assistance.

Xbox is slowly but surely becoming full on third-party and this is yet more proof. They have no desire to compete anymore. Thank God Sony and Nintendo are still willing to champion consoles.

I'm glad I made the right decision to never buy an Xbox.

Uufffff wtf man.

I'll be honest I think Perfect Dark was going to tank. After looking at Joanna Dark's manly face I just knew it will fail. Even MS saw the truth that gamers would've rejected this game and it would've been a massive waste of millions of dollars. MS has been on a losing streak with these "modern audience" games and they know it, that's why they are cleaning house with these firings and getting rid of projects that have the taint of these people and are trying to fix the gaming industry by keeping the competent and normal devs

Guess MS no longer has the initiative...