Cortex Times

Game Quality and IP Management Under Fire

Austin, TX – July 8, 2025 – The gaming world is abuzz following a candid reaction video from popular streamer Asmongold, who weighed in on the recent turmoil surrounding Xbox. In his video, “Is Xbox Cooked?”, Asmongold offered a starkly different perspective from the GameranxTV piece, “What The HELL is GOING on With Xbox?”, to which he was reacting. While both creators acknowledge the significant challenges facing Microsoft’s gaming division, Asmongold’s take is notably more unsparing, often clashing directly with the sentiments expressed by Gameranx’s Falcon.

The central point of contention revolves around the recent mass layoffs at Microsoft and the closure of several studios, including The Initiative (Perfect Dark reboot) and the quiet shelving of Rare’s Everwild. Falcon of Gameranx described these job losses as “brutal” and “super disheartening”, lamenting the cancellation of “potentially amazing games.” Asmongold, however, took a more cutthroat stance, asserting these actions were “necessary” and a form of “pruning” to ensure the company’s health. He went as far as to say that the jobs were “useless” and the employees “make garbage”, advocating for the removal of “losers,” “bloat,” and “middle management”.

Figure 1

Game Quality and IP Management Under Fire

The quality of recent Xbox titles and the management of its flagship IPs also drew heavy criticism from Asmongold. He vehemently disagreed with the notion that Hi-Fi Rush was a “massive hit”, questioning why its studio would be closed if it truly made money. Regarding Redfall, Asmongold pulled no punches, calling the game “garbage” and stating the studio “deserved to be shut down because they made trash”. This contrasted with Gameranx’s more sympathetic view, suggesting the studio was “forced” to make a live-service game against its immersive sim expertise.

Asmongold reserved some of his strongest remarks for 343 Industries, the developers behind the recent Halo titles. He found it an “insult to Halo players” that the studio, responsible for what he called “three bad Halo games” (Halo 4, Halo 5, and Halo Infinite), had not been entirely “fired” and replaced. He argued that Xbox “doesn’t hold their developers to a high enough standard” and needs to “reboot the entire thing” for key IPs like Halo and Gears of War. He also criticized the cancellation of Perfect Dark, not for the loss of the game itself, but because he believed it “looked ugly as [__]” and wouldn’t sell, particularly due to what he perceived as an “ugly female character”, a point not directly addressed by Gameranx.

Xbox’s Future: Service Over Machine?

On the future of Xbox, Asmongold presented a vision of Xbox as a “service and not as a machine”, emphasizing its integration into the broader Microsoft ecosystem as a “loss leader” akin to Twitch within Amazon. He believes “Xbox Everywhere will be the norm” and that Microsoft is positioning itself as a “cloud gaming competitor”. This perspective diverges from Gameranx’s concern that Xbox is transitioning “from major hardware competitor to third-party software developer, publisher”, which they found “sad to see” as a gamer. Asmongold even predicted that “Sony’s going to do the same thing that Xbox is doing now with shutting down studios”.

Both creators touched upon Phil Spencer’s internal message to employees, which was widely perceived as tone-deaf. While Falcon called it “pure corpo garbage”, Asmongold offered a pragmatic explanation: Spencer’s statements are crafted for shareholders because internal communications are routinely leaked. He argued that Spencer “can’t communicate with them on an honest level because they’re just going to leak it”.

Ultimately, Asmongold concluded his reaction by stating he “disagreed with pretty much every point” made in the Gameranx video. He appreciated the video’s existence but felt its analysis of Xbox was “inside of a vacuum”, lacking a broader contextual understanding of Microsoft’s overall strategy and the evolving gaming landscape, including the impact of free-to-play games and the changing disposable income of younger demographics. He also highlighted that while the gaming industry saw a boom during COVID, “many companies retained 40 to 60% of their COVID numbers”, contrary to the idea that the post-pandemic dip was entirely unexpected.

Asmongold’s commentary provides a sharp, often controversial, counter-narrative to the prevailing sentiment of concern surrounding Xbox, suggesting that what some see as a decline, others view as a necessary, albeit painful, strategic recalibration for the future. In a landscape often dominated by cautious corporate statements and sympathetic industry analysis, Asmongold’s blunt assessment and willingness to call out perceived failures might just be the unfiltered voice many in the silent gaming masses have been waiting to hear.

Sources:

• Asmongold’s Video: “is Xbox cooked?” (Asmongold TV) – https://youtu.be/F-etdLjWXV8?si=3-SIrWzavvEmVF_2
• GameranxTV’s Video: “What The HELL is GOING on With Xbox?” (@gameranxTV) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-etdLjWXV8
• Figure 1: Asmongold discusses Xbox’s future. (Screenshot by [J. Irvin/Cortex Times] from Asmongold TV / YouTube, “is Xbox cooked?”, 12:20)