Microsoftis reportedly planning a round of “major layoffs” that will hitXboxnext week. We’re told to expect “substantial cuts” across Xbox and its studios.
This is reported byBloomberg, citing sources with knowledge of the plans. As highlighted by Bloomberg, this will be the fourth round of layoffs at Xbox in the past 18 months, and just another example of job cuts across the industry at large.
Xbox Is Reportedly Being Hit With More Layoffs
The Vergehas also corroborated the claim that layoffs will take place next week, and says that this is part of a wider restructuring in Central Europeahead of the next console generation. This will reportedly result in “some Xbox operations” ceasing in certain regions.
The last round of layoffs at Microsoft as a wholetook place last month. This saw more than 6,000 employees lose their jobs, which made up three percent of the total workforce. This wasn’t targeted specifically at Xbox, though, and it appears that this latest round of layoffs will be.
Prior to that,650 jobs were cut in September 2024, which brought the total number of layoffs for the year to around 2,550.
This all comes after a largely unsuccessful console generation for Xbox. It started out with the launch of the Xbox Series X/S, leveraging the many companies it had acquired to try and beat PlayStation and its own game: exclusives. However, this doesn’t appear to have worked as Microsoft had hoped, as it is now launching many of its games on rival platforms like PS5.
That isn’t to suggest that this is restricted to Xbox. PlayStation has rolled out plenty of layoffs of its own, includingcuts at Bend Studioafter a live service was cancelled, theclosure of Firewalk Studiosafter the failure of Concord, andrepeated layoffs at Bungie.
