This is really fishy (the whole situation and the studio closure).
First of all Irrational Games is (wholly) owned by Take Two. So only Take Two decides what happens with the studio. From the statement i guess they decided that is "less bad" if Levine steps up and says they "wind down" instead of Take 2 announcing they close the studio. Basically PR damage.
Regarding the reason....looking at their output it seems they had it coming. After the original Bioshock (2007) they took 6 (!!) years to release Infinite (and even that was codeveloped with 2K Australia). The financial losses must have been pretty big.
First of all Irrational Games is (wholly) owned by Take Two. So only Take Two decides what happens with the studio. From the statement i guess they decided that is "less bad" if Levine steps up and says they "wind down" instead of Take 2 announcing they close the studio. Basically PR damage.
Regarding the reason....looking at their output it seems they had it coming. After the original Bioshock (2007) they took 6 (!!) years to release Infinite (and even that was codeveloped with 2K Australia). The financial losses must have been pretty big.