We’re not sure what’s more surprising – the fact that Microsoft confirmed that it was letting go of as many as 9,100 employees yesterday, or the fact that this only constitutes roughly 4% of the company’s workforce. Either way, it’s never a good sign to let any number of employees go at once, much less 9,000 of them. It appears as though the Xbox division was hit hardest by the massacre, though exact numbers are still up in the air.
Microsoft’s on a war path
“We must make choices now for continued success in future years and a key part of that strategy is the discipline to prioritize the strongest opportunities,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in an internal memo. “We will protect what is thriving and concentrate effort on areas with the greatest potential, while delivering on the expectations the company has for our business. This focused approach means we can deliver exceptional games and experiences for players for generations to come.”
This all follows a previous bout of layoffs this year, resulting in roughly 6,000 folks being let go from the Microsoft family across multiple divisions.
Even without hard data, there’s no ignoring that many of Xbox’s projects simply vanished overnight. Remember that Perfect Dark reboot? Yeah, that’s gone, along with the studio behind it – The Initiative – and several other big-name projects. One of those is Everwild from Rare, a game announced in 2019. At least there’s still the trailers, right? Developers Turn 10 of the Forza series will also lose more than 70 employees.
You’d think that Xbox’s biggest money-spinners like the Call of Duty franchise and the teams behind them would be safe from the firing line, but apparently not. According to a report from Bloomberg, Raven Software and Sledgehammer Games are scaling back their workforce. These join the likes of Candy Crush’s King and ZeniMax Online Studios, which also meant the end of its unannounced MMO game.
A series of poor financial decisions and continued heavy investment in the AI race that all the world’s biggest tech companies are currently running are likely the biggest reasons to blame for this series of mass terminations. Whether it’ll all pay off for the company remains to be seen.
Rumours quickly began to spread, via @TheGhostofHope, that Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer was also looking to step down from his role as CEO “after the launch of the next generation Xbox.” he then stated that Sarah Bond was next in line for the throne. Microsoft responded with a swift “Phil is not retiring anytime soon” comment in a statement to The Verge, though it didn’t outright claim the rumours to be false.
