XSX vs PS5

[chronovore]

Still haven't seen an adequate explanation of why restructures/layoffs are all happening at once. The Embracer problems are clearly a matter of them planning on financing that wasn't already in-hand, and ultimately fell through at the worst possible time. 
Microsoft/Blizzard-Activision-King, Sony, EA, Riot, etc. are in a full-blown panic and laying off swathes of people, while still reporting sizable profits. 
It's just ridiculous. The language is "It's unavoidable," but this is not a move made because they're dying, it's a move toward increased profits without understanding the difficulty of building a successful team.

Because there is a big disconnect between what happens at the top and in the studios as the industry and the corporations grow bigger.
They don't believe making better games will turn their fortunes around, Phil Spencer said so himself. 

The return of investment and growth just wasn't there over the past 2 years so they adjust accordingly as they prepare for the next generation of games.

This is what a mature industry looks like, rows on spreadsheets, stories on Jira boards, miles of red tape and more time wasted on meetings than anything else. And that type of company also attracts a certain type of employee and won't hire the most creative or capable ones for one reason or another. So there are very few Ken Levines, John Carmacks or Cliffy B's waiting in the wings of these companies. They're mostly operating on the fumes of prior success. 

I recall reading in a book or an interview that Miyamoto told Iwata that if the same high standards of 'today' had applied to them, they would've never gotten hired.
Which shifted Iwata's thinking on what he once called 'garage developers devaluing the industry' and opened Nintendo up to indie developers.

Some other developers got 'lucky'. Capcom lost their top tier talent to other companies and Inafunes insanity of outsourcing everything to the west. Which brought them in a tough spot for a while but also meant that they had to hire a lot of new people who came up with fresh new ideas and who were really motivated to turn the ship around.

If you are thinking about the exodus of talent that happened after the Capcom Five bet was lost, it wasn't so much that other companies nabbed them, but that Capcom management treated those creators like they were personally responsible for third-party games not selling well on Nintendo hardware. So the creators left and made their own companies. Sadly, it looks like they brought most of Capcom's culture with them when they did. 

Anyway, you are right about the size of the company itself being a factor. The larger the bet, the more a sure thing is required. Fewer chances will be tolerated. Which is why it's weird to me that -- aside from MS, Sony, and Nintendo making their own "support the indies" efforts -- EA, UBI, and other larger publishers don't seem to want to take a few longshot bets themselves.