{"id":89080,"date":"2026-07-07T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=89080"},"modified":"2026-07-06T14:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T20:17:13","slug":"xbox-hits-reset-button-laying-off-thousands-and-dropping-game-studios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/xbox-hits-reset-button-laying-off-thousands-and-dropping-game-studios\/","title":{"rendered":"Xbox hits reset button, laying off thousands and dropping game studios"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Xbox<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft said on Monday that it was making major changes to its Xbox video game business, dropping several game studios and cutting its Xbox work force by 20 percent. The company said it would lay off 1,600 Xbox employees now and cut another 1,250 roles over the next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initial Xbox layoffs are part of 4,800 job cuts that Microsoft announced on Monday, a total that accounts for roughly 2 percent of the company\u2019s work force. It is Microsoft\u2019s latest employee culling as it plows tens of billions of dollars into the infrastructure for building artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft executives acknowledged that the company had misread the economic challenges facing the video game industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur platform teams are 40 percent larger than they were at the start of this generation, even as our player base and playtime have declined,\u201d Asha Sharma, Xbox\u2019s chief executive, wrote in a letter to employees. \u201cAs we reset Xbox, we will simplify.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Xbox is responsible for about 6 percent of Microsoft\u2019s revenue, the brand has been one of the largest and most influential forces in the video game industry since it entered the console wars with Nintendo and Sony in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Covid-19 pandemic, video games became a crucial consumer business for Microsoft. But since then, the company\u2019s overwhelming priority has been investing in A.I., while the video game division\u2019s sales have dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts said the company had overspent on game acquisitions, underperformed with consumers and made a series of strategic blunders. Microsoft also faces a problem that recently led Apple to raise prices: The A.I. boom has sharply increased the costs of memory chips used in its devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Sharma joined Xbox five months ago with a plan to reinvigorate Microsoft\u2019s video game business. In her letter to staff, she set an ambitious goal of doubling Xbox\u2019s reach to a billion daily users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHistory is full of companies that mistake longevity for inevitability,\u201d Ms. Sharma wrote. \u201cWe will not be one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of shuttering a number of critically acclaimed studio brands that it owns, Xbox plans to provide ways for some studios to survive outside the company, potentially sparing about 350 employees from layoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Double Fine, which created the Psychonauts series, a comedic adventure of psychic spies, and Compulsion Games will become independent companies under their existing management, retaining the franchises they had developed under Microsoft, according to Xbox executives. Undead Labs and Ninja Theory will be sold to undisclosed buyers. A fifth developer, Arkane Studios, is beginning to explore other options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will be cuts in Xbox\u2019s remaining studios, including Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax Media, as well as across the brand\u2019s platform teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The changes at the studios amount to a sharp about-face for Xbox, which has spent billions buying up developers. In 2023, Microsoft completed the largest acquisition in gaming history with the $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, the hitmaker behind games like Call of Duty and Candy Crush. Microsoft had made other acquisitions, including spending $7.5 billion to buy ZeniMax Media, which publishes series like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hope, at the time, was that an expanded catalog of titles would lead to more console and software sales. But the Xbox Series X|S, a console released in 2020, was a commercial disappointment. In a typical year, Ms. Sharma said in her email to employees, Xbox lost 64 cents for every dollar it invested in the game studios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Satya Nadella, Microsoft\u2019s chief executive, recently discussed the challenges facing the company\u2019s video game business on \u201cHard Fork,\u201d The New York Times\u2019s tech podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to turn this into a sustainable business that delivers what is fundamentally one of the best sources of entertainment,\u201d Mr. Nadella said. Xbox gamers streaming their playing on YouTube made more money off the games than Microsoft did, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft is among a number of big technology companies cutting jobs as they shift money toward A.I. projects. In April, the company told investors that it expected to spend about $190 billion on capital expenditures for data centers and other infrastructure this calendar year, up more than 60 percent from 2025. But the company\u2019s work force, it said, was likely to shrink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe \u2018why\u2019 is this: Our business is changing because the world around it is changing,\u201d Amy Coleman, the chief people officer, wrote to employees on Monday. She said that A.I. would not replace the jobs, but that the technology was changing priorities and how people worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft\u2019s head count grew sharply during the pandemic, jumping 26 percent in two years to hit 221,000 by June 2022. Since then, it has barely budged. The company\u2019s profit for this fiscal year is expected to jump 26 percent from the previous year when it reports results for the quarter that has just ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the Xbox cuts, Microsoft\u2019s sales force was hit hard by the layoffs as the company continues to retool how it sells its A.I. products. Many of the sales cuts were outside the United States. Less than 1 percent of the company\u2019s work force in its home state, Washington, was let go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early last summer, Microsoft laid off about 15,000 employees. In April, the company offered its first-ever buyouts to thousands of long-serving workers. The buyouts were offered to about 7 percent of U.S. employees, and the company told investors that they would cost about $900 million. Ms. Coleman said more than 30 percent of the people eligible for the retirement package took Microsoft up on the offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n