Xbox cuts four (but really five) studios and thousands of jobs
A wave of brutal job cuts is now taking place across the Xbox division, as shared by CEO Asha Sharma on Twitter (X). Four studios are being removed from the portfolio, with a fifth likely joining months down the road. Additionally, there are layoffs across the remaining organization beginning today. All told, 3,200 employees will be cut across the next year.
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A confusing and deep wave of cuts
As part of this process, Canadian developer Compulsion Games has managed to avoid being closed, and will now be going independent, as will Double Fine Productions. Notably, both studios are being given the full rights to their catalogues of games, including South of Midnight and Psychonauts, respectively.
Meanwhile, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs are being sold to buyers, though it's not clear right now who is responsible for the purchases. Senua and State of Decay 3, which were shown off in the recent Xbox Games Showcase, will remain in development.
French developer Arkane Lyon, which is currently working on Marvel's Blade, is now entering a "consulting" phase. The short explanation here is that France has stricter labor laws than the U.S, meaning the team can't just be shut down immediately. The team could find a buyer or go independent, so we'll have to wait and see what happens here.
In addition to these studio changes, the aforementioned layoffs will impact numerous teams across Xbox, though Sharma claims no publicly-announced games are being canceled as a result of the cuts.
Sharma is also focused on reducing layers of management, claiming that in some places, work passes through 14 different layers of management before being approved. Helen Chiang, corporate vice president of Minecraft, is being promoted to chief operating officer to handle overall profit and loss responsibility.
Other changes are taking place that won't be immediately apparent as part of this, with ZeniMax Media (the company that handles publisher Bethesda Softworks) pivoting to focus more on its biggest franchises. That means more of DOOM, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Quake.
I have some other words percolating, but my thoughts are with impacted employees right now, though I am glad that (for the moment) none of the individual studios affected are being shuttered.
