Despite the current spread of the Coronavirus seeing the decline of many businesses, Xbox appears to be faring well compared to other areas of the industry. Phil Spencer himself claimed that Xbox usage was unsurprisingly up due to the world being stuck in self-quarantine, while the company has recently made some significant additions to Game Pass including the release of Ninja Theory's newest game, Bleeding Edge. However, it appears one aspect of Xbox's marketing output has been struggling heavily in recent months.
This is none other than the Official Xbox Magazine, which has officially closed its doors following a number of major financial issues. The UK-based media outlet allegedly folded last week, with the few remaining employees still working for the company let go. This is a big loss for many loyal subscribers to the popular magazine, which has been a staple of the video game press circuit since its debut all the way back in 2001.
The publisher behind the magazine, Future Publishing, released a statement regarding the decision to shut down the publication, claiming "Like many organisations right now, we find ourselves being forced into making difficult decisions." It continues, "We have a duty of care to all our staff during this time and our focus is on protecting the business for them and for our customers. We have introduced a raft of measures to keep the numbers of lay-offs to an absolute minimum, including significant pay cuts for our Executive Team and Board."
Interestingly, Future Publishing also cites a reason for why it believes the magazine struggled to pull as many numbers during its final months, claiming: "whilst the decline in retail footfall impacts our magazine business, we are well placed with significant digital audiences and diversified revenues to continue delivering on our customers' changing needs at this time." Evidently, Future Publishing believes that the decline in video game retail has impacted the sales of the Official Xbox Magazine greatly.
Sadly, it seems the Official Xbox Magazine would be in higher demand than ever with this year seeing the debut of the Xbox Series X. Hopefully, the talented employees who saw out the companies last few months will be able to discuss their love of Microsoft's flagship gaming brand through different outlets. With so many new features, games, and more rumored to be coming to Series X, its no doubt going to be a big release as well, with the console looking to cover a lot of new ground with its innovative hardware.
Source: Eurogamer