Microsoft Cuts Forza Motorsport’s Development Staff by “Nearly 50%”

[BRS Zeus]

They will have a laser scan of the track. They don't need more data than that.

Tracks like Monza and Long Beach they have. Interlagos as high voted, I don't doubt they have it too.

 

[SimTourist]

They will have a laser scan of the track. They don't need more data than that.

You do realize a laser scan is just a point cloud data used for reference? The track artists have to manually model everything on the track which takes a year of work for an average track

 

[GBalao888]

You do realize a laser scan is just a point cloud data used for reference? The track artists have to manually model everything on the track

Even the surroundings too, basically the entire track environment. The team will even need to do a recce to get a glimpse of what the environment may look like (Fujimi Kaido was a perfect example of this).

 

[Tired Tyres]

You do realize a laser scan is just a point cloud data used for reference? The track artists have to manually model everything on the track

Do you realise they already did everything they needed to do in a previous game? Photographs and polygon models don't just disappear.

 

[SimTourist]

Do you realise they already did everything they needed to do in a previous game? Photographs and polygon models don't just disappear.

If they drop a straight port of a track people will complain that it looks like **** compared to every other track in the game, basically the standard vs premium thing from GT again. 2D trees and all that jazz

 

[Meythia]

If they drop a straight port of a track people will complain that it looks like **** compared to every other track in the game, basically the standard vs premium thing from GT again. 2D trees and all that jazz

Ya, okay, we had Resident Evil 4, we have Resident Evil 4 Remake, why did we even bother remoddeling everything, implementing a physics engine that can wreck havoc, upgrade all textures, when someone says it was all already there in a previous game?

 

[pez2k]

One of the big things about adding tracks (and cars) is that they need to be licensed, which needs someone to negotiate the deal and a budget to pay for it. Even with artists to update tracks from previous games and tooling to do so, I'm not sure a studio that has just had its payroll slashed in half to cut costs has the money to be talking to the Monza management about a license.

There's also QA testing of any update too, which costs more the larger the update. There are games (for example Shift 2) that have had support terminated because the publisher didn't want to pay for any more QA time.

I'm not saying there's a zero chance of new tracks coming, but it's worth being realistic about it. With these sorts of cuts, any budget is going to be very hard to come by.

 

[Tornado]

What Forza 8 really needed was more ported assets all along.

I will not. If they bring tracks like Monza, Long Beach, I will be okay.

It's not too much. It's the basic. They have the 2nd half updates almost 95% ready.

You might very well be out of luck. Nobody can say right now whether the "Turn 10 is now a Horizon support studio and their dedicated office was closed" stuff is true, but it is entirely possible that nobody left at Turn 10 now has any idea what the studio will be doing following the extent and suddenness of how Microsoft gutted the studio (it was widely rumored that massive cuts to various Microsoft studios were coming last week but nobody had any idea the scope they would be); nevermind how much they can stick to their planned content roadmap for a live service game that had already bombed before they had half the staffing to maintain it.



Considering how badly mismanaged the XBox division has been since before the start of the current console generation and how many people seem to fall upward in the org charts there, Microsoft might not even know what they want Turn 10 to do going forward.

 

[FordGTGuy]

What Forza 8 really needed was more ported assets all along.



You might very well be out of luck. Nobody can say right now whether the "Turn 10 is now a Horizon support studio and their dedicated office was closed" stuff is true, but it is entirely possible that nobody left at Turn 10 now has any idea what the studio will be doing following the extent and suddenness of how Microsoft gutted the studio (it was widely rumored that massive cuts to various Microsoft studios were coming last week but nobody had any idea the scope they would be); nevermind how much they can stick to their planned content roadmap for a live service game that had already bombed before they had half the staffing to maintain it.



Considering how badly mismanaged the XBox division has been since before the start of the current console generation and how many people seem to fall upward in the org charts there, Microsoft might not even know what they want Turn 10 to do going forward.

The current Xbox output for games is massive.

We already know that you cannot just straight port assets to FM2023.

 

[MroczMR]

, but unless Gran Turismo will add groups where I can force the AI in cars like Motorsport 7, I’ll stay on Xbox for a while longer.

You mean custom grid settings? It is there since day one in GT7

You can either chose cars from your garage together with custom paintjobs and car settings or define group of race cars.

It is literally there

 

[Tornado]

The current Xbox output for games is massive.

Okay?

 

[FordGTGuy]

Okay?

It can't be denied that they are seeing successful (well-reviewed) releases and have one the biggest announced lineups of any publisher right now; even with the recent disaster caused by Microsoft forcing layoffs and cuts.

You generally don't completely mismanage yourself into such a position.

It's hard to understand exactly what is going on when you have very successful development teams and teams that have quite literally closed without ever releasing a title under the same leadership.

 

[Tired Tyres]

If they drop a straight port of a track people will complain that it looks like **** compared to every other track in the game, basically the standard vs premium thing from GT again. 2D trees and all that jazz

There's nothing to stop them rebuilding with 2023 assets.

 

[SimTourist]

There's nothing to stop them rebuilding with 2023 assets.

Which requires people, which they just lost a bunch. Did you miss the news man?

 

[Tired Tyres]

Which requires people, which they just lost a bunch. Did you miss the news man?

So thy no longer have anyone to do the work? Okay.

 

[Meythia]

So thy no longer have anyone to do the work? Okay.

look ahead and interpret yourself?
Im not sure if that team is capable of spending time on anything but "keep the game running" at a certian level, or if they could add new stuff at 10% the output speed they had with a full team...

 

[Tornado]

You generally don't completely mismanage yourself into such a position.

You also generally don't call for the CEO of a division of a company to resign if it hasn't been mismanaged.




Which raises the question of do I listen to the FordGTGuy who said this about 20 hours ago:

I am not defending Xbox and Microsoft's actions; they mismanaged studios to an insane degree and management is ultimately at fault for the failures of these studios. In my honest opinion, I think Phil Spencer should step down just from the insane failure of The Initiative alone. An "AAAA" developer that never released a single game.

Or do I listen to the mirror universe FordGTGuy who has such an issue with me saying this:

Considering how badly mismanaged the XBox division has been since before the start of the current console generation

Xbox as a division is in a spiral right now. There's no long term planning for the console's ecosystem insofar as we know that Microsoft have changed their long term plans several times since the generation started, nevermind reports of internal happenings from mere weeks ago. They've closed studios that have delivered successful, well received games. They've closed studios that haven't delivered anything but have thrown money at them for years beyond when they should have pivoted elsewhere. They've closed studios soon after directly talking up how great a job they've done. They've taken an axe to the hardware development and research parts of the company multiple times. They've reportedly changed their mind several times regarding what they want to do for the next console generation beyond vague insistence that they will be there for it. They've hitched their entire wagon on a subscription service that has been reported as being anywhere from a wild success to actively hurting the success of their own published games forcing studio closures. They gambled on their two tier console specifications to collective indifference from the buying public but anger from game developers. They've had publishers decide it's not worth bothering porting games to the console, or release them so incredibly late that the hype period is gone (is anyone going to care when, or if, Black Myth ever comes out?). They've had individual members of development teams (including the one this thread is about!) speak out about how badly the overall Microsoft corporate structure/culture of the past decade impacts game development. By the end of this year there's an outside chance that their total sales of the console generation could be eclipsed by a system that came out a month ago. At a certain point the issues with the division stop being things you can blame on Don Mattrick tanking the first years of the prior console generation and start being blamed on the people there now who have presided over the division becoming increasingly irrelevant since COVID. And already this is carrying the assumption at this point that Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond or Matt Booty actually have much long term say in how the division is run anymore to begin with rather than them having a fancy title for an expense line item that Nadella would shut down at a moment's notice if it meant Microsoft could spend more money to muscle to the front of the pack in the AI race instead.


If they want to just be ActivisonBlizzard except they also publish Microsoft and Bethesda IP that's fine (not at all what we know their plans were before they completed the ActiBlizz purchase, but fine nonetheless), but they're sure as hell getting to that point in a roundabout way for being a well-managed division in an extremely successful company; and even before last week the haphazard way they've run the division since spending 6 months fighting the FTC in court had already had people start wondering if they are the videogame equivalent of the Google Graveyard.

There's nothing to stop them rebuilding with 2023 assets.

Except for the lack of staffing, lack of budget, incredibly poor morale, unclear direction of the future of the game's content pipeline following the studio being cut in half and (allegedly) losing its offices directly dedicated to the game in question, unclear direction of the studio itself, unclear future of the IP in general, questionable return on investment of the title as a live service game considering the game's failure, etc.

 

[FordGTGuy]

You also generally don't call for the CEO of a division of a company to resign if it hasn't been mismanaged.




Which raises the question of do I listen to the FordGTGuy who said this about 20 hours ago:

Or do I listen to the mirror universe FordGTGuy who has such an issue with me saying this:


Xbox as a division is in a spiral right now. There's no long term planning for the console's ecosystem insofar as we know that Microsoft have changed their long term plans several times since the generation started, nevermind reports of internal happenings from mere weeks ago. They've closed studios that have delivered successful, well received games. They've closed studios that haven't delivered anything but have thrown money at them for years beyond when they should have pivoted elsewhere. They've taken an axe to the hardware development and research parts of the company multiple times. They've reportedly changed their mind several times regarding what they want to do for the next console generation beyond vague insistence that they will be there for it. They've hitched their entire wagon on a subscription service that has been reported as being anywhere from a wild success to actively hurting the success of their own published games forcing studio closures. They gambled on their two tier console specifications to collective indifference from the buying public but anger from game developers. They've had publishers decide it's not worth bothering porting games to the console, or release them so incredibly late that the hype period is gone (is anyone going to care when, or if, Black Myth ever comes out?). They've had individual members of development teams (including the one this thread is about!) speak out about how badly the overall Microsoft corporate structure/culture of the past decade impacts game development. By the end of this year there's an outside chance that their total sales of the console generation could be eclipsed by a system that came out a month ago. At a certain point the issues with the division stop being things you can blame on Don Mattrick tanking the first years of the prior console generation and start being blamed on the people there now who have presided over the division becoming increasingly irrelevant since COVID. And already this is carrying the assumption at this point that Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond or Matt Booty actually have much long term say in how the division is run anymore to begin with rather than them having a fancy title for an expense line item that Nadella would shut down at a moment's notice if it meant Microsoft could spend more money to muscle to the front of the pack in the AI race instead.


If they want to just be ActivisonBlizzard except they also publish Microsoft and Bethesda IP that's fine (not at all what we know their plans were before they completed the ActiBlizz purchase, but fine nonetheless), but they're sure as hell getting to that point in a roundabout way for being a well-managed division in an extremely successful company.







Except for the lack of staffing, lack of budget, incredibly poor morale, unclear direction of the future of the game's content pipeline following the studio being cut in half and (allegedly) losing its offices directly dedicated to the game in question, unclear direction of the studio itself, unclear future of the IP in general, questionable return on investment of the title as a live service game considering the game's failure, etc.

Oh god, here we go.

You understand that I can both praise the overall output and lineup while also recognizing failures?

I have also said that the same management style does not work for every developer.

Microsoft took a very hands-off approach with their developers. It worked for Doom The Dark Ages and went awful for Perfect Dark.

I know, wild thinking here, but I can both recognize successes and failures of the same person. Do I personally believe Phil Spencer should step down over The Initiative? Yes. Do I think the entire Xbox lineup is mismanaged and a failure? No, it objectively is not.


The Xbox division is not in a "spiral", if anything they are in the best shape they've been in for a long time. The latest closure was of a studio that never managed to release any game in their seven years of existence. The leadership of Tango Gameworks left after Xbox purchased them which led to the studio being shut down.



"Anger from developers"?

Where? Two tier console support has been a thing long before Xbox Series S. I guess the Playstation 4 Pro was a figment of my imagination. Supporting multiple console generations to maximize sales has been a thing for a long time. I have never seen a developer "angry" at the Xbox Series S.


"They've reportedly changes their mind several times (about the next gen.)"

Where? When? They've stated since the announcement of next generation that it would be 1st party console release and they've never gone back and forth on whether it would have PC support. They hinted at it but when it was officially announced they, at the last showcase, they have not changed messaging.


I literally can't comment with any confidence on exactly what caused the failure of Turn 10 or the Initiative but also led the success of their other studios; because I have no insider information. It's hard to trust anything being said right now with how fresh the current events are.

 

[Meythia]

"Anger from developers"?

Where? Two tier console support has been a thing long before Xbox Series S. I guess the Playstation 4 Pro was a figment of my imagination. Supporting multiple console generations to maximize sales has been a thing for a long time. I have never seen a developer "angry" at the Xbox Series S.

Developers have voiced massive frustration about the minor XBox as the had tu support its crappy hardware in order to be allowed to release on Xbox.

This is not the same as PS4 to PS4Pro, this is the same as PS5Pro to PS3.
(and Pro consoles shouldnt exists, so developers can and should optimizes towards what is given -> learn how to code properly again, reduces the faultrate, bugs, and increases quality while at the same time recuding costs)

 

[shoemaker]

Whilst it’s kinda sad. There are better motorsports games coming soon. FM is Too arcadey and more sim games like AC is what i want.

 

[Tornado]

Oh god, here we go.

You understand that I can both praise the overall output and lineup while also recognizing failures?

I have also said that the same management style does not work for every developer.

Microsoft took a very hands-off approach with their developers. It worked for Doom The Dark Ages and went awful for Perfect Dark.

I know, wild thinking here, but I can both recognize successes and failures of the same person. Do I personally believe Phil Spencer should step down over The Initiative? Yes. Do I think the entire Xbox lineup is mismanaged and a failure?

So you just post to hear yourself talk. Gotcha.
Or are you just triggered again that I joked about someone saying they should have ported more assets into the second ground up game and are trying to crowbar in after the fact a way I was wrong while saying the same thing you already had?


Speaking of:

The studio is likely to be relegated as a support studio. The franchise is almost certainly dead. The amount of brain drain that happened to what had been one of Microsoft's flagship studios will likely never be recovered from, even if Microsoft was interested in doing so. Their latest game was a bomb and suffered from a tumultuous development cycle in no small part due to Microsoft's well documented corporate policies negatively affecting it. And yet he's still out here, fanboying out for the moment. Is there even any reason beyond if besides not falling in lockstep with the Team Green PR wire? Who knows. But I also miss the days of 2013. Things were looking up so much.

No, it objectively is not.

It's being spread around like wildfire in the fallout of last week that Microsoft upper management might not even care how successful Xbox is as a division if they can hack it up to save money to put into AI instead.


And yet:

Where? Two tier console support has been a thing long before Xbox Series S. I guess the Playstation 4 Pro was a figment of my imagination.

Playstation 4 Pro, Xbone X and Playstation 5 Pro were absolutely not cut down versions of the main development system that nonetheless had required parity with the "main" one, no. They were upspecced optional versions (and in the case of the PS4 Pro in particular a very minor one) of the already existing base consoles that came along several years later, had much smaller attach rates and largely optional levels of required additional support from publishers.



So they were in fact not "a thing" long before Series S.

I have never seen a developer "angry" at the Xbox Series S.

Look a bit harder, I suppose. It's been reported several times. I even provided a specific example you could start from had you read my post instead of flipping out over the fact that I dared post it.

Where? When? They've stated since the announcement of next generation that it would be 1st party console release and they've never gone back and forth on whether it would have PC support. They hinted at it but when it was officially announced they, at the last showcase, they have not changed messaging.

Look a bit harder, I suppose. It's been reported several times. I even provided a specific example you could start from had you read my post instead of flipping out over the fact that I dared post it.





Or don't. I don't really care. You're clearly not actually reading posts despite how much time I spent looking stuff up for them, and it's not like you were actually going to contribute much of anything to the discussion anyway when you were already picking a fight over someone saying the same thing you did a day ago, so it's not worth your time to do so (though I've no doubt you will!); and certainly not mine.

 

[Benny44]

This is very much more similar PS4 to PS4 pro. I'm not going by numbers, that's difficult to accurately show how they do in real world gaming.,I'm going by the games - I went from a PS4 to a Series S, and it is a massive step up. I'm talking the exact same games, and how they run. The Series S has been bashed, but most owners of them love them. I'm grateful to be able to afford to play current gen games

Edit - meant to quote the post above that was talking about Series S being like PS3 to PS5

 

[FordGTGuy]

Developers have voiced massive frustration about the minor XBox as the had tu support its crappy hardware in order to be allowed to release on Xbox.

This is not the same as PS4 to PS4Pro, this is the same as PS5Pro to PS3.
(and Pro consoles shouldnt exists, so developers can and should optimizes towards what is given -> learn how to code properly again, reduces the faultrate, bugs, and increases quality while at the same time recuding costs)

You understand how absolutely insane it is to say that the Series S to Series X is equivalent to PS3 to PS5 Pro rather than PS4 to PS4 Pro?

The XSS has a CPU on par with both the PS5 and XSX; it is down on RAM and GPU power.

Almost every developer that has expressed "frustration" with XSS has supported their games for even worse hardware on PC. A single developer for Control said mandatory support for XSS will hold back development; yet Control runs at a pretty much locked 60 fps on XSS.



The other developers that were "frustrated" were the Indie devs behind I Am Fish and Surgeon Simulator; which is an absolute joke as both games can run on way worse hardware.

The Rocksteady Dev complaining is also a joke as Gotham Knights ran like absolute crap on literally everything up to an RTX 4090; it was one of the most unoptimized and broken game releases in a long time.

So you just post to hear yourself talk. Gotcha.
Or are you just triggered again that I joked about someone saying they should have ported more assets into the second ground up game and are trying to crowbar in after the fact a way I was wrong while saying the same thing you already had?


Speaking of:

View attachment 1463094

Exactly how am I triggered about "ported assets"?

It is well known that you cannot just directly port assets like tracks from previous Forza titles to FM2023.

The Initiative is an epic failure of mismanagement and should have consequences on leadership for the pure loss of investment and time.

However, we are talking about 1 studio out of 31 studios. 2 games out of 42 games.

The layoffs, as always, truly suck like all layoffs.

The studio is likely to be relegated as a support studio. The franchise is almost certainly dead. The amount of brain drain that happened to what had been one of Microsoft's flagship studios will likely never be recovered from, even if Microsoft was interested in doing so. Their latest game was a bomb and suffered from a tumultuous development cycle in no small part due to Microsoft's well documented corporate policies negatively affecting it. And yet he's still out here, fanboying out for the moment. Is there even any reason beyond if besides not falling in lockstep with the Team Green PR wire? Who knows. But I also miss the days of 2013. Things were looking up so much.

We literally cannot say with confidence that Turn 10 will be relegated, for the remainder of the studios life, to a support studio or even that Forza Motorsport is "almost certainly" dead. It's a possibility but it's also possible that the studio eventually recovers and is able to start development on a new title.

I do not think Forza Motorsport's failure is due to "corporate policies". I think the internal leadership and direction the game was taken in led to it's failure. Also, the rumored reboot of Forza Motorsport in the middle of it's development.

It's being spread around like wildfire in the fallout of last week that Microsoft upper management might not even care how successful Xbox is as a division if they can hack it up to save money to put into AI instead.

The Xbox division was not "hacked up".

While the layoffs suck; they still have 40 games in development by 30 distinct game development studios.

Losing one team and three projects out of 40 games and 30 studios is not quite "hacking up" Xbox.

As we've all acknowledged, Turn 10's losses are awful but also likely due to the fact that they don't have a new Forza Motorsport title in development at the time.

And yet:




Playstation 4 Pro, Xbone X and Playstation 5 Pro were absolutely not cut down versions of the main development system that nonetheless had required parity with the "main" one, no. They were upspecced optional versions (and in the case of the PS4 Pro in particular a very minor one) of the already existing base consoles that came along several years later, had much smaller attach rates and largely optional levels of required additional support from publishers.



So they were in fact not "a thing" long before Series S.

Supporting multiple console generations and a WIDE variety of PC hardware has been a thing long before Xbox Series S existed.

Look a bit harder, I suppose. It's been reported several times. I even provided a specific example you could start from had you read my post instead of flipping out over the fact that I dared post it.


Look a bit harder, I suppose. It's been reported several times. I even provided a specific example you could start from had you read my post instead of flipping out over the fact that I dared post it.


Or don't. I don't really care. You're clearly not actually reading posts despite how much time I spent looking stuff up for them, and it's not like you were actually going to contribute much of anything to the discussion anyway when you were already picking a fight over someone saying the same thing you did a day ago, so it's not worth your time to do so (though I've no doubt you will!); and certainly not mine.

Being "frustrated" at mandatory support of Xbox Series S is not even close to the same thing as being "angry about Xbox Series S".

You are attempting to magnify the situation way beyond reality.

All these "frustrated" developers (Not the studio itself but single developers from the studio) support way worse hardware on PC and have successfully launched their games on XSS.

 

[ScottPuss20]

Good thing I jumped back to Gran Turismo when I did.

 

[SimTourist]

It is well known that you cannot just directly port assets like tracks from previous Forza titles to FM2023.

You could if you wanted, same way people unlocked ps1 and ps2 tracks for GT5 hidden in the files, there would be issues of course but nothing unsolvable, but they wouldn't look great side by side with new tracks.

 

[Meythia]

Almost every developer that has expressed "frustration" with XSS has supported their games for even worse hardware on PC. A single developer for Control said mandatory support for XSS will hold back development; yet Control runs at a pretty much locked 60 fps on XSS.

1. on a pc you always can put a disclaimer: "this game is not supported by the hardware" and cut the starting sequence. you cant do that on a console.
2. control on a xss at 50fps - with deactivated features, a massively reduced resuloltion, and propably graphical errors that a xss customers selectively chooses to not see.

Yes, there are game engines that are so very well optimized that they can or could deliver; they are not the norm. But even then these run better on a propper system that wasnt designed as an insult to sanity and an entry to gaming for low wallet gamers that now will be scared for live.

 

[FordGTGuy]

You could if you wanted, same way people unlocked ps1 and ps2 tracks for GT5 hidden in the files, there would be issues of course but nothing unsolvable, but they wouldn't look great side by side with new tracks.

"There would be issues."

In other words, you cannot just directly put a track from previous Forza titles in FM2023.

We already know that the road surface of the tracks don't even work in FM2023 due to the physics engine.

There would be massive issues with the lighting system and probably other graphical issues that would require work to be done to make it work on FM2023. At that point, you might as well do what they already did and just update the track completely for the game.

1. on a pc you always can put a disclaimer: "this game is not supported by the hardware" and cut the starting sequence. you cant do that on a console.
2. control on a xss at 50fps - with deactivated features, a massively reduced resuloltion, and propably graphical errors that a xss customers selectively chooses to not see.

Yes, there are game engines that are so very well optimized that they can or could deliver; they are not the norm. But even then these run better on a propper system that wasnt designed as an insult to sanity and an entry to gaming for low wallet gamers that now will be scared for live.

Every game released on XSX is on XSS; almost all run as well as the PS5/XSX version.


"Low wallet gamers that now will be" 'scarred for life'

I just can't...


I literally posted a video of DF playing Control on XSS at 60 fps.

Digital Foundry literally calling it "very well optimized" on Series S.

"And probably graphical errors"

Are you just making stuff up at this point?

By and large, it's an excellent experience regardless of which system you play on, and in terms of sheer playability, it's the best way to enjoy the game. It's also at this point that we can factor in Xbox Series S. It lacks the 30fps RT mode and targets performance only, delivering a 60fps experience at native 900p, with a temporal upscale to 1080p. You lose precision from the reduced resolution, but the gameplay is still golden and it compares favourably to Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.

Control Ultimate Edition - the next-gen experience compared on PS5 and Xbox Series consoles

Remedy's Control Ultimate Edition is out now for next (current?) generation console systems, delivering a substantial r…

www.eurogamer.net

 

[SimTourist]

"There would be issues."

In other words, you cannot just directly put a track from previous Forza titles in FM2023.

In software development there are always issues and problems, you put one line of code in and suddenly the whole project stops working and you don't know why. Hell Forza has some bugs that have been around for 20 years and nobody knows how to fix them.

 

[Nakano219]

I get why people want to be optimistic; I just don't think optimism correlates with Microsoft's approach here.

Microsoft's playbook is not "we need to cut x staff from Turn 10 and y staff from Rare and z staff from The Initiative to get to the headcount we want", it is "Forza Motorsport and Everwild and Perfect Dark aren't going to be making us money this year or next, so ice those projects and eliminate the teams working on them". It's the same reason Tango and Arkane Austin were the victims last year - they had just put out games (without long-term recurring revenue potential), so were the furthest out from putting out their next one and making MS money.

 

[FordGTGuy]

I get why people want to be optimistic; I just don't think optimism correlates with Microsoft's approach here.

Microsoft's playbook is not "we need to cut x staff from Turn 10 and y staff from Rare and z staff from The Initiative to get to the headcount we want", it is "Forza Motorsport and Everwild and Perfect Dark aren't going to be making us money this year or next, so ice those projects and eliminate the teams working on them". It's the same reason Tango and Arkane Austin were the victims last year - they had just put out games (without long-term recurring revenue potential), so were the furthest out from putting out their next one and making MS money.

You are leaving out a few details.

Arkane had just released Redfall. (One of the worse received games in a long time.)

Tango's leadership had left after it was purchased by Microsoft, essentially gutting the creative direction of the studio.

There are reasons for what happened beyond blind "will this studio make us money in the next year".