Another wave of lay-offs at Microsoft, 650 more removed from Xbox division

Microsoft recently announced another round of lay-offs in its gaming division, affecting 650 jobs. A memo to the staff members by Phil Spencer termed this decision as a way to “organize our business for long-term success” which the company has been in Dire need of since their quest to acquire Activision Blizzard.

The cuts, however, will not affect any games or development studio as the lay-offs were mostly from the corporate and support functions. Microsoft recently acquired Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, which seems to be the reason this time for the cuts.

“As part of aligning our post-acquisition team structure and managing our business, we have decided to eliminate approximately 650 roles across Microsoft Gaming, mostly corporate and supporting functions, to organize our business for long-term success,” Phil wrote.

Also Read: Microsoft adds to layoff count with the announcement of multiple Xbox Studio closures

Over 2500 people were affected by Microsoft alone

This is the second round of restructuring the company has done within a year. The last lay-offs resulted in the closure of two of the beloved game development studios, Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, who developed some of the most popular video games like Hi-Fi Rush and Prey. Thankfully, Tango Gameworks was recently acquired by Tencent, with almost the entire staff intact.

Xbox also recently decided that they will be the first one to surrender in the console wars by leaving exclusives and taking a multi-platform approach, bringing their games across as many platforms available, including rival console PlayStation.

The move to release the upcoming Call of Duty Black Ops 6 on multiple platforms and as a day-one addition to the game pass also came as a big surprise to everyone. Reports suggest that Xbox is putting all their eggs in one basket, which is to increase their number of Game Pass subscribers. Whether the move will work or not remains to be seen.