The device will focus more on classic video games

Oct 30, 2014 10:16 GMT  ·  By

The Xbox Entertainment Studios have been finally entirely closed down by Microsoft as the company has parted ways with both Nancy Tellem and Jordan Levin as part of a wider company shakeup, and a number of planned series associated with it have been canceled.

The information about the closure comes from Variety, which states that the pair of executives believed that they would be able to stay with the company until the end of 2014 in order to make sure that some of the projects that they had greenlit remained active.

Microsoft has let go of around 3,000 employees as part of a restructuring process that was initiated when the new chief executive officer Satya Nadella took over from Steve Ballmer.

The fact that Nancy Tellem, who was hired in 2012 and was supposed to deliver a wide range of new entertainment experiences for the Xbox One, is no longer with the company means that it’s very unlikely that gamers will ever get to see the Halo live action television series that Steven Spielberg was supposed to work on.

At the same time, other series that were previously announced, including Humans, Fearless and other reality TV, are canceled.

Before its demise, the Xbox Entertainment Studios has managed to launch the documentary built around the excavation of E.T. cartridges and Ever Street United.

Its final product is the Halo Nightfall series which will be launched in early November and will accompany the delivery of the Halo: The Master Chief Collection on the Microsoft current-gen home console.

Xbox One might focus more on video games

When the Xbox One was first announced, Microsoft talked about creating a device that would dominate the living room and would offer users a wide array of original entertainment experiences other than video games.

The idea was to take important franchises and create content around them while also allowing users to access TV in new and unique ways.

The fact that the Xbox Entertainment Studios no longer exists might mean that the Xbox One will be more focused on video games in the coming years.

The console has shipped just 2.4 million units to retailers in the past three months, and it is lagging behind the rival PlayStation 4 from Sony in terms of overall sales.

Microsoft has just announced that it is cutting the price of the Xbox One to 349 dollars or Euro for the holiday period in order to make the device more attractive.