18 ms·

Resetting Xbox

• ChrisArchitect 4mo ago
  Related: Microsoft cuts 4,800 Jobs, Half from Xbox division https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48804401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48804401
• clonedhuman 4mo ago
  Continuing the long trend of major tech companies making everything they touch worse.
  • alashow 4mo ago
    Isn't this their attempt to fix it though?
    • rireads 4mo ago
      No? They're fixing profits at best
• ChocolateGod 4mo ago
  I think some of these game studios got so content with Microsoft constantly paying that they forgot to make games that would actually sell. South of Midnight took 7 years to make and cost $100 million to make... yet sold hardly any copies and I'm not even sure who they were trying to make it for. Meanwhile you have studios like Sandfall and Warhorse pumping out games on a fraction of the budget that ship millions (and imho, make better games).
  • WorldMaker 4mo ago
    Millions of people played South of Midnight even if sales didn't reflect it. Xbox Game Pass has done a lot to make Xbox sales figures hard to compare.
    • ChocolateGod 4mo ago
      How many people would have played if it wasn't on Game Pass though? I doubt many. Expedition 33 was on game pass and still sold 8 million copies.
      • WorldMaker 4mo ago
        At least from what I saw the game had a huge amount of hype leading up to its launch and the thing that kept people from buying it was just playing enough of it on Game Pass. For some players it was too short and everything they wanted to accomplish was easily done with Game Pass shortly after its launch. For other players like me we bounced off of its tone while playing it. The stop motion animated intro felt like a bait and switch going into its game play, and I had a bunch of uncomfortable feelings about cultural appropriation from a Montreal studio trying to capture a "deep South bayou" aesthetic and failing at some of the subtleties, from what I saw.
      • etchalon 4mo ago
        Expedition 33 was released across multiple platforms simultaneously. SoM was an Xbox/PC/Game Pass exclusive for a year. It's not a perfect comparison.
    • darkhorse13 4mo ago
      I find that extremely hard to believe given that South of Midnight peaked on Steam with only 1.5k players. Let's be honest here.
  • c-hendricks 4mo ago
    Compulsion Games was also a strange acquisition / team to decide to put $100M + 7 years of trust into. They had two games by that point, neither with amazing reviews.
  • saghm 4mo ago
    > I think some of these game studios got so content with Microsoft constantly paying that they forgot to make games that would actually sell. I mean, if you're assuming that Microsoft had a fully hands-off approach to managing these companies after buying them, then sure. It's not clear to me that you can make a compelling claim about whether the issues were from the bottom or the top just by looking at the final outputs.
    • WorldMaker 4mo ago
      Plus there's plenty of evidence that Microsoft hasn't been hands off across that time period. At the very least we've seen them cancel a Rare game and layoff a bunch of Rare staff because of it, The Initiative shut down for not meeting game development goals, 343 Industries stripped apart for low results versus expectations with Halo Infinite and the "new" Halo Studios is basically just a shell and an outsourcing venture in direct line with ActiVision's old Call of Duty tactics.
      • saghm 4mo ago
        I agree; I mostly just didn't want to spend time trying to cite a bunch of evidence of the alternate interpretation when it seemed sufficient to point out that they didn't really provide enough to form a conclusion one way or another.
      • philistine 3mo ago
        Microsoft's executives lacked time to be hands-on with every acquisition. They were very involved in the decision process at the big studios, and the favoured children, but left the smaller studios without enough input.
  • kevinh 4mo ago
    There's no sourcing for that South of Midnight number. You should treat it as fictional.
    • pandaman 4mo ago
      Judging by the credits [1] it indeed looks very conservative. 1. https://www.mobygames.com/game/240054/south-of-midnight/credits/xbox-series/?autoplatform=true https://www.mobygames.com/game/240054/south-of-midnight/cred...
• 1970-01-01 4mo ago
  They will just continue smash thru exactly what is killing them because they do not know how to reset. More micro transactions, Halo 14-39, games launching before they're ready, price increases, etc. All of that looks good on paper, so they will take no action against. The XBOX is hitting icebergs, and instead of slowing down, they will just call for more speed.
  • WorldMaker 4mo ago
    Microsoft laid off most of its Halo talent in a previous lay off cycle, stripping 343 Industries of most of its staff and rebooting it as Halo Studios as a shell to mostly outsource development to other companies in the way that Call of Duty was built on the game development equivalent of sweat shops. They've already shown that they don't have the guts to make Halo 14-39, they seem to be only doing yet another remake of Halos 1-3 and maybe Reach, this time in Unreal and with "AI" to help "upscale" everything. Just four Halo games endlessly remade until people forget why they were ever originally popular.
    • blanched 4mo ago
      What is Halo 14-39? Google wasn’t helpful for me.
      • 1970-01-01 4mo ago
        Rapid release schedule
        • WorldMaker 4mo ago
          Also, this old idea called "sequels" back before "reboots" and "remakes" things used to keep going in numbered order~
      • cardy31 4mo ago
        I think they are just saying MS will rush out yet more Halo games, ie Halo 14, Halo 15, etc
• tangenter 4mo ago
  Game Pass has caused a lot of direct sales losses to game developers in favor of Microsoft trying to find a Netflix-like cash cow for itself. The numbers never added up, but it is not a surprise everyone nodded and went along with it. I wonder what the career repercussions would be for speaking up - but it doesn’t matter because they are getting fired anyway. Call of Duty alone lost $300 million: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/04/microsofts-game-pass-gets-cheaper-loses-launch-day-call-of-duty-access/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/04/microsofts-game-pass-... I look forward to the source code leaks.
  • BadBadJellyBean 4mo ago
    I was always very skeptical of the $300 million figure. It sounded like the same math that the movie industry used for pirating. If I was subscribed to Game Pass I might have downloaded CoD to see what it's about. That doesn't mean I would have paid full price for it.
    • joshstrange 4mo ago
      > Last year, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft estimated it had lost $300 million in direct sales of Call of Duty games due to the title’s inclusion in Game Pass, according to an anonymous employee. Yeah, that's a bullshit number. It's like when people provide piracy counts as lost direct sales, a lot of people will download something for free, those same people won't always pay full price if they can't download it for free. I downloaded a TON of games from Game Pass, played <1hr, and uninstalled. Without GP I would have just never bought the game.
      • ErneX 4mo ago
        Gamepass devalued games in my opinion. If you “train” your user base to get used to not buy games they will. It also did not help they were almost giving Gamepass away for nothing. You could chain multiple offers and get like 3 years or more of the best tier for the price of less than 2 games. They never had the user base to sustain so many studios making AAA games under a subscription model.
    • 4mo ago
• dcrazy 4mo ago
  Any details about the studio spin-outs? The rumors were that Double Fine etc. would be closed, but all we know now is that some of them are being sold to management and others are being sold to other investors. Nothing about any commensurate restructurings.
  • Centigonal 4mo ago
    It's in the press release. > Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will return to management and transition to independent studios with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3. In France, Arkane’s management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options.
    • dcrazy 4mo ago
      Yeah, that is what I was referring to about the lack of detail on restructuring. I want to know if people are losing their jobs and/or titles are being cancelled as part of these sales.
      • WorldMaker 4mo ago
        Senua and State of Decay 3 are the only currently announced titles of the studios in question and it does say that those games will be completed by their studios under their new owner. It's still an interesting mystery who the new owner will be, though.
    • jentulman 4mo ago
      I'm hopeful (but maybe not optimistic) that Arkane gets out of this with the ability to do what they're really good at again.
• speak_plainly 4mo ago
  At some point, the games industry decided it wanted to be interactive Hollywood, and the consequences are entirely predictable. Meanwhile, Nintendo just quietly shipped 3.8 million units of Tomodachi Life in two weeks, and 4 million of Pokopia in five. They're making actual games. Sony's obsession with prestige cinematic bloat, like Xbox, has also put them in a slow-motion death spiral that's going to become painfully obvious in a few years.
  • manytimesaway 4mo ago
    Things are not that black and white. Nintendo also shipped Metroid Prime 4, with massive delays and unsatisfied customers, following the same "interactive Hollywood" philosophy which disappointed Metroid fans. Same thing goes for Star Fox, a remake of a remake of a remake, with poor visual and dialogue choices. And meanwhile, the same silent push for digital-only, forced upgrades and the like...
    • speak_plainly 4mo ago
      What I mean by "interactive Hollywood" is a game with a $200M+ budget that relies entirely on high-fidelity graphics and cinematic stories to differentiate itself, while offering almost zero new gameplay innovation. Neither of your examples fit that description. Metroid Prime 4 wasn't chasing Hollywood cinematic design; it was a highly targeted attempt by producer Kensuke Tanabe to make a tight, isolated first-person exploration formula resonate (especially in Japan where it has consistently failed). Its goals are mechanical, not cinematic. Meanwhile, Star Fox is a classic arcade rail-shooter remake with modernized cutscenes, not a prestige movie-game. Early sales data shows it's actually working well, too, having just debuted at #1 on the physical charts in Japan and nearly doubling Star Fox Zero's launch week in the UK. Ultimately, Nintendo operates like a Consumer Packaged Goods company. They treat their library of IPs like a diversified product portfolio rather than betting the farm on individual interactive movies. They use massive, high-margin, mechanics-first games like Tomodachi Life and Pokopia to generate enormous cash reserves. They then use those profits to subsidize legacy IPs like Metroid or Star Fox to keep core fans happy and feed their broader brand ecosystem. Because Nintendo spreads its risk across a wide spectrum of lower-budget games, they can easily absorb a minor product flop. Sony's interactive Hollywood model sinks $300M into a single basket, meaning one bad miss can completely wreck a studio.
• athorax 4mo ago
  It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio This is shockingly self-aware for microsoft
  • thomastjeffery 4mo ago
    ...more like > We can't afford it, and it's a bad investment anyway
    • joe_mamba 4mo ago
      >> We can't afford it But they've already spent the money. They spent about 70 billion on activision blizzard. That was and still is an outrageous amount of money that will take fever to break even let alone turn a profit.
      • thomastjeffery 4mo ago
        They can't afford to buy every other successful studio, which means that their anticompetitive moat has to be competitive. Otherwise, they could have made the whole thing profitable the usual Microsoft (monopolist) way.
      • appreciatorBus 4mo ago
        Just because they already spent the money yesterday, it does not follow that the best decision today is to just carry on as if was still the correct decision. Yes they cannot get that 70B back, but if they have to choose between: 1. a long dragged out distraction over decades trying to make it work 2. a painful but quick 40B write down and the ability to refocus the company on better projects tomorrow .. then they are, quite rightly imo, going to pick #2. In fact I would assume this going to be the next announcment.
      • iAMkenough 4mo ago
        They bought a content competitor, now they get to "reset" their vision for it. Mission successful.
• hbn 4mo ago
  It was pretty rich seeing armchair video game industry analysts act like the new CEO was gonna usher in a new age for Microsoft's gaming division because she got to announce the updated logo and some games that would have obviously been in development long before she became CEO. Microsoft is never going to figure out gaming. It's more art than engineering and they can barely manage the engineering with all the intervention from marketing and HR in their products. To me it's mostly unfortunate that this has left PlayStation with no direct competition because they've noticed and leaned into the not-giving-a-shit attitude after they had such a great console generation with the PS4. It's kinda crazy that we're already almost due for a new console generation and there's very little appetite for new consoles after this generation where it feels like it barely got started. And between graphics almost certainly at the point of diminishing returns, and hardware prices like they are right now, I can't imagine there's a market to sell something more capable than current gen consoles. The industry is in a very strange state.
  • whizzter 4mo ago
    The pandemic and scalpers really destroyed peoples apetite for the "new thing" when this generation came out, and with that boost missing studios saw little point in going exclusive perpetuating the vicious cycle, it's just in the past few years that there's really been exclusives for this generation that didn't also support older consoles. And even then, already the PS4/XbOne generation added stratification making it more "PC-like" with the XbOne-X having heftier hardware (not to mention it being PC-like compared to PS1/PS2/PS3/Xbox360), that then continued with the Xbox-series-X and Xbox-series-S. Consoles aren't specialized hardware for "magic experiences" and everyone knows this, it's just another "device" that happens to be connected to a TV with a controller where people are gatekeeping software availability.
    • maples37 4mo ago
      Microsoft also didn't do themselves any favor with that naming scheme. In the current generation (I think?), you have: - Xbox X - Xbox S - Xbox Series X - Xbox Series S Compared to: - PlayStation 5 - PlayStation 5 Pro or: - Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Switch OLED - Nintendo Switch Lite Anyone who's literate in English (and knows that OLED means "nicer screen") can immediately rank the PlayStations and Switches into "good, better, best". But with the Xbox, how is anyone supposed to know which one is which? Is the Series version better or worse? Is it a whole new generation, with whatever backwards-compatability implications that a new generation brings? I need a chart and I probably still won't be able to tell you if you ask me in a month.
• bearcobra 4mo ago
  On one hand, the idea of using Microsoft’s crazy amounts of money to try to build a subscription gaming business feels like it should have been more successful than it has been. On the other, I think gaming has some distinct qualities vs TV/Movies/Music or other types of software that makes the idea seem way less appealing. Curious to see what the new direction looks like
• tevli 4mo ago
  [dead]
• dagmx 4mo ago
  This is incredibly sad for a lot of my friends who are finding themselves out of work despite delivering well received products. But at the same time I appreciate the candor of Asha saying that the corporate management are to blame and letting studios go back to being independent where possible. Phil Spencer really messed up. Everyone in the industry knew Microsoft were making bad calls trying to dig themselves a hole with gamepass and simultaneously digging a hole with their acquisition spree. I’m glad that Asha is laying this bare even though it sucks to be brought in as the hatchet person. This is an example of the glass cliff and I’m hoping she can help right the ship. I think they need to split to a wholly owned subsidiary rather than be in Microsoft proper, and I expect that to be announced at the Q1 investor meetings. Phil really dug their hole deep. Microsoft themselves encouraged it. It’s been a decade of sheer incompetence at the highest level so I’m hoping they can right this without taking out half the industry in their wake.
  • righthand 4mo ago
    I disagree, it wasn’t Phil that dug a hole but Asha who pushed Phil out with no plan. Why is Asha finally revealing her plan years later if she was such a good fit? She came in trying to automate away peoples jobs with AI for the last year or so and that is obviously failing. It wasn’t Phil that invested the entire company’s well being on stochastic parrots. She has done everything but focus on delivering games (product).
    • nhinck2 4mo ago
      a) Asha didnt push Phil out. b) She's been in the role for 4ish months, not years.
      • righthand 4mo ago
        I can guarantee you Asha has been making this move for years.
        • dagmx 4mo ago
          Based on what? This just feels like baseless conjecture given she hasn’t been at Microsoft for that long.
• georgeburdell 4mo ago
  [flagged]
• haunter 4mo ago
  >Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. Not even national security institutions operate like this
• rockyj 4mo ago
  This is a total mess IMHO. - The make around 5 billion in revenue per quarter - The problem according to them is profit margin - around 150-160 million So first of all, they are big! Secondly they are not at a loss. They just have a "thin, non-growing margin". So to fix all this they are trimming down, so they can "return to growth" (which I think is ridiculous). Some points - - They are huge business even now - 5 billion per quarter revenue is no joke - They did not have to buy all those studios - They looked at Netflix, and wanted the sweet monthly subscription cash stream - Then they did not have to give away popular games day one on Game Pass - And finally, they did not have to raise Game Pass prices to improve the profit margins. Of course, consumers pulled out. - Once again, short term vision, crazy decisions, bad spending spree and a constant need to "make numbers go up" and who has to pay for all this?
  • hbn 4mo ago
    Game Pass was never a sustainable business model. People liked it because when a new game came out, they could buy a month of game pass for like $15, play through the game in a couple weeks, and cancel. It was a really good deal because Microsoft has spent the past decade+ trying to recover from their terrible fumble of the Xbox One launch, so they were subsidizing gamers to come back to their platform. With the money being spent on AAA titles these days, they are not going to make any money without increasing the price of Game Pass majorly. The big price bump they quickly backtracked on was an attempt to make Game Pass somewhere closer to being profitable.
    • tracker1 4mo ago
      [flagged]
      • wholinator2 4mo ago
        What's woke about xbox?
        • ryandrake 4mo ago
          Yea, I'd love to hear specifics. OP is all over this thread vaguely insinuating about "political content" but notably hasn't yet pointed out any specific examples that are objectionable.
• bob1029 4mo ago
  > We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. This reads like something from The Office.
  • righthand 4mo ago
    Michael begging Oscar to tell the shareholders how to save the company.
    • brcmthrowaway 4mo ago
      I can't believe he just left the building
• kristjansson 4mo ago
  > We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. xbox-specific issues aside, this proposes an interesting view of the future of work.
  • badprose 4mo ago
    Isn't this basically the same structure they currently use i.e. individual contributors, managers, and producers?
    • cardy31 4mo ago
      As someone who works in big tech with a partner at a similar big tech company _but with player coaches, DRIs, etc_ it is basically the same thing except messier. Your manager who used to just focus on motivating and unblocking their people? Now they have to ship code too since they’re a player coaches! You’re a DRI who needs management to get your project unblocked? Too bad your player coach who has to ship code now also has 20 direct reports because the hierarchy was flattened so you can’t get time with them until next week and are blocked until at least then. It is the hot new trend from the “thought leaders” who have all consistently copied each other’s bad ideas for the past 10 years.
  • gbrindisi 4mo ago
    I also notice the growing trend to have EM carry individual contributor duties, I thought it was mostly a consequence of using coding agents but perhaps it's not: the EM figure as we know might just be a consequence of the golden zirp times (do you remember the endless technical EM vs non-technical EM debates?)
    • __turbobrew__ 4mo ago
      I think non-technical EMs are fine, but they need to manage an appropriate headcount. I see EMs who manage 2-3 ICs and have no other responsibilities, those EMs need to either take on more ICs or start coding.
• franze 4mo ago
  When I bought my XBox i spent half a day setting up an account and payments. Good old times. The last time I tried to buy something on Xbox it fails miserable with multiple cryptic error messages - mostly around my credit card. No problem though to biy the game on my mac via browser and then after a few more settings actually showed up on my xbox.
• calvinmorrison 4mo ago
  "Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. Our platform teams are 40% larger than they were at the start of this generation, even as our player base and playtime have declined. "
  • datakan 4mo ago
    14 layers of management is truly epic. I don't think I have ever been more than 5 levels down my entire 30 year career.
• protimewaster 4mo ago
  Xbox has an interesting opportunity going forward, that I expect they'll fumble. Interest in physical media has actually been on the upswing, and, with Sony announcing their plans to abandon physical media, it feels like MS has a chance be the "good guys" like what Sony did to MS when MS threatened to ruin physical media prior to the Xbox One release. However, I'm expecting Microsoft to simply follow Sony's path, because I think they are already going down a path that favors digital-only, and I also think they just don't care to distinguish themselves. It seems like Xbox's claim to fame for the past few years is "It has game pass, and it can play a lot of the same games PlayStation can."
  • jeppester 4mo ago
    Xbox is ahead of Sony on this path. Their studios often, if not most of the time, release physical games that require a full download to play. I doubt that they will go back to where Sony are now.
    • protimewaster 4mo ago
      > I doubt that they will go back to where Sony are now. I agree. However, I do think they would get some positive attention (and some accompanying sales) if they were to backtrack and announce a console more like the 360. It feels doable if they care to do it. Physical media should still be viable for holding all the game data for a while longer. Blurays can manage up to 128 GB, and I think the average game install size is ~60GB right now, giving most games some room to grow. The biggest issue with a strategy like that is that they're, like you said, pushing digital-only hard already, and they're also trying to save money, so the idea of spending more money to make future consoles with disk drives, and to make disks, is unlikely to appeal to them. It is a shame, though, because it seems like the Xbox 360 will have been widely viewed as peak Xbox until the end of Xbox.
      • ErneX 4mo ago
        Another issue is that Xbox game discs this generation are 50GB while on PlayStation 5 they are 100GB. I think the reason for going with 50GB for games on the MS side was to remain compatible with the previous generation of consoles.
• zzixp 4mo ago
  Impacted non-studio dev here. It's a bloodbath like some of the leaks in the past few weeks have said. Many important platform/infra teams getting gutted, even in areas where there's supposedly a ton of future investment.
  • markus_zhang 4mo ago
    Thanks for sharing. I heard that ID also got gutted, from Scott Miller on X: https://x.com/ScottApogee/status/2074198967550685268 https://x.com/ScottApogee/status/2074198967550685268 Is it true?
    • zzixp 3mo ago
      Yes from what I can tell :/ I was in the console/platform dev org so not a ton of insight into studios, but I've seen a ton of ESO and Id folks posting on twitter
      • markus_zhang 3mo ago
        That's really sad.
• scuff3d 4mo ago
  "Management fucked up, and now you all get to pay for it. Have a nice day :)"
• joshstrange 4mo ago
  I think the Xbox Series X will be my last Xbox after owning Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and the Xbox Series X. I was all-in on their platform and I even paid for Game Pass for many years. But they kept increasing the cost of Game Pass with no new features, the platform has seemed stagnant, and honestly I can't tell you why my Series X is better than my Xbox One. Literally I don't see a difference. I'm sure there is one but as a user I really didn't feel like it was a big step up. I bought it because I had every other Xbox and it seemed like the next logical step. That coupled with most games feeling like lootboxes wrapped in just enough of a game to justify calling it one, at higher and higher price points, all while trying to get more money after they've taken your $70/$80 for the base game. Oh wait, you bought the poor-person $70 version? You really need to the Ultra Collectors Edition Gold Special Release Version for $120. Oh also, make sure you are buying the season pass... Meanwhile I buy games on my steam deck and/or from indie developers for a max of $30 and get way more gameplay/fun that the "AAA" games (which have largely sucked IMHO). I'm over here playing Mass Effect 1-3, Skyrim, Fallout 4, and other games OVER A DECADE AGO. They are the only games not completely ruined by lootboxes, always-online BS, or trying to sell you a shell of a game with extras you have to buy [0]. I was excited for Starfield (Skyrim in space!!) but it was a complete bust. After spending, quite literally, 1000's of hours in Skyrim (and buying and rebuying the Anniversary/Special/Collector's edition enough times to be embarrassing) I could not get excited about Starfield and stopped playing after a few hours. The new Halo was meh, I played through it and the open world was somewhat cool but I guess they wanted to do seasons of new content and I have zero interest in that. Give me a solid single player game, that's all I want. I cancelled Game Pass after realizing I was paying an absurd amount of money to play a single game (Deep Rock Galactic). I think I'll stick to my Steam Deck which I enjoy way more than my Series X. [0] Yes, Skyrim/Fallout had expansion content but it's tame compared to most games today.
  • bluescrn 4mo ago
    I cancelled Game Pass when the recent price hikes quit. Then realised just how few games I'd actually bought this generation. Game Pass was a mistake, or at least putting big AAA releases on there on day one was.
    • 4mo ago
• 12_throw_away 4mo ago
  I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day "more than a billion"? What are we doing here? Do you have any idea what your target market is? Surely someone in your organization can provide you with a good stretch goal ... >10% of all humans using an XBox daily is not that. Seriously, I cannot fathom why you would say this. Innumeracy? Narcissistic delusion? Stealth launch for a new industrial human cloning project?
  • babelfish 4mo ago
    There are approx ~3 billion "gamers" worldwide, why shouldn't Xbox set a goal of 1/3 of them using their platform?
    • summarybot 4mo ago
      "Let's go from 1 in 15 gamers to 1 in 3 gamers" sounds nice, probably gonna need employees for that!
      • Jare 4mo ago
        You need the right products and services. If you know what those are, then you need employees to build them. Until you figure out what those are, you are (sadly) better off with fewer people.
        • summarybot 3mo ago
          Yeah this lightweight startup could really use some guidance on how to make products with global reach it's a pity they don't have any experience with that.
    • hbcdbff 4mo ago
      You even felt the need to use quotes yourself.
    • mghackerlady 4mo ago
      Because approximately most of them exclusively play mobile games
• theragra 4mo ago
  I wonder about the future of inExile and clockwork revolution
• theragra 4mo ago
  It a pity. So many good studios gutted, for the only reason "margins too thin"
• _joel 4mo ago
  "role eliminations".. So people losing jobs then :/
• VikingCoder 4mo ago
  "And we will streamline how we work across our tools, with a cleaner code base, shared services, and 50% reduced vendor spend." How will they achieve cleaner code, with fewer workers? Seems like a well-intentioned platitude.
  • Joel_Mckay 4mo ago
    Or... studio publishers may be encouraged to use a proprietary platform specific engine. Trying to dethrone UE5 would be silly. =3
  • rybosworld 4mo ago
    That messaging is for investors. To a dev's ears, it's a meaningless thing to say. It reminds me when Elon took over twitter and made a comment to the effect of "we need to rethink the entire tech stack from the ground up". Someone asked Elon what was wrong with the tech stack, and he called them a jackass.
    • nonethewiser 4mo ago
      It's quite insane that twitter went from 7500 -> 1500 employees and the site didn't implode. 80% of the people gone.
      • bobthebob 4mo ago
        Shhhhh don’t mention this!
      • arjie 4mo ago
        Considering the trajectory of x then x.ai then SpaceX as the holding structure the Twitter purchase investors must’ve done well for themselves.
      • strix_varius 3mo ago
        Eh, depends on what you mean by "implode." Before the buyout (2021), twitter made $5.1 billion in ad revenue ($6.22 billion inflation-adjusted). In 2025, it made about $2 billion. So Twitter is now about 1/3rd of what it was (revenue wise) when purchased.
• colechristensen 4mo ago
  >we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision. Bravo! >Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. LMAO – reset approved.
  • coleca 4mo ago
    Unfortunately, the 14 layers of management are also responsible for deciding how the 14 layers will get cut. It's likely that all or most all of the middle management will survive but the ICs doing the real work will be the ones that take the hit. I saw the same thing happen at Amazon. They claimed to be reducing layers of management in 2024/25, yet all that happened was a shuffling of the boxes on the org chart a bit and cuts to the ICs. Managers that had too many reports were forced to give some up for managers with too few, but most managers stayed in place.
• 0x457 4mo ago
  It’s wild that we’re still unraveling the effects of COVID-19. It really feels like every video game exec convinced themselves the pandemic boom was permanent, and that we were all going to be stuck at home forever playing games.
• etchalon 4mo ago
  Microsoft just never sorted out their exclusivity problem, tried to acquire their way to it, only to then be stymied by regulators, all the while having second-best hardware compared to the PS5.
• grg0 4mo ago
  > It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. The sheer hubris. Yes, the monopoly is not desirable for gamers because the games end up all being the same MS-dictated corporate crap. Microsoft imploding is good for everybody in the long run and we can't wait for that day.
• hbcdbff 4mo ago
  “Resetting Xbox” Gross and classless title. There was a time where people at least had the sense of shame to not do this kind of thing when firing people
  • OrangeDelonge 4mo ago
    Agreed, this is vile
  • idk1 4mo ago
    Yeah, it feels like a terribly inappropriate moment for a pun.
• Unkn0wn-d 4mo ago
  as a player this feels like the confirmation of what we suspect since years, the gamepass math never closed. the sad part is the 3200 people paying the price for decisions they never took
• rybosworld 4mo ago
  A bit of a tangent but I'm surprised with how many layoffs tech has had the last few years, we aren't seeing the laid off folks form new companies.
• xg15 4mo ago
  For that kind of announcement, I found it surprisingly open and detailed (at least if everything in there is true). Still, some points are telling. > Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. So the layoffs are not because they're operating at a loss and had to cut costs urgently. The margins are there, they aren't even thin, they're just not thick enough... > In addition, Mojang and King will now report directly to me. These two studios have increasingly become platforms and are our largest by monthly active players. They bring critical geographic, demographic, and differentiation to XBOX. Was a bit surprised that Minecraft got such a special status, but not at all surprised by King. All the studios getting nerfed, except the engagement maximizing mobile games...
  • johnnyanmac 4mo ago
    Minecraft is an enormous game and the success of the movie among Gen Z/Alpha (a demographic that is fading from the silver screen) shows the potential of a multimedia franchise. It was by far their best purchase (and in some ways runs counter to the idea that "Not every studio fits with us". But yeah, on the other end: 15 year old Skinner box experiment continues to Skinner box and remind us that war truly never changes.
  • groundzeros2015 4mo ago
    Companies do not exist to pay employees. There is significant risk and opportunity cost to running this business.
• chris_wot 4mo ago
  My son setup Gamepass a few years ago. It was the biggest rip off I've ever seen. So many things about Microsoft are out of kilter. I'm about to migrate my daughter away from a 3 year old Lenovo Yoga to a Macbook Air M5 - it's just too hard to administer, its now sluggish and the AI is completely in the way. She doesn't need it, and despite a few business practices of Apple I don't really like if I have to choose between them and Microsoft, then I choose Apple. I was not like this as a teenager. I went through DOS, Windows 3.1x, Window 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000/XP and then all the way to Windows 7. I have completely changed my mind now, it's really only Apple I want to use. Everything about Apple is easier.
  • cantalopes 4mo ago
    Why not linux?
    • chris_wot 3mo ago
      The hardware, software maturity (I’m looking at Gnome here), and lack of wanting tinker with the core OS and wanting to use an M5. FWIW, in terms of software maturity - I think some might find that funny as I contribute to LibreOffice code :-)
• taurath 4mo ago
  > We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. This is the new trendy management style - a few executive owners and then everyone else are expendable ICs, with almost no movement opportunity upwards. Only those on the Peter Thiel list or the equivilent among your private equity owners will be considered for key executive positions.
  • johnnyanmac 4mo ago
    Sounds like an awful model for making a game if I understand the model correctly . Forget tight-knit, multidisplinary teams. Everyone's just a special cog to switch in and out from project to project, and laid off when we need a little bit better of an earnings call. Add in micromanagers and directors who need to have their fingers and every project (instead of focusing on the individual needs of a team and game), and you truly embrace the Microslop.
    • beezlebroxxxxxx 4mo ago
      The only benefit is, long-term, hopefulyy, the people ejected from this model can often end up forming their own indie teams and creating their own games. Indie games are at an incredible place right now (I am aware it's crazy cut-throat, though). It would be nice to see what quality comes out in response to this disaster.
    • taurath 4mo ago
      "I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills, can't you understand that?? What the hell is wrong with you people!?"
    • madeofpalk 4mo ago
      I'm sceptical of Hacker New's fascination with all managers being worthless, but I don't follow your logic here. Why is "lets have more people who do things" a move away from multidisplinary teams? Unless you count being a middle manager a valuable discipline in game making?
• ButlerianJihad 4mo ago
  The crazy thing about Xbox games, or any game today, is that they require infrastructure, they require maintenance and subscriptions, and they require a constant release cycle, and moreover, a thriving community of humans who are playing the same exact game at the same exact real time as others. It seems like the primary lost art of gaming is single-player, offline, solitary modes. Anyone could literally pick up an Atari 2600 from 1977, plug in a cartridge from 1978, plug it into a TV from 1981, and play the same exact video games with no problems. Now who will be playing the same Xbox games in the year 2076?
  • ifwinterco 4mo ago
    Yes, this is part of why I lost interest in video games (probably mostly just getting older if I'm honest). However at the risk of sounding basic, RDR2 (2018) and Cyberpunk (~2022, once they fixed all the bugs) are both really good single player games that are a lot more fun to play than anything from 1980. How many more of those will we see? Not sure
  • galleywest200 4mo ago
    This reads as someone who only looks at AAA major titles. The smaller games are the better ones in my opinion. Nintendo games generally do not require maintenance or infrastructure. The vast majority of indie games do not require maintenance or infrastructure.
• Telaneo 4mo ago
  Can't say I'm surprised. I can't see a reasonable path for Xbox to do anything but just stay alive other than as MS's overarching gaming brand. Xbox is on the losing side of the consoles, with no distinguishing features to speak of. You buy a console to play games and for it to be convenient. Xbox is no more or less convenient than a Playstation, and what few exclusives there are left are on Sony's side of the fence. Game Pass, while good, isn't really making money. What more is there to Xbox then (beyond the studios and such, which aren't Xbox themselves)?
  • hx8 4mo ago
    The people I know that like Xbox like Game Pass and Buy Once Play Anywhere. Xbox is the value proposition for people that want to play on Console + {PC/Handheld}.
    • Telaneo 4mo ago
      > Xbox is the value proposition for people that want to play on Console + {PC/Handheld} Okay. Then who is that? Most of the people who play games who I know are either A.) Console gamers who only use PCs for work, 2.) PC gamers who don't see the point in a console, or III.) The top 1% who just go where the games are and are willing to spend to get there, and that group isn't generally a fan of not actually owning their games, nor are they very price conscious (they don't like higher prices, but they'll drop 400 USD to buy a PS4 and Bloodborne, since that's the only way to play that game). I'm yet to see someone using Game Pass on a handheld. So if that's the intended market, no wonder it isn't doing too hot.
      • hx8 4mo ago
        It's not uncommon to have a PC at the desk and a console for the couch.
  • TheBigSalad 4mo ago
    I like the idea of the next console supporting PC games. Xbox with steam and emulators right on my tv would be a dream.
• bot41 4mo ago
  > I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 ... This will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today > we are establishing a Chief Operating Officer with end-to-end P&L responsibility across content, hardware, platform, and services. Helen Chiang has been promoted to this role and will report directly to me Seems tone deaf to do both of these messages at the same time.
• nkrisc 4mo ago
  Reading this made me remember why I stopped playing my Xbox One: never-ending updates. I never played it very frequently so I disabled the sleep mode so it wouldn’t just stay on in my media cabinet heating my house. But of course that meant any time I spontaneously felt like using it there were 10 minutes of updates to download, so I would get annoyed and just do something else. Oh it can also play movies? Sorry movie night is ruined thanks to 30 minutes of downloading and installing updates. Eventually I just never turned it on again because all it did was download and install updates. It really just killed all my interest in it because I couldn’t just turn it on and play a game unless I let it stay on all the time wasting energy and downloading constant updates in the background.
  • botanrice 4mo ago
    Same boat as you. It's wild that I can turn on the xbox, wait 20-30min for mandatory updates, then need to re-sign in or occasionally reset my wireless mac address due to some bug, then re-sign into my Xbox account even if I am fine playing offline but of course I forgot my password so now I'm on my phone doing 2FA to remember which email I used to reset the password. Then I will need to update the game I want to play (somehow FIFA 23 still requires updates?), then re-sign in to EA whose password of course I also forgot so now I'm on my phone resetting my password for EA. Now it's been 45minutes and I'm frustrated and realize I could have loaded up Steam or Switch and been playing this whole time. Not to mention that once the Xbox itself is working it will be running slower than the Nintendo Switch I own which is only about 2yr newer than it. just a bad system! I legit got my old PlayStation 2 back up and running so I wouldn't deal with this. (sorry been needing to vent all this lmao)
    • drewnoakes 4mo ago
      I wonder how many of these updates are security fixes. I wouldn't be surprised if a majority were.
      • antiframe 4mo ago
        My gaming machine is isolated and well protected through firewalls in and out. I don't store any sensitive information like payment information on them. Why can't I choose when to update them? Let me use my thread model to keep myself secure. Respect my time. Let me manually update when I want.
• MagicMoonlight 4mo ago
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• dzonga 4mo ago
  Xbox lost their identity. Xbox was a Live Games platform. they lost that identity trying to please everyone not their core audience. compare to Nintendo - who stuck to their identity - as fun games first. graphics not necessary. they can cut so many jobs - but unless they return to what makes Xbox great. the platform / ecosystem won't recover.
  • nonethewiser 4mo ago
    They immediately benefit from cutting things that hemorrhage money. The consumer's opinion can worsen and it's still a good move. When you lose 64 cents for every dollar invested you can simply stop spending - it's that simple.
• brcmthrowaway 4mo ago
  This reads like pie in the sky MBA thinking
• bronson 4mo ago
  > In addition, Mojang and King will now report directly to me. Darn it! The ONE studio that I really wanted them to set free and go back to how well things worked before, and they tighten their grip. Whyyyy?
  • abtinf 4mo ago
    This likely represents increased freedom and faster decision making for Mojang and King. Moving up the org reporting chain lets you do more, because you have fewer people to convince. It’s not as good as being fully independent, but that will never be an option for Minecraft again. Actually being spun off might even be worse, because any new owner will be even more fixated on just the numbers.
  • markus_zhang 4mo ago
    Probably because their game made the bucks?
• brisket_bronson 4mo ago
  > Some of you May Die, But it's a Sacrifice I am Willing to Make
• guluarte 4mo ago
  At least they’re honest and not blaming AI.
• EcommerceFlow 4mo ago
  This is great news for gaming. Xbox, which has ruined Halo, Gears of War, Mass Effect, and countless other IPs, needs to be burnt to the ground.
  • chamomeal 4mo ago
    The whole redfall thing was tragic. It was crazy watching Arkane become a laughing stock. Some of the most talented game devs ever. Prey, dishonored
• CyanLite2 4mo ago
  GamePass has awful choices of game, save or one two. Nobody wants to pay $35 a month for games (that sporadically disappear) which can be purchased outright at full retail price for $70.
  • forbiddenvoid 4mo ago
    I mean, no one except the 30 million or so people who are paying for it. I'm quite happy with the GamePass selection, and I consider it an excellent value for me.
    • bobthebob 4mo ago
      Right? Talk about losing the pulse here. Millions of people would rather pay monthly for thousands of games vs $70 for one?
• jjcm 4mo ago
  What's fascinating to me are the Valve comparables here. <500 employees vs 18k at Xbox 17B ARR vs 20B ARR At the end of the day there are two strong differences here. Valve has always been lead by people who were game devs, and have always conveyed a message that the gaming experience matters most. Xbox was led by Phil Spencer, who at least was known as being an avid gamer, but in his tenure pushed for things like xbox game pass to drive continual revenue and windows integrations that affected performance of games. Now it's being led by an industry outsider. It boils down to trust in the end, and willingness to place profit over brand. If you look at the responses to this in r/xbox or other communities, it's overwhelmingly a stance of zero surprise. Xbox has always placed the business first, and this is the natural end of that mission - you get a bloated org with a platform that people don't end up trusting. I do think resetting is the correct thing to do; there's no reason for Xbox to have 10k+ employees. Still it's another black mark against the brand. Also look at the framing of this message - it's about how their structure has affected the business. In this entire 47 sentence post, there is a single sentence that talks about the affect on the players: > That complexity has slowed decisions, blurred accountability, and made it harder to deliver for players. It says a lot when the players are the secondary consideration.
  • mvdtnz 4mo ago
    Valve doesn't make games. (within the margin of error).
    • jjcm 4mo ago
      A non-trivial amount of their ARR is still from Valve-made games. Counterstrike still nets a bit over 1b per year from just case unboxings, and Dota is in the hundreds of millions. I wouldn't call 8-10% a margin of error.
      • mvdtnz 4mo ago
        Counter Strike 2 is a 14 year old game. DOTA2 is a 13 year old game. Yes I know Valve makes money selling games. They don't make games.
• arm32 4mo ago
  Missed chance to call this a "Red ring of death".
  • frollogaston 4mo ago
    From the title alone, I thought it was going to be a howto on fixing the red ring. My Xbox and my 360 still need some lifesaving care.
  • dcrazy 4mo ago
    I fear the core gaming demographic is too young to get this reference.
• frollogaston 4mo ago
  This is an unusually candid public announcement
• botanrice 4mo ago
  who is Asha? not a part of Microsoft, I find it weird a company leader wouldn't sign their whole name even if an internal memo.
  • pizzafeelsright 4mo ago
    She's an AI businesswoman doesn't play games. "I'm not a gamer" receipt: watch?v=o0hMSekk4XE We are one console cycle away from fully AI generated gaming worlds and systems. Their best bet is to make everyone a developer, let anyone build and launch games from their own console, and take a cut as a walled garden/ecosystem.
• Keyframe 4mo ago
  This reads like corporate death rattle. Microsoft never had any clue what it takes to make a console - a console. Now it seems they've also completely lost the plot on what makes a business - a business. They should've been Steam, instead they ran out of it.
  • menshiki 4mo ago
    > Microsoft never had any clue what it takes to make a console - a console. The 85 million people who've bought the Xbox 360 would disagree.
    • Keyframe 3mo ago
      while impressive as a standalone number, half of it is in US. It launched a year ahead of competition at a much lower price and was when XBOX Live came about. And even with that - it couldn't make a dent in the dominance of of Sony and Nintendo in Japan, where in some cases it was fully discontinued early on and it was s series of missteps that led to where we are today. Microsoft never knew what they were doing. When it seemed like there was a success at hand, it was serendipity rather than Microsoft. Microsoft and their fundamental lack of understanding of gaming is what led to all of that.
• excalibur 4mo ago
  Missed opportunity to put a red ring on the announcement. ⭕
• _-_-__-_-_- 4mo ago
  I've got an original xbox, a PS2 and a PS1 all softmodded or mod-chipped with all the games I could never afford 20-25 years ago. I even have wireless controllers. I never worry about the console being connected to the Internet or maintaining a subscription.
• throwaway63467 4mo ago
  I think now a console like the Ouya could really be successful, I find when they tried this 10 years ago it was the worst moment possible as game hardware was cheap and competition strong. Now with the AI boom eating all hardware capacity and indie game development going up like crazy it seems like a perfect moment to build a new hardware platform on affordable last gen hardware that runs indie titles.
• Swoerd 4mo ago
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• Swoerd 4mo ago
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• msftgreed 4mo ago
  This is purely greed on Microsoft's point. They absolutely have a profitable business with some great games, and they are sad that their management decisions led to this outcome. But it's the rank and file who will pay the price for these poor management decisions. Like it always is. To hear that the new boss wants to increase capitalization on Minecraft, to make it more like a Roblox, is horrifying and truly goes to show Xbox has leadership with near zero understanding of what they have or how to run it. I wish good landings for all those affected, I hope for the best for all the studios whose future is uncertain now.
  • nonethewiser 4mo ago
    Their margins are 3% and they lost 64 cents per 1 dollar invested. It's just the reality-facing move. Everything you want from XBOX becomes more possible (not necessarily likely, but possible) when they stop lighting money on fire.
• greatgib 4mo ago
  They don't realized that it is their business decisions that ruined the experience of the console gaming and they probably still double down on that. Before, you would buy and play a console to be able to play in a minute, eventually with buddy around. Playing time duration was a key metric in game reviews. Now, as they want to milk us the maximum it is a nightmare, game are mandatory online, you wait minutes and even dozen of minutes to be able to play like 3 minutes rounds, you are constantly nagged with restrictions, hours updates in the middle of game that prevents you to play, they force you to subscribe, register, give up on your data and all, consent screens everywhere, upsell barriers everywhere, and little opportunity to play with your friends... So, after a few months, everyone will lose interest in buying games and even play. It's not fun, lot of lost time and frustration.
• deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
• canto 4mo ago
  They're just all in mobile and fsck you Diablo and Fallout fans. That's pretty much it.
• accounting2026 4mo ago
  Don't know if it is just me, but seems like a weird thing to read on their official website. I could see it as an email sent out in crisis and maybe it would get leaked, but putting it up there yourself? I mean it has "Our business today is not healthy", "we have 14 management layers" and such. To me this comes across as a manager's "See mee, see me, I want the whole world to see me" more than actually trying to fix a problem
• benguild 4mo ago
  The hardware side doesn’t make sense as much anymore. I mean if we have these massive cloud datacenters for AI and people can’t even have disc copies then why
• mkhalil 4mo ago
  In this economy, if you're playing catchup to competitors you really can't have growth AND large profit margins. Why is that not obvious? XBOX brought in 5 billion, and after all development costs, marketing, operating expenses, investment in research, etc., they are STILL left with 200 million dollars. What's the problem here? Shareholder value? (as in the mythical/speculative value of MSFT, because OF COURSE they don't want/care for part of the profits/dividends) If the money being invested in research has a good return - i.e. a great product/service is created - then you will grow. Chopping down the employees here is a horrible move. Besides crashing employee morale into the ground, losing hard-to-replace developers/staff, it also generally gives off shitty vibes to consumers. People will think why invest more into a failing entity? I can see people worried about the future of their "purchases" (if you can call them that these days). This announcement so soon after XBOX had to start yelling "we are not shutting down" from the roof tops doesn't look good.
  • functionmouse 4mo ago
    if they fire everyone and stop spending money, only making money, their PnL ratio will be infinite!
• kermatt 4mo ago
  The layoffs will continue until morale improves.
• ghaff 4mo ago
  Xbox is a sideshow at Microsoft at this point--and arguably has been one for a very long time. Yes, it brings in non-trivial revenue but not a lot of profit. I don't really expect that you'll see new Xbox-related development in a few years.
• wewewedxfgdf 4mo ago
  Microsoft has blown Windows and blown Xbox.
  • ZiiS 4mo ago
    The writing was on the wall for Windows two decades ago; I am more impressed they dragged it out this long. It was probably decisions around 2010 in the lead up to the Xbox One that have now eventually killed them.
• chupchap 4mo ago
  As an occasional gamer I hate modern big budget games as it takes me 15minutes to get gaming between launcher, updates, loaders and other distractions. It then takes me another 15minutes to get back to speed on which mission I was working on. By then I have 30 minutes left to game. Due to this, I frequently pick up older snackable games and skip AAA games altogether.
• stevage 4mo ago
  > Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We Oof. We're making money, but we want to make more. So we're firing people.
• rubicon33 4mo ago
  > We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes Fascinating. The death of management is happening all throughout software.
• yashthakker 4mo ago
  This feels less like an AI story and more like a "subscription strategy met reality" story. Xbox spent years buying studios and subsidizing Game Pass to chase a Netflix-for-games future. When subscriber growth slowed, the economics stopped working. The layoffs are unfortunate, but they seem more like the consequence of executive-level strategic bets than anything individual studios or developers did. It's a reminder that distribution models are often much harder to reinvent than they look on paper.
• uni_baconcat 4mo ago
  That’s a rough reflection to the second half of Phil Spencer’s leadership.
• markus_zhang 4mo ago
  Scott Miller on X said that many, if not most of ID was also let go. https://x.com/ScottApogee/status/2074198967550685268 https://x.com/ScottApogee/status/2074198967550685268
  • urbnspacecowboy 4mo ago
    Entire post text: > This post was about the insider news I got this morning that a majority of Id's studio is being laid off, including most (if not all) coders.
    • johnnyanmac 4mo ago
      Damn, not ID. Some of the best engineers in the industry and they are all nearly gone? Not to mention the legacy. Some of those people may have been there for over 25 years, in times where the idea of programming for a dedicated GPU was cutting edge. Absolutely crazy how little respect the industry has for these golden geese.
    • tills13 4mo ago
      Even in the age of AI how the hell can you make a game without programmers?
      • markus_zhang 4mo ago
        Maybe they will just pump up remakes in other engines, like UE.
      • krige 3mo ago
        Tim S. has this doohickey for Unreal where you tell the AI what game to make and it makes the game! Totally out soon and to be beloved by everyone around /s
  • urbnspacecowboy 4mo ago
    Some specifics from George Broussard: https://x.com/georgebsocial/status/2074282537946386833 https://x.com/georgebsocial/status/2074282537946386833 > I've seen comments like "the MS layoffs weren't so bad". > re: id software. > Reports are that 50% (95ish of 200) of the studio was laid off. Here are some quotes on other details: > “Tools, programming (except a couple), Quake Champions team, testing team. All gone.” > “Yeah seems like all they left was leadership and art/design. I think Xbox forgot quakecon is next month.” > It really does sound as if id is now a support team for Bethesda/others. Rip idTech, which was amazing. Maybe Machine Games will carry it on or maybe it will be dropped for future games? > But the read is that id is essentially dead. At least for the time being. Yes, the studio wasn't closed and half still have their jobs. That's great. > re: the studios set free by MS to be sold or mgmt returned. One view is this is great. For MS they get decent PR for being "good guys". But the truth is that in at least one case (and maybe others), retaining the IP in such a case was written into the original contract when MS purchased them. Second, these studios now are out of the MS lifeboat, on their own, and will have short time to find new deals or funding and they will make it or not. Never mind they sold to MS originally to avoid this grind and be 'safe'. Yes they have a second chance but more layoffs may simply be deferred and outside the current umbrella of today's layoff round, so MS doesn't really get the bad PR of simply shutting studios down. This means continual worry by the employees and stress for mgmt. > re: Arkane. Same as the above but timing and process is different due to French labor laws, etc. > The layoffs are still happening. A substantial portion of Obsidian was let go today (near 1/3). Worries that they now don't have the staff to complete current projects. Deep layoffs at Zenimax Online. Even Bethesda or Activision studios were hit (with a minor round and numbers that are small enough that it reads more like "everyone has to take a hit, even the star studios"). More details will emerge, but it's a lot of people. > So it's bad. Real bad. Good luck to all affected.
• jordwest 4mo ago
  > While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. That this is seen as a problem tells you everything about business today. It has to be explosive growth or it’s pointless, according to execs and shareholders.
  • altairprime 4mo ago
    The velocity up or down of { the rate of growth of profit } is the profit-linked factor that drives stock prices go up or down. Not the simple velocity of profits. The market demands corporations compete with cumulative interest to increase share prices, and that’s never a sustainable path.
    • jordwest 4mo ago
      Ah wow of course, I think you just made something click for me. It's strange how we take interest on cash as a law of nature, when the original intention might have been nothing more than compensation for the risk the lender was taking on. Now the risk (on bank deposits, govt bonds etc at least) has effectively been removed so the interest rate is the baseline expectation. So compound interest is underpinning the infinite growth forever delusion...
      • altairprime 4mo ago
        Yeah, modern stock-market capitalism is, at its core, the layering of a 'second derivative' layer — growth in rate of growth of profit year-over-year — on top of the 'first derivative' — growth in profit year-over-year — that most non-financiers consider it to be. If you've read/seen "The Big Short" it helps immensely to consider how the layering of bets, tranches, and insurance is not the first time the financial industry has implemented widespread layering, it's just the first widely recognized time they've done so. This is also why the market tolerates destructive private equity firms: their sole purpose is to create growth in the second derivate; that they 'pull up the ladder behind them', so to speak, by killing the business and terminating investment gains for investors in the first-derivative tier (market stockholders) and zeroth-derivative tier (capital investors), and that they kill great products in a market so that buyers are forced to buy shitty products, are recursively beneficial to more efficient cycles of vampirism.
• bschwindHN 4mo ago
  Microsoft, as always, has no taste. And they think they can MBA their way into making fun games. The Xbox was my main gaming platform from around 2005 to 2018, and the experience got worse and worse as time went on. At this point in time, I really don't know why you would choose an Xbox over another console or just PC gaming. They can try to "reset" but from the outside it just looks hopeless as long as Microsoft is involved. I'll stick with Steam and Nintendo consoles. At least Nintendo still recognizes the importance of a fun gameplay loop, even if they struggle at other things like good online services.
• whatever1 4mo ago
  Ha! The new boss of Xbox surely has innovative ideas! Layoffs, how nobody had thought about this before? In every single case layoffs degrade the company’s core product. Unless they plan to completely change the XBox business (for example to one that sells hotdogs), this move will make XBox worse.
  • matchbok3 4mo ago
    Except in the many, many cases where layoffs help the company focus on a core product.
    • whatever1 4mo ago
      Name 1 case that we can evaluate 10 years after the layoffs.
      • xeromal 4mo ago
        Adobe
        • antiframe 4mo ago
          Can you share more information? I just looked at their Wikipedia entry and they spent 2018- basically doing acquisitions. What were they layoffs you were thinking of? It's hard to find historical data from 2016. And what's their new focus? It looks like they still have the same huge roster of apps.
          • xeromal 3mo ago
            Sure https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/adobe-laying-off-600-employees-3259316.php https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/adobe-laying-off-600... https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/adobe-to-cut-9-percent-of-workforce/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/adobe-to-cut-9-perce... https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/adobes-transition-to-cloud-could-be-tricky/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/adobes-transition-to... They went through a heavy period of layoffs for a few years and now are killing it and it meets your criteria of about 10 years ago
• rudimentary_phy 4mo ago
  Honestly, they could try building an interface that doesn’t suck. I have no idea why Valve seems to be the only one doing this. I’ve found a lot of things just from browsing the Steam store page. I don’t think I’ve ever done this with any of the others, console or otherwise. They are painful to use. The manager ratio still sounds too high even after the changes as well. Too many managers can really slow down and demoralize a creative workplace.
• deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
• zkmon 4mo ago
  I put her in the league of Marissa Mayer (Yahoo), Rometty (IBM) and Jane (Citi) - all came with a mandate to revamp the whole thing.
• ahmeni 4mo ago
  weird how improving business always just seems to be labour cuts with sugar on top
• findthebug 4mo ago
  Sold my xbox and going back to ps5.
  • deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
• nananana9 4mo ago
  You've changed, Microsoft. Saving the console is trivial, they're just afraid to do it. "Minecraft and CoD are now Xbox exclusive".
  • antiframe 4mo ago
    If I am unable to play Minecraft any longer because I have to buy a shit ass XBOX, I will never buy another piece of software (or hardware) from them. My $5 in 2009 came with a guarantee I would have access (and free updates) to Minecraft forever. Microsoft not honoring that agreement, which they said they would, is a step too far. I already signed up for a shit ass Microsoft account to keep access, and I said to myself that was the last hoop I would jump through.
    • nananana9 4mo ago
      > Microsoft not honoring that agreement, which they said they would, is a step too far. They already took that step too far - they broke ToS and closed all MC accounts that weren't linked to a MS account within the timeframe. I'm obviously not saying I'd like them to make everything an Xbox exclusive, but it's the only play that makes sense after throwing $75B to buy Activision.
• Alien1Being 4mo ago
  "Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. " Microsoft is today's IBM. And elephants cannot dance...
• rustystump 4mo ago
  - We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses What comparable platform is there? Are they thinking netflix? God i hate corporate execs like this.
• groundzeros2015 4mo ago
  I don’t know if it’s due to the subject matter but it seems there is a lot of confusion and low quality comments. Here are some reminders: - businesses like Xbox try to make as much money as possible - investments are judged on risk adjusted return. Net returns with high risk is failure. - the risk free asset pays about 3%. So taking any risk better get you 6-10% - you can lose your job at anytime for any reason. Any other expectation will lead to disappointment.
  • IshKebab 4mo ago
    > you can lose your job at any time for any reason. Depends on where you are.
    • deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    • groundzeros2015 3mo ago
      I see no difference in this story between where studios are and the challenges facing their employees. It’s the basic fact that you are in an organization which may change direction. And you do not control that organization.
      • IshKebab 3mo ago
        Yes, you can lose your job at any time. Just not for any reason.
• mdavid626 4mo ago
  I expected an article about resetting an Xbox device.
• andai 4mo ago
  How many of those 14 layers are getting cut?
  • andawaywego 4mo ago
    [dead]
• wodenokoto 4mo ago
  Of course we have to see how it plays out in reality, but giving back all IP and a runway to complete planned games to game studios as they are "released" from Microsoft is a really nice gesture, not just for the studios but also for the fans. Most companies would just shut it down and keep the IP.
• sidcool 4mo ago
  When all other revenue sources dry up, workforce cutting is the only thing that remains. Bosses and Wall Street loves it.
• bni 4mo ago
  Go back in history, why did Microsoft create xbox at all? It was Bill Gates fear of being overtaken by some "living room PC" or set top box that never materialized. It was an industry wild goose chase basically, with echos of past efforts (remember Philips CD-i ?) Is this a concern Microsoft has today? xbox was a money sink from the beginning. The sad part is they bought a bunch of very good game studios.
  • Alien1Being 4mo ago
    Shutting it down or selling it to Bytedance is probably next.
• d--b 4mo ago
  > Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. > We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3 I don’t understand why they need to make a big announcement when what they’re doing is cutting the stupid management structure. Everybody hates cuts, except those that cut middle management. They should have titled this “xbox cuts middle management: Less burocracy, faster delivery, more original games, more money for everyone involved, yay!”
• rock_artist 4mo ago
  I saw already lots of comments about Nintendo, but one interesting bit I didn't see yet in comments here is the fact Nintendo just raised base salary. https://mynintendonews.com/2026/06/26/nintendo-has-raised-its-employees-base-salary-by-10/ https://mynintendonews.com/2026/06/26/nintendo-has-raised-it...
• deleted 4mo ago
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• sourav276 4mo ago
  [flagged]
• egorfine 4mo ago
  I seriously don't get it. A mass layoff without blaming AI? Are they that backwards?
• gehsty 4mo ago
  I feel like the way Asha talks about Xbox owning game studios could also be applied to Microsoft Xbox. Pc gaming and console gaming has never been closer. Is it advantageous to own two essentially competing platforms? Is console gaming really a core pillar for Microsoft? Should they kill Xbox, fall back to the (I imagine) hyper profitable platforms of Mojang and King, and focus on making windows gaming as good as it can be, which I think would tie in with the overall improving windows strategy. They aren’t Sony, they aren’t Nintendo, they aren’t Steam, and I feel like the only unique thing they have is the Windows + PC gaming (that Valve are working hard to erode). If they have any chance of making a viable platform, for me, it needs to be in this space.
• Xotic007 4mo ago
  [dead]
• Alien1Being 4mo ago
  They had 20,100 employees at one stage. ( Xbox plus the Microsoft Gaming ) That is around the same size as Finland's military....
  • fragmede 4mo ago
    How many employees would you have allowed them to have instead?
  • coffeebeqn 3mo ago
    That’s the size of active duty but it’s a conscript army so in case of a war there would be a general mobilization of the 900k trained conscripts
• akimbostrawman 4mo ago
  Industry crash has been long overdue. Turns out making games for "modern audiences" mostly funded by ESG isn't economically viable yet.
• Ecstatify 4mo ago
  [flagged]
• grugdev42 4mo ago
  Too little too late. Xbox is dying and PS won. Try listening to your customers next time. We don't want to be ripped off with paying for assets we don't own. We don't want another monthly subscription. We want the old games, remastered, with fully functioning multiplayer.
  • destring 3mo ago
    > We don't want to be ripped off with paying for assets we don't own. You do know that PS is literally stopping physical games? You will not own anything.
  • krige 3mo ago
    > Too little too late. Xbox is dying and PS won. Seems like currently PS is too determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
  • ewy1 3mo ago
    crazy second sentence which makes the rest of the comment not make any sense
• itomato 4mo ago
  No “reset” can fix the Red Ring of Death.
• itomato 4mo ago
  MSFT used to be flat. What happened?
• lovegrenoble 3mo ago
  It becomes a problem for consumers when Xbox lays off large numbers of employees and closes studios, leading to fewer games and poorer support for them.
• maxehmookau 3mo ago
  A year-long restructure, where over 1000 people could lose their jobs is beyond disgusting. There's zero justification for it. Ever.
• ghtbircshotbe 3mo ago
  They depict how Microsoft bought double fine at the end of the psychonauts 2 documentary. If you watch the documentary it's hard not to think it may not have been a genius financial decision.
• Heidaradar 3mo ago
  I wonder if Sony / Playatation is having the same issues or not
• jackdoe 3mo ago
  there is only so much attention/time human beings have games are competing with netflix competing with tiktok competing with sleep Johnny Mnemonic: Yeah, the Black Shakes. What causes it? Spider: What causes it? [points to various pieces of equipment throughout the room] Spider: This causes it! This causes it! This causes it! Information overload! All the electronics around you poisoning the airwaves. Technological fucking civilization. But we still have all this shit, because we can't live without it. Let me do my work.
• armoredmeatball 3mo ago
  Is anyone familiar with the history of Xbox? I'm wondering how their margins became so much worse than their competitors
• steve1977 3mo ago
  > We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. This does sound quite reasonable actually. Also, I think I didn't read "AI" anywhere, which is refreshing.
  • ambicapter 3mo ago
    The great thing about not making any money in a department is that all the money-hungry people flee the org, and people who are more invested in "doing things right" stick around. The bad news, of course, is that you're not making any money, which is bad for your long-term survival.
    • lostglass 3mo ago
      This is a very different take than I have. People who are good tend to leave sinking ships much faster.
    • steve1977 3mo ago
      I guess it becomes a problem when the money-hungry people still make money, but the larger organization doesn't.
• deleted 3mo ago
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• fleroviumna 3mo ago
  [dead]
• khurs 3mo ago
  Elephant in the room? Maybe Microsoft is spending so much on AI that it is being forced to re-evaluating short term strategy in other business areas as financial have changed. So perhaps in long term all these studio's making exclusives and getting people hooked on the Game Pass at a short term low price would have worked if they had dominated market share over playstation. But AI Data Warehouse & Power Plants funding and taking large stakes in multiple AI companies has depleted the cash. And harder to raise money now hype is clearing and expectations of what AI can actually deliver are lowering, as per OpenAI's struggle to IPO.
• joygqz 3mo ago
  [dead]
• ninefathom 3mo ago
  This is a very long-winded demonstration that the shareholder-driven philosophy of "we must keep growing at all costs" is not sustainable.
• tibbydudeza 3mo ago
  That is retailer margins.
• SaucyWrong 3mo ago
  Read all of this as: “I am currently mismanaging this business unit.”