Yet another new controversy is brewing in the Xbox community. Recently, entertainment lawyer Simon Pulman claimed that South of Midnight and The Outer Worlds 2 carried development and marketing budgets exceeding $100 million each.

Criticism began pouring in after Pulman estimated that South of Midnight sold around 500,000 copies while The Outer Worlds 2 reached roughly 1 million copies, proving the economics of modern AAA game development are becoming increasingly unsustainable.

He also compared the reported budgets of those two titles with Stellar Blade and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. The lawyer claimed the latter two games cost way less than the former two but achieved stronger sales results.

Now, the context of these comments is pretty significant. Xbox is currently going through a restructuring phase. Several first-party studios are being closed, and layoffs are reportedly under consideration.

South of Midnight maker Compulsion Games has specifically been linked to closure rumors. The game got decent critical acclaim, but right now, Xbox is focused on generating revenue after years of vast investments.

That is why the budget claims from Pulman have also stirred serious concerns regarding Xbox's first-party performance.

Titles like South of Midnight, The Outer Worlds 2, Avowed, Hellblade 2, and Forza Motorsport have all failed to meet internal expectations in terms of sales and engagement.

In fact, the gaming industry as a whole is facing difficulties due to increasing production costs. And although Microsoft hasn't publicly confirmed these reports, they have intensified criticism around development spending and long-term sustainability.

Pulman also said that Game Pass engagement alone shouldn't be considered if a title fails to generate sufficient revenue relative to its cost. However, more than the lawyer's claims, fans are talking about the credibility of those figures.

Xbox fans question the reported budgets as closure rumors continue

The reported $100 million budget of the games actually didn't sit well with the fans. Several users argued that South of Midnight felt closer to an AAA production than a traditional blockbuster release.

One fan doesn't seem to believe the claimed sales figure to be true. They asked, "Do they count downloaded on game pass as a sale?"

Another fan, too, had doubts regarding the rumored budgets.

They said, "How the f*** did they spend so much on these games? They don’t look like blockbusters produced by Sony such as Ghost of Yotei or God of War Ragnarok."

One fan didn't even know South of Midnight was from one of Xbox's studios.

They expressed their shock saying, "I honestly thought South of Midnight was an indie title with an indie budget that just got marketed by a bigger distributor..."

One skeptical gamer seemed to have a rather lower opinion of the game and of Xbox in general.

"South of Midnight didn´t sell more than a 100k copies on Steam, i DOUBT it sold even half of his claim in all platforms, specially considering it was a game pass day one and Xbox is basically irrelevant at this point..." they wrote.

Another skeptic was much more blunt, flat out asking how development of titles like South of Midnight and The Outer Worlds 2 could cost so much.

"$100 million? These are not $100 million dollar games. Where did the money go?" they questioned.

With reports linking several Xbox studios to an uncertain future, fans viewed the alleged figures as another sign of the challenges being faced by Microsoft's gaming division.

Read more at Gaming Community by Max Level!

Written by

Nilendu Brahma

Edited by

Arundhoti Palit