Last week, Microsoft laid off thousands of workers across the company, including major Xbox studio cuts and even a studio closure. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has stated that the cuts were necessary and that Xbox needs to be a sustainable business. Now, Raphael Colantonio–one of the co-founders of Arcane Studios–has reacted to the wave of layoffs and argued that Microsoft’s Game Pass strategy is “unsustainable” and bad for the industry’s long-term health.
“I think [Game Pass] is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade, subsidized by MS’s ‘infinite money,'” write Colantonio on X. “But at some point reality has to hit. I don’t think GP can coexist with other models. They’ll either kill everyone else, or give up.”
Colantonio added that he is also “fed up” with Microsoft’s assertions that Game Pass doesn’t affect the sales of games. In a later post, Colantonio wrote that he can explain at length “why the [math doesn’t] work for most publishers/devs, nor for Xbox once they stop investing.”