2023 shouldn’t be thanks to Redfall and Starfield, Bethesda’s much-anticipated answer to the question, “What if Skyrim but space?” But both of those games were technically supposed to come out last year.

Meanwhile, Hi-Fi Rush, like Obsidian’s Pentiment before it, is shaping up to be a critically acclaimed Game Pass release that still might be too small to move the needle on Xbox’s larger fortunes.

Following news of the cuts last week, rumors and speculation began to swirl that 343 Industries—which shipped a well-received Halo Infinite single-player campaign in 2021, but struggled with seasonal updates for the multiplayer component in the months since—was being benched.

And on the future of the series as a whole he simply said, “I expect that we’ll be continuing to support and grow Halo for as long as the Xbox is a platform for people to play.” It’s hard to imagine Nintendo talking about Mario with a similar-sounding lack of conviction.

Microsoft had originally promised the deal to get Call of Duty, Diablo, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush would be wrapped up before the end of summer 2023.

“The fact that I have more insight, more knowledge about what it means to work with the different regulatory boards, I’m more confident now than I was a year ago, simply based on the information I have and the discussions that we’ve been having.”