Bloodbath at XBOX as 3,200 Jobs Cut

Five studios will be divested, as well.

It had been rumored around the middle of this past June that XBOX was looking to shutter multiple studios in an effort to reduce costs. That rumor has become reality, as today it was announced by Microsoft that the company as a whole will be shedding 4,800 jobs, with 3,200 of those positions coming from XBOX, alone. What's more, the three studios that had been rumored as getting the axe are being joined by two others, bringing the total to five. However, as the rumor has also alleged, these studios will at least be given the chance to divest and become standalone companies.

So, where are the cuts being directed exactly within XBOX? Reductions are being aimed at Activision, Blizzard, King, Mojang, Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, Obsidion, and Zenimax. 1,600 staffers were laid off with immediate effect, while others will come down the line. The five studios that have been or will be divested from XBOX are Compulsion Games, Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and Arkane. The first two have already been fully spun off and maintain control over their IPs and catalogs of games, while the other three are in the process of seeking funding. Arkane, in particular, is doing what it can within the framework of French law.

It's certainly not good news for those impacted, but the writing has been on the wall for a while now that XBOX has become bloated, listless, and in dire need of a reset. Strange ideas about game exclusivity have resulted in XBOX's top brands, Gears of War and soon Halo, to appear on a major competitor's hardware in the form of PlayStation 5. Multiple high profile, big budget games have been utter failures from a sales standpoint, including South of Midnight, Redfall, Starfield, and others. The price hike of Game Pass to $29.99 was another breaking point for many fans (which new XBOX CEO Asha Sharma rolled back). Even XBOX's own abortive "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign made ownership of an XBOX console seem superfluous.

The end result is a brand oversaturated with studios that don't produce games to justify being kept open. Which, to be fair, wasn't the fault of all parties involved; no one asked Microsoft to purchase Activision back in 2022, for instance, and all the studios contained therein. If all these companies weren't under the XBOX umbrella, things might be very different right now. But something clearly catastrophic happened within XBOX for this many studios to wind up in the state that they're in. Toxic positivity, pushing social engineering and activism on customers, and more have all been part of the culture that XBOX has adopted for years. Now, the consequences have arrived, and it's a sad time for all.

Source: The Wall Street Journal + GamesIndustry.biz