Less than a month ago, Xbox celebrated its 20th anniversary as a division of Microsoft. On the occasion of their 20th anniversary, they released a series of collaborations, a interactive museum for our browsers and even a Documentary in 6 episodes; in which they tell us about the successes and failures of the brand from its inception to the present day. In one of the episodes, we can see how Shannon Loftis, Head of Studio World’s Edge, VP Sarah Bond and Xbox Manager Phil Spencer talk about Lionhead Studios and the bad decisions that were made.
Lionhead was a British studio which was acquired by Microsoft in 2006 and closed in 2016. Many of you will remember them for the development and creation of the Fable saga, an Xbox exclusive title which after several years has a new current episode. .
Microsoft learned a lot from the Lionhead shutdown
The three in the episode reflected on what the purchase of Lionhead and its subsequent shutdown entailed. The main causes of the disappearance of the study were a consequence of bad assignments and failures. Sarah Bond, who heads the games business development team at Microsoft, called the study’s closure a bug.
We acquired Lionhead in 2006 and closed it in 2016. A few years later, we reflected on that experience. What have we learned and how not to repeat our mistakes?
Shannon Loftis, who was running the world edition at the time, added:
One of the biggest mistakes we have learned in the past was Lionhead. We had already released Fable 1, and it was a success… People wanted more, so we bought Lionhead. They were good years. But after Fable 2, the Kinect appeared and the Fable-Kinect marriage never really formed. And then Fable: The Journey was a passionate project for a lot of people, but I think it strayed considerably from the pillars of what made Fable 1 and 2 so popular.
Finally, the current director of Xbox, Phil Spencer, concluded with a reflection on the way Microsoft acts today in the purchase of studios and a reflection on the British studio.
You get a studio for what they’re cool for right now, and your job is to help them speed up the way they do what they do, not speed up what you do.
Observing the trace that Xbox leaves us in their actions, purchases and publications as well as the statements that many developers are leaving us, we believe that today they have learned from their mistakes and have improved themselves as much as possible.
