Microsoft Nintendo Laughed Bethesda

Microsoft Hit With More Layoffs Including Gaming Division

Microsoft has been hit with more layoffs across several divisions including gaming. The company didn’t provide the exact number of employees impacted in this round of terminations, though a Microsoft spokesperson reportedly claims that it will affect less than 1% of its work force.

As reported by Business Insider (via Video Games Chronicle), the recent layoffs will affect Microsoft’s security, sales and gaming businesses. These layoffs are different from the performance-based job cuts that Microsoft made last week. A spokesperson for Microsoft told CNBC, “At Microsoft we focus on high-performance talent. We are always working on helping people learn and grow. When people are not performing, we take the appropriate action.”

Back in January 2024, shortly after completing its nearly $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft announced a round of layoffs that saw over 1,900 employees terminated from across various Xbox studios including Bethesda and Activision Blizzard. The company would make more cuts in September 2024, firing a further 650 staff members from its gaming teams.

Xbox currently has a slate of first-party titles scheduled to launch in 2025 including Avowed, Fable and The Outer Worlds 2. However, it’s hard to imagine what employee morale must be like at the studios experiencing these cuts first-hand.

Xbox continues to bank heavily on its Game Pass subscription service as being its key strategy going forward, though we’re starting to see cracks in the foundation. Xbox will reportedly no longer have any exclusives – instead, all future releases will apparently be multiplatform, meaning it’s likely we’ll see more Xbox games make their way to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles. We’ll just have to wait and see if this pays off for the company or if Microsoft will make further cuts. At this stage, it’s looking pretty grim.

Fans can look forward to a new Xbox Developer Direct showcase which will take place on Thursday, 23 January.

Source: Video Games Chronicle

Writer
Editor-in-Chief of Nexus Hub, writer at GLITCHED. Former writer at The Gaming Report and All Otaku Online. RPG addict that has wonderful nightmares of Bloodborne 2.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *