Several of Microsoft’s gaming companies, like 343 Industries and Bethesda, were hit hard by the mass layoffs. Xbox head Phil Spencer sent an email to the rest of the company with his thoughts on the layoffs. It is the latest in a long line of mass layoffs by companies in the video game and tech industries.
One of the biggest is Meta, which will let go of about 11,000 workers by the end of 2022. Spencer seems to talk about why Microsoft is laying off people and hints that it may have something to do with recent changes at Xbox Game Studios, which have made it unclear how long some studios will continue to work on major franchises.
Spencer’s email, which Kotaku got a hold of, came soon after Nadella’s blog post, which tried to explain how the layoffs would affect everyone who works for Xbox. He told the employees again what the team leaders had told them, that the layoffs “set us up for the long-term success of our products and business,” but he knows how hard it was to make those choices.
He told employees that there will be ways for leadership to “connect and answer” any questions they may have and that they will try to be as open as possible, but he couldn’t say more about it right now. The layoffs seemed to have a big effect on the Xbox Game Studios right now, as at least one studio is being reorganised because of them. Halo: Infinite’s campaign team will be “restructured,” the game’s director Joe Staten is leaving the studio to work for Xbox Publishing again, and the studio won’t be in charge of making future Halo games but will instead be there to help.
This seems to be the worst news for 343 Industries. Several former developers spoke out against the changes on social media. They said that bad leadership at 343 and Microsoft was one of the main reasons why Halo Infinite was so hard to make.
It’s still not clear how much more the layoffs could hurt Xbox, especially since Microsoft’s plan to buy Activision-Blizzard may have run into a big problem in the European Union. A report that came out before the layoffs said that the EU’s antitrust board was going to object to the acquisition.
This could add to the antitrust problems that the US Federal Trade Commission has with the possible deal. Whether or not the deal is approved in the end, there is no doubt that Microsoft has had a rough start to 2023.
