Xbox |OT|

[Ryuu96]

Mnementh said:

Ryuu96 said:

Phil Spencer

Today we are sharing decisions that will impact colleagues across our organization. To position Gaming for enduring success and allow us to focus on strategic growth areas, we will end or decrease work in certain areas of the business and follow Microsoft’s lead in removing layers of management to increase agility and effectiveness. Out of respect for those impacted today, the specifics of today’s notifications and any organizational shifts will be shared by your team leaders in the coming days.

I recognize that these changes come at a time when we have more players, games, and gaming hours than ever before. Our platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger. The success we're seeing currently is based on tough decisions we've made previously. 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. 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.

Prioritizing our opportunities is essential, but that does not lessen the significance of this moment. Simply put, we would not be where we are today without the time, energy, and creativity of those whose roles are impacted. These decisions are not a reflection of the talent, creativity, and dedication of the people involved. Our momentum is not accidental—it is the result of years of dedicated effort from our teams.

HR is working directly with impacted employees to provide severance plan benefits (aligned with local laws), including pay, healthcare coverage, and job placement resources to support their transition. Employees whose roles were eliminated are encouraged to explore open positions across Microsoft Gaming, where their applications will be given priority review.

Thank you to everyone who has shaped our culture, our products, and our community. We will move forward with deep appreciation and respect for all who have contributed to this journey.

Well, this kills all creativity Xbox had. Why would creative motivated employees stay here and not try elsewhere or better strike out on their own. Everyone staying understands their value is as assembly line workers, doing what is demanded, not thinking about the vision of the game, not injecting any creativity or passion. Thanks Satya for killing Xbox studios.

It is so disheartening, as in the past Xbox was a protection against the currents of the market to let creativity bloom. The output of Obsidian with stuff like Grounded, Pentiment or Outer World is an example, Double Fine doing Psychonaut, inXile with Clockwork Revolution. But I feel like such an indiscriminate layoff will push away anyone with ambitions. And that is already following the killing of Tango, so people know this is not one singular exceptional event.

Everyone in America is laying off so they'd have to relocate to Japan, Lol. Or go indie but to go indie means you need funding and funding for indies is drying up too, plus indies have to now compete with like 20-30 games releasing every damn week, alongside the blackhole games sucking the air out of the room, it is far from easy to just simply go indie in this industry now.

I think people are underestimating how many people we're simply just going to lose altogether from this industry, this industry is volatile as fuck right now, it really doesn't have much positivity, it's a constant state of layoffs and closures, funding drying up, etc. It's a brutal battle amongst the dozens of games releasing every week and the blackhole games, younger gamers being less interested, etc.

We're just going to lose talent to other industries and who would look at the gaming industry over the past few years and think it's a stable industry to enter? These executives aren't going to realise the damage they're doing to it because they aren't human and can't understand what this will do to morale and the workforce, they don't care anyway, they think it can be replaced with AI.

It's going to be a double whammy of people sick of this industry leaving it and fewer fresh faces entering the industry because of how rough it is lately and in a few years from now we're going to have executives wondering: "Where's all the talent gone? Why is it so hard to hire?" if AI doesn't magically save their asses.