Baldur's Gate III (2023)

Big whoopsie!

Microsoft completely misjudged Baldur’s Gate 3

Xbox dubbed Larian’s hit a “second-run Stadia PC RPG” before its release

To say that Baldur’s Gate 3 was underestimated would be, well, an understatement. Microsoft apparently didn’t expect much from Larian’s breakout hit, either, calling it a “second-run Stadia PC RPG” in a leaked email from May 2022 filed as part of the FTC vs. Microsoft case. That email included a chart that assessed upcoming games for potential inclusion in Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service. While other games were rated on their “wow factor” — i.e., Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was marked at very high, while Dragon Ball: The Breakers was listed with a low wow factor — Baldur’s Gate 3 was marked Hub, and last on the list. (It’s unclear whether “Hub” refers to the Xbox Insiders Hub; games like Ubisoft’s Just Dance and Let’s Sing ABBA got the same distinction.)

The email exchange begins in May 2022, when Xbox chief Phil Spencer emailed several executives, including head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty and Xbox vice president Sarah Bond, to discuss the fallout from Starfield’s delay, before it was officially announced. The delay, plus unclear release dates for Redfall and Stalker 2, created a big gap in big games on the Xbox platform. “This is really a disaster situation for us given all we’ve invested in content across studios at our GP [Game Pass] content fund,” Spencer wrote. Spencer instructed the execs to get to work on making sure those gaps are filled.

The email exchange begins in May 2022, when Xbox chief Phil Spencer emailed several executives, including head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty and Xbox vice president Sarah Bond, to discuss the fallout from Starfield’s delay, before it was officially announced. The delay, plus unclear release dates for Redfall and Stalker 2, created a big gap in big games on the Xbox platform. “This is really a disaster situation for us given all we’ve invested in content across studios at our GP [Game Pass] content fund,” Spencer wrote. Spencer instructed the execs to get to work on making sure those gaps are filled.

“We set a very high bar in 2021 on quality and pacing of content which was awesome to see,” he wrote. “But to come off of that year with no big exclusives launching in 2022 is a portfolio planning miss that we can’t afford. If we need to delay launches (understanding there is a financial impact of that) to create more regular beats for us we need to do that. We have to all understand that the situation we are in now is a failure of our planning and production execution.”

The email exchange begins in May 2022, when Xbox chief Phil Spencer emailed several executives, including head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty and Xbox vice president Sarah Bond, to discuss the fallout from Starfield’s delay, before it was officially announced. The delay, plus unclear release dates for Redfall and Stalker 2, created a big gap in big games on the Xbox platform. “This is really a disaster situation for us given all we’ve invested in content across studios at our GP [Game Pass] content fund,” Spencer wrote. Spencer instructed the execs to get to work on making sure those gaps are filled.

“We set a very high bar in 2021 on quality and pacing of content which was awesome to see,” he wrote. “But to come off of that year with no big exclusives launching in 2022 is a portfolio planning miss that we can’t afford. If we need to delay launches (understanding there is a financial impact of that) to create more regular beats for us we need to do that. We have to all understand that the situation we are in now is a failure of our planning and production execution.”

“We set a very high bar in 2021 on quality and pacing of content which was awesome to see,” he wrote. “But to come off of that year with no big exclusives launching in 2022 is a portfolio planning miss that we can’t afford. If we need to delay launches (understanding there is a financial impact of that) to create more regular beats for us we need to do that. We have to all understand that the situation we are in now is a failure of our planning and production execution.”