Summary
- Microsoft has reportedly laid off more employees across its gaming, security, and sales divisions.
- It's unclear how many employees have been impacted.
- These new layoffs are also unconnected to a previous round of cuts announced earlier in January.
Microsoft has reportedly laid off even more employees across its gaming, security, and sales divisions. The past few years have been challenging for video game industry workers, with numerous companies, including Microsoft, announcing significant layoffs in 2024 alone. These layoffs have affected both major studios and smaller indie developers, with recent cuts impacting teams like Predator: Hunting Grounds developer IllFonic and Outriders studio People Can Fly. Earlier this month, Rocksteady also announced layoffs following the mixed reception of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
Microsoft, one of the largest companies affected by recent layoffs, has been reducing its Xbox workforce since the beginning of 2024. In January, Microsoft announced the layoff of 1,900 staff members from its Xbox gaming division, including employees at acquired subsidiaries such as Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax. In September, another 650 employees were let go, this time from corporate and support roles at Activision Blizzard.
According to a recent report from Business Insider (via GamesIndustry.biz), Microsoft may have just conducted another round of layoffs. A Microsoft spokesperson indicated that these latest cuts would affect a small number of staff members, though the exact number of employees impacted remains unspecified. Importantly, these new layoffs are separate from an earlier round of cuts announced earlier in the month, which focused on underperforming workers not necessarily connected to Xbox.
Microsoft Could Be Laying Off More Xbox Employees
Microsoft's ongoing layoffs are particularly significant given the company's recent acquisitions of major publishers like Bethesda and Activision Blizzard, as well as the news that Microsoft reached a $3 trillion market value shortly after the massive January 2024 layoffs. This initial wave of cuts prompted complaints from the FTC, which attempted to use the layoffs at Activision Blizzard as a basis to challenge or reverse Microsoft's high-profile merger with the Call of Duty publisher.
Previous Microsoft layoffs have also impacted Xbox's physical retail teams, as well as most of Blizzard's customer service team and in-house developers such as Sledgehammer Games and Toys for Bob. Additionally, Blizzard's unnamed survival game, codenamed Project Odyssey, was canceled following these layoffs. The number of employees affected by this latest round of layoffs at Microsoft has not been confirmed, leaving the potential impact on the Xbox gaming division uncertain.
