A former Forza Horizon creative director has said the wave of Xbox layoffs, studio closures and game cancellations stems directly from Xbox Game Pass failing to attract enough subscribers to justify Microsoft's huge investment in acquiring studios and content. Mike Brown, who led Forza Horizon 5 at Playground Games before founding his own studio, Maverick Games, made the comments on the MinnMax podcast, describing the situation as "really sad" while still defending Game Pass as a "good idea" that simply didn't reach the subscriber numbers needed to make it financially viable.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has already cut 1,600 jobs, with another 1,600 planned this financial year, and four studios are confirmed to be leaving Microsoft ownership with a fifth expected to follow. Brown pointed to Microsoft's $69 billion (roughly £54 billion) acquisition of Activision Blizzard as a bet that Game Pass subscriptions never grew enough to justify, echoing Sharma's own admission that Xbox's gaming business "is not healthy" and operates at margins 3-10 times lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses.