According to Bloomberg, Microsoft is planning another round of “significant” lay-offs for its Xbox sector, which, although highlighted by Bloomberg as “severe cuts”, did not release specific data. The Verge reported that this retrenchment was part of Microsoft ‘ s reorganization of the Xbox operation in Central Europe, which would result in the termination of the Xbox operation in some areas.
Bloomberg has indicated that it will be announced next week, and that this reduction will affect the entire Xbox sector, which means that the Xbox team itself, as well as all staff in the studios under Microsoft’s first party, Xbox, are at risk.
This will be the fourth major reduction in the Xbox sector in the past 18 months. The time goes back to January 2024, when Xbox abolished 1,900 employees, many of whom joined from King’s studio under the banner of the storm after Microsoft formally completed its acquisition of the storm.
Shortly thereafter, Xbox closed four ZeniMax studios: Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Roundhouse Studios and Alpha Dog Games. A few months later, the blizzard confirmed additional lay-offs and nearly 400 developers were laid off in the California studio.
Considering that since 2022, the game industry has been in a situation of near-uninterrupted large-scale turmoil, Over the past few years, thousands of developers have lost their jobs, and these layoffs have been the “ad hoc measures” taken by the executives to deal with their financial situation after they made the wrong bets in the early years of industrial boom.
At least for the time being, it does not seem that the downsizing will stop soon. Large companies like EA have already made multiple layoffs this year. The Hypixel studio was declared closed yesterday, and we will now have a new round of Microsoft Xbox layoffs next week.
