I don't agree with punishing the developers for what Microsoft did and I don't agree with "They're going to get closed anyway so lets speed up their death" poorly thought out logic, I would say if you want to support Microsoft less but still want to support the developers then buy 3rd parties and 1st parties outside of the Microsoft Store (I.E. Steam) that way you're still supporting developers but you aren't giving Microsoft any extra money I.E. the 30% cut that Microsoft takes on every transaction on their store.

But I'm not going to attack anyone for still using things like Game Pass because it's an incredible deal and quite frankly people just don't have the money to spend on $80 releases. I'm also not going to attack anyone for still sticking with Xbox. Really they're all shit. What I'm going to do is probably buy the Asus Xbox Ally X and start my transition to PC, then once some Xbox/PC hybrid releases I will buy that, I won't really care if it's Xbox made or 3rd party made, but once I've bought that I will start transitioning all my non-Game Pass purchases over to Steam so I'll be cutting how much I support Microsoft down in ways I can whilst still supporting developers.

Microsoft only did one major layoffs before Satya Nadella became CEO and that was 1,400 in January 2009 then 3,600 over the course of 18 months after that. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the layoffs in recent years.

Layoffs under Satya:

• 2014 - 18,000 / 14% of total workforce
• July 2022 - Just over 1,000 / Under 1%
• October 2022 - Nearly 1,000 / Under 0.5%
• January 2023 - 10,000 / 5%
• March 2023 - 689 in Seattle
• May 2023 - 716 at LinkedIn
• September 2023 - 276 - Mainly customer support and sales
• October 2023 - 668 at LinkedIn
• January 2024  - 1,900 from gaming / ~8% of gaming division
• May 2024 - Unknown numbers - Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog Games shutdown / Roundhouse Studios merged into ZeniMax Online Studios
• Summer 2024 - 1,000 - Mainly Azure division
• September 2024 - 650 from Xbox - Mainly in corporate and support
• January/February 2025 - 2,000 that were "underperforming"
• July 2025 - 9,000 / 4% of total workforce

As you can see layoffs started off slow in 2022 then quickly ramped up.

Total per year:

• 2014 - 18,000
• 2022 - 2,000
• 2023 - 12,349
• 2024 - 3,550 + unknown number when studios were shutdown
• 2025 - 11,000

Microsoft only did one major layoffs before Satya Nadella became CEO and that was 1,400 in January 2009 then 3,600 over the course of 18 months after that. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the layoffs in recent years.

Layoffs under Satya:

• 2014 - 18,000 / 14% of total workforce
• July 2022 - Just over 1,000 / Under 1%
• October 2022 - Nearly 1,000 / Under 0.5%
• January 2023 - 10,000 / 5%
• March 2023 - 689 in Seattle
• May 2023 - 716 at LinkedIn
• September 2023 - 276 - Mainly customer support and sales
• October 2023 - 668 at LinkedIn
• January 2024  - 1,900 from gaming / ~8% of gaming division
• May 2024 - Unknown numbers - Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog Games shutdown / Roundhouse Studios merged into ZeniMax Online Studios
• Summer 2024 - 1,000 - Mainly Azure division
• September 2024 - 650 from Xbox - Mainly in corporate and support
• January/February 2025 - 2,000 that were "underperforming"
• July 2025 - 9,000 / 4% of total workforce

As you can see layoffs started off slow in 2022 then quickly ramped up.

Total per year:

• 2014 - 18,000
• 2022 - 2,000
• 2023 - 12,349
• 2024 - 3,550 + unknown number when studios were shutdown
• 2025 - 11,000

I thought about it and considered dropping all MS stuff. But I think the solid thing is to buy what you want and signal your wishes that way. I will keep Gamepass as long as it has interesting games, including the creative stuff from Obsidian. I will keep ESO+, as long as ESO still keeps me entertained. But if Gamepass becomes only a Call of Duty pass and content for ESO dries up, then I will move on. Gamepass is good value in the moment, but MS just undercut it's future, as all these cancelled games (also the external published ones, I guess the Romero Game they published would've had a Gamepass deal) will come back to bite them in form of droughts of interesting material. And no, COD will not do it for me. I will try Grounded 2. I will try Clockwork Revolution. If things end after that, then will my Gamepass sub end.

These companies have been a mess since COVID too, Microsoft is laying off thousands every year to cut back, then rehiring thousands every year, Microsoft actually didn't decrease in employee count from 2023-2024 and in fact have more employees in 2025 than they did in 2023-2024. It's a constant cycle of laying off thousands, hiring thousands, laying off thousands, and it will continue for years, there doesn't seem to be any end goal except a non-stop chain of firing/hiring. These companies don't give a fuck about the humans being treated like shit all of this because these companies fucked up and over hired during COVID and now seemingly can't get in a stable position and have to keep firing to increase stock price.

Sayta needs to go. If the company is having layoffs at record pace while having constant increased revenue and profits year over year, then it's time to fuck off. This AI obsession is going to backfire.

So they layoff thousands to hire thousands. How does that make any sense? I get not everyone can do every job, but why not shift as many as possible to other roles you want to expand?!

• Layoff thousands to boost the share-price.
• Rehire thousands because they need them.
• Layoff thousands to boost the share-price.

These layoffs are always carefully timed for the end of quarters or start of fiscal years.

They're just using their employees as pawns on a chess board to please the billionaire shareholders and playing with peoples livelihoods.

Microsoft might not have been as profitable as it is now, but I prefer how things were under Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.