{"id":889959,"date":"2026-02-04T02:12:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T08:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/obsidian-says-two-of-its-2025-titles-didnt-meet-sales-targets-vows-to-learn-for-the-future\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T02:12:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T08:12:28","slug":"obsidian-says-two-of-its-2025-titles-didnt-meet-sales-targets-vows-to-learn-for-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/obsidian-says-two-of-its-2025-titles-didnt-meet-sales-targets-vows-to-learn-for-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Obsidian Says Two Of Its 2025 Titles Didn&#8217;t Meet Sales Targets, Vows To Learn For The Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Entertainment <\/p>\n<div id=\"body\">\n<article id=\"article\">\n<header>\n<section>\n<p>&#8220;That sucks. What are we learning?&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<ul>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.purexbox.com\/users\/302914\/avatar.jpg?v=1641467957\" width=\"30\" height=\"30\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Entertainment Kezelpaso\"><\/li>\n<li>by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/authors\/Kezelpaso\">Ben Kerry<\/a> <span><\/span> <time data-days=\"5\" datetime=\"2026-02-03T18:00:00+00:00\">Yesterday, 6pm<\/time><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<\/header>\n<div>\n<section>\n<figure data-uuid=\"fd68decc5c7e8\"><a title=\"Obsidian Says Two Of Its 2025 Titles Didn't Meet Sales Targets, Vows To Learn For The Future\" href=\"https:\/\/images.purexbox.com\/fd68decc5c7e8\/obsidian-says-two-of-its-2025-titles-didnt-meet-sales-targets-vows-to-learn-for-the-future.large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.purexbox.com\/fd68decc5c7e8\/obsidian-says-two-of-its-2025-titles-didnt-meet-sales-targets-vows-to-learn-for-the-future.900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" alt=\"Entertainment Obsidian Says Two Of Its 2025 Titles Didn't Meet Sales Targets, Vows To Learn For The Future\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>Xbox&#8217;s Obsidian Entertainment released a whopping three games throughout 2025 alone; one of them being a smaller effort in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/games\/xbox-series-x\/grounded_2\">Grounded 2<\/a>, while <a href=\"http:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/games\/xbox-series-x\/avowed\">Avowed<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/games\/xbox-series-x\/outer_worlds_2\">The Outer Worlds 2<\/a> delivered big AAA experiences to players last year. And, as it turns out, those latter two <em>failed<\/em> to meet sales targets at Xbox.<\/p>\n<p>In a new piece over at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-02-03\/xbox-studio-behind-grounded-outer-worlds-is-charting-new-path\">Bloomberg<\/a>, Jason Schreier talks about Obsidian&#8217;s 2025, and how its packed release schedule landed with players. The outlet mentions that Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 &#8220;failed to meet sales forecasts set by Obsidian\u2019s parent company, Microsoft&#8221; &#8211; which studio head Feargus Urquhart responded to:<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure data-videoid=\"kkhxNhh0K-U\" data-start=\"0\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kkhxNhh0K-U?rel=0&#038;hd=1&#038;showinfo=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;autohide=1\">\n<div><iframe id=\"ytkkhxNhh0K-U\" title=\"YouTube Video\" data-src-fallback=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/kkhxNhh0K-U?rel=0&#038;hd=1&#038;showinfo=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;autohide=1\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kkhxNhh0K-U?rel=0&#038;hd=1&#038;showinfo=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;autohide=1\" data-consent=\"targeting\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" width=\"890\" height=\"501\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" data-src-primis=\"https:\/\/live.primis.tech\/live\/liveView.php?s=117169&#038;vp_content=embed5473bekzhxgy&#038;schain=1.0,1!ziffdavis.com,22392450815,1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/purexbox?sub_confirmation=1\">Pure Xbox<\/a> on <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/purexbox?sub_confirmation=1\"><span>YouTube<\/span><span>30k<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;They\u2019re not disasters, [&#8230;] I\u2019m not going to say this was a kick in the teeth. It was more like: &#8220;That sucks. What are we learning?'&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In terms of those learnings, the Obsidian head mentions that the team wants to cut down development times on future AAA titles, with Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 taking upwards of <em>six, seven years<\/em> to make. The studio hopes that smaller budgets and three, four year dev cycles can become the norm; something that&#8217;s been demonstrated well with Grounded 2 here.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Urquhart seems fairly relaxed about things at the moment, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/news\/2025\/11\/rumour-ex-obsidian-dev-suggests-avowed-2-is-on-the-cards-but-no-plans-for-outer-worlds-3\">more Avowed planned for the future in some form or another<\/a> &#8211; and there&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/news\/2026\/01\/avowed-releases-for-ps5-alongside-free-anniversary-update-on-xbox-this-february\">the PS5 release right around the corner<\/a>, which could help the team meet its targets too. The Outer Worlds 3 seemingly isn&#8217;t happening, though, and the Obsidian boss hopes that the studio will be able to continue taking risks with future titles.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The hope, Urquhart says, is that Xbox continues to fund riskier projects and values achievements besides strong sales, even if it means accepting that \u201cmaybe where we are going to be from a profitability standpoint isn\u2019t going to be 30%.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our job, all of us here, is to go make games that people want to play and buy, and if we continue to do that, then we have a solid business,&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Indeed, despite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/news\/2025\/12\/microsoft-says-its-incorrect-that-xbox-division-is-now-targeting-30percent-profit-margins\">Microsoft recently denying such a figure for profit targets at Xbox<\/a>, Bloomberg <a href=\"https:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/news\/2025\/10\/report-xbox-has-been-asking-its-studios-to-hit-higher-profit-margins-since-2023\">previously reported this number<\/a>, and it&#8217;s obviously been referenced by the Obsidian boss here. Whatever the exact target may be, Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 clearly <em>didn&#8217;t<\/em> meet it, but we too hope the team still gets to experiment with future titles and put out more stellar work under the Xbox Game Studios banner.<\/p>\n<p><em>What do you make of this Obsidian chatter? Talk to us about it down below.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p>[source <a title=\"External Link: https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-02-03\/xbox-studio-behind-grounded-outer-worlds-is-charting-new-path\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-02-03\/xbox-studio-behind-grounded-outer-worlds-is-charting-new-path\">bloomberg.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.purexbox.com\/users\/302914\/avatar.jpg\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Entertainment Ben Kerry\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Ben is a News Writer at Pure Xbox, and is a fan of action, racing and straight-up shootin&#8217; in any Xbox game he can get his hands on. When he&#8217;s not clutching an Xbox controller like his life depends on it, Ben spends his time listening to music that&#8217;s far too old for him, watching football on the telly and probably eating somewhere.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/authors\/Kezelpaso\"><span><\/span> Author Profile<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a onclick=\"return replyTo('Kezelpaso');\" href=\"http:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/#\"> Reply<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.purexbox.com\/news\/2026\/02\/obsidian-says-two-of-its-2025-titles-didnt-meet-sales-targets-vows-to-learn-for-the-future\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Becki Antes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;That sucks. What are we learning?&#8221; by Ben Kerry Yesterday, 6pm Xbox&#8217;s Obsidian Entertainment released a whopping three games throughout 2025 alone; one of them being a smaller effort in Grounded 2, while Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 delivered big AAA experiences to players last year. And, as it turns out, those latter two<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":889960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1798,26910,30469],"tags":[20608,7105],"class_list":{"0":"post-889959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"category-obsidian","9":"category-titles","10":"tag-obsidian","11":"tag-titles"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}