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As the dust settles on one of the more turbulent days the gaming industry has seen in a minute, it’s been revealed that the Xbox layoffs accounted for less than half of the 9,000 redundancies Microsoft announced today.
Microsoft’s downsizing included the cancelation of Rare’s action-adventure game Everwild, the cancelation of Xbox’s Perfect Dark reboot and the shuttering of studio The Initiative, the cancelation of an unannounced ZeniMax Online MMO, the reduction of Forza studio Turn 10’s workforce by about 50%, and cuts to big name studios including Bethesda and Blizzard. It’s likely that the full impact on other teams and projects will dribble out over the coming days and weeks.
Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Frior announced his departure from ZeniMax Online after 10 years with the company amidst the chaos, although it’s not explicitly linked. It’s also been reported that Banjo Kazooie and Sea of Thieves director Gregg Mayles has left the Xbox-owned Rare.
With that much carnage, the vast scope of an organization as big and compartmentalized as Microsoft is illuminated by the fact that the Xbox cuts amounted to less than half of the overall lost jobs, per Microsoft itself (via Stephen Totilo’s Game File). It appears Xbox still bore the brunt of Microsoft’s decision, but it’s worth highlighting how that compares to the broader reorganization.
Altogether, 4% of Microsoft’s workforce, which was reported last year to be 228,000, has now been made redundant.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer said in a memo accompanying the announcement of the layoffs that “our platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger,” and that “the success we’re seeing currently is based on tough decisions we’ve made previously.”