Microsoft said they were sacking 1,400 people across the entire company, yet a disproportionate number of those cuts fell upon the (relatively) small gaming group. What gives? Did somebody piss in Steve Ballmer's coffee?

In the literal sense, no, but somebody looking at Micosoft's research & development budget may well have exclaimed "oh man, the entertainment & services division is sure pissing in everybody else's coffee".

Look at this graph. It shows the R&D spending across the entire company in the six months leading up to December 31, 2008. Now look at the far right. Look how much the entertainment & services division (the Xbox, Games for Windows, Zune & Windows Mobile guys) blew through.

They spent more than the Windows guys! Who were working on Windows 7! And nearly as much as the server & tools crew! This despite the fact the E&D team is small compared to those other two, and contributes bugger-all towards Microsoft's overall bottom line (only $329 million of the company's $6.2 billion).

So if costs needed to be cut, and you were doing the cutting, and you looked at that expenditure, you'd know a good place to start.

Before you all go blaming some mysterious Xbox portable, the rumoured 360 waggle or even the Zune, it's worth noting a fair whack of that increase in spending was due to Microsoft's acquisition of the guys behind T-Mobile's Sidekick. That meant more people working on more R&D, which increased the spending proportionately.

So, there you have it. One good reason (one out of a few) why the axe fell on the E&D group. All that spending with so little return made them the first, and most obvious target for some enforced belt-tightening.

http://kotaku.com/5139904/so-why-all-the-microsoft-game-group-firings

Hello Xbox 362 fall 2010

According to Kotaku, Microsoft closed another first party developer, fired a Windows Games Live executive, closed its gamerscore blog, and fired 30% of its game testers because of an increase in R&D in the Windows Embedded product line?

That is some twisted logic.

^ in their defense, who really cares for MS Flight Simulator games nowadays????

Games for WIndows LIVE is a small operation as it is, gamerscore blog gives information that can be readily found on gaming news sites like Kotaku and even Xbox.com. Game testers are largely expendable and hardly essential as MS outsources their games to 3rd party studios (like Epic with Gears of War).

So really, its not all that bad. Sony on the other hand is cutting 16000 jobs, plus 2000 in Japan, plus more "headcount" reductions.

How much do gametesters actually make? 10 bux per hour or something? Poor kids.

So you pretty much agree with me? 

I don't think this post has anything to do with Sony.

Yeah, it's pretty far-fetched.

How many jobs is Sony Computer Entertainment cutting?

No one knows yet. Perhaps we'll get more information on Thursday (earnings report day).

 As far as I know the 16000 and 2000 in Japan arent the games division but I believe the further "headcount" reductions will cover the games division among others as well.

But that sentence was off-topic and I dont want to start an argument. Just some notice to anti-360 posters: dont play the job cut card for ownage, you have it much worse.