Where they'll feel it the most is in hiring. Everyone in the industry is watching and if they don't fix their house, it will be very hard for them to hire and retain the engineers and designers who build and run their games.
The real danger comes when the project fails, for any reason at all. People who like the new direction self-select into the experiment, and if the experiment fails they are more likely to find themselves laid off, give notice, or be disillusioned and stick around anyway.
I am very suspicious, for instance, if this is what happened at GM with the EV1. Effectively the rabblerousers got put onto a project, which they cancelled it quite abruptly and then backed away from the green vehicle space for a very long time.