5 Xbox Studios Impacted in Microsoft Layoffs, But No Games Cancelled

This was honestly not as terrible as expected. Still bad but not as bad as I thought.

@anoyonmus That’s probably just because of the gradual increase of leaks the past week, which tend to soften the shock impact of such news. If anyone told you a few months ago they will lay off 3200 people and that Double Fine, Compulsion, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs and possibly Arkane Studio wouldnt be under Xbox anymore, people would say that’s crazy

Well atleast it looks like Blade definitely is coming to PS5 now.

There’s many questions regarding the studios’ future but at least this was better than outright closing them which would have been easier and cheaper for MS to do so, at least there’s that.

Double Fine deserves to be free!! I want them to make a million more quirky games. I’m playing Brutal Legend right now and it just oozes style. So glad they haven’t been shuttered.

Not as bad an outcome as it could have been. I'm glad Double Fine are back as independents. I'm very much looking forward to State of Decay 3 on PS5 for the first time.

At least no studio closes, silver lining.

@get2sammyb Yeah there's a reason those two didn't get bought by someone. I think they both have one last game in them.

@get2sammyb this is my concern. DoubleFine are famously bad with money. Remember they overspent kickstarter money and survived because of Phil Spencer. Going independent buys them naybe a year. It's an awful time to try and get funded and none of these studios have had massive critical or commercial hits in years.

I don't think Compulsion will survive.

Microsoft didnt just close the studios like is normal in this kind of scenario.

the 4 studios will remain open and even have their IP which is incredibly rare thing to happen usually IP is kept by the owner

I'm glad that most of these studios had options to leave or get other buyers. Most companies would just be happy to shut them down and take the IP's, especially Double Fine. Arkane I hope is able to stay the course as well because while I haven't played much of their stuff, I finally had the chance to play Deathloop finally last year and really enjoyed it.

Honestly best possible outcome from today. I’ve been looking forward to State of Decay since it was announced for PS5, and Senua looks like it might finally be the game it was supposed to be all along. I’m interested to find out who the buyers are

@trev666 and apparently given runway for their next projects

@get2sammyb the thing is every game studio has to make games that make money.

its like every company eventually if you keep loosing money you will eventaully close

Better than I expected the studios are not shutting down but it's horrible people losing they're jobs. Psychonauts 2 is a incredible game and arkane is a cool studio. Dishonored classic. Word up son

@AdamNovice Maybe Focus Entertainment?

I'm sorry but I couldn't care less any of the games from them other than Blade. I am glad about that one at least.

Could’ve been way worse, but still sucks for everyone impacted.

unless studios make a lot of games that sell well it will be hard for them to survive as independent

very much doubt tencent bought any of these studios as tencent is cutting down these days.

@themightyant Sony did move the employees of Bluepoint and I believe Pixelopus to fill openings at other First Party teams.

It's good that the 4 (maybe 5) studios have a reprieve, but the 3200 other jobs going completely, is not good at all.

xbox lost 20% of it's global workforce.

At least not all of those 3,200 are losing their jobs. Some will be going with the four studios that are either being bought out or going independent. The 3200 number is the reduction in headcount at Microsoft itself. Not sure if we’ll ever know the exact number of jobs losses.

@Americansamurai1 not with out xboxs money keeping them afloat

@themightyant I'm mixed. Sometimes it's better ripping the bandaid then providing a fools hope (from my experience)

I guess xbox "woke" up, perhaps to late though.

I really wonder who bought those 2 studios, everywhere big players like Tencent and Embracer Group are downsizing it couldn't be either of those

You almost gave me a heart attack with that picture of Raz. Hope Double Fine manage to survive independently. What a mess the industry is just now.

Great for Double Fine. And all of them, I'm guessing - painful but at least they're not all laid off... if Xbox is able to get more companies out and independent then hopefully they can both slim down and focus on core games and the indie studios can continue to pump out some high quality work - they all have years and years and years of experience

@get2sammyb I mean it's good they're not closed, of course, but I genuinely have no idea how some of these studios survive independently in this environment.

I can tell you why you feel that way, cause non of those studios are making great games. They are making average games that cost 2X more than they should to make. MS did the right thing in not having them around any longer dragging down their profit margins. It’s the same reason Sony is cutting up Bungie. If you don’t have a major hit out it is hard to let all these devs tinker with their next idea’s. I do not blame Sony nor MS for letting go off teams that are not producing well. Sure it sucks, but the games industry has shrunk down to around 12 games that monthly make all the money. When GTA 6 comes out there will be even less money for smaller type games that these studios were making. None of them are shut down and they are free to make their idea’s with others money. Likely resulting into even quicker hard decisions for them.

What a stupid move to sell undead labs

From what I am hearing, Focus Entertainment (French Company) is in the mix for Senua and State of Decay 3, and in talks around Arkane.

They most recently purchased Dovetail Games (Train Sim World)

@johnedwin Don't want to undersell that number, but around 800 from that number weren't laid off in traditional sense, but was spun off.
Compulsion had 120+ employees, Double Fine around 100, Ninja Theory around 140, Undead Labs 120 and Arkane around 300+

Which is still bad obviously...
It probably helped, that rumors were swirling for whole month with increasing severity. There was rumor about divestment of Obsidian and closure of Rare. Even Machinegames and id Software were mentioned because supposedly "everyone not working on The Elder Scrolls and Fallout will be laid off." So in that sense, it's pretty obvious why people reacted with sigh of relief. Because situation wasn't as bad as it we were lead to believe.

It's like with Bungie recently. Because studio announced end of support for D2, everybody knew layoffs were coming. And when they finally came it seemed like people just shrugged of 400 people being laid off.

Part of me thinks that all those rumors about closure of studios was leaked on purpose by Microsoft as a PR path. Because it was certainly accepted better as when Xbox closed Arkane Austin and Tango in 2023 and The Initiative and cancelled Perfect Dark and Everwild last year. Maybe because no game was cancelled. And that's what gamers care about most.

@awp69
I may be wrong but I believe the 3200 xbox staff loosing their Job is separate from this studios going independent or bought by another company. The microsoft staff loosing their Job overall is 4800 but I believe that includes the 3200 xbox staff. I may be wrong but I believe the 3200 xbox staff reductions will be from other xbox studios and not these four mentioned.

@TurboTom I’ve read several articles that say the jobs from the devs going independent or sold are included in the 3200. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier emphasized that the total number is 3200.

“ Even now there's misinformation floating around, so let me make this clear: Xbox is cutting 3,200 jobs, or 20% of the organization. 1,600 jobs will be eliminated today, and then another 1,600 (including the studio divestments) in the next 12 months.”