When Xbox laid off 1,600 employees earlier this year, the publisher promised it was only halfway done and that as many as 1,600 more employees across its remaining studios would be let go before the end of 2026. Now it seems that promise is about to be fulfilled, with reports of further layoffs and studio consolidation circulating.
The latest on what's seemingly about to happen at Xbox comes courtesy of The Information. According to the new report, Xbox will lay off hundreds more employees before the end of the week. It's unclear if this will be the full 1,600 Xbox previously mentioned, or if there will still be even more layoffs after this between now and the end of the year.
The report also claims that this second wave of layoffs will be combined with studio consolidations. Again, the finer details of what that actually means have not been revealed, nor does the report mention which studios will be affected. It might mean that some studios under the Xbox banner will merge, perhaps in an attempt by Xbox to stop them having to be shut down entirely. Or so Xbox doesn't have to wave goodbye to them as it did with Double Fine and Compulsion Games during the previous round of layoffs.
The last round of Xbox layoffs affected just about every studio it owns. Not just the studios that no longer call Xbox its parent company, but even some of the platform's bigger properties. Bethesda was affected, with developers working on The Elder Scrolls Online losing their jobs, and Doom studio Id Software was one of the hardest hit with a significant chunk of the team that worked on last year's Doom: The Dark Ages getting laid off.
The layoffs basically happened on the same day as the new Doom game's celebrated DLC was released.
Industry insider Jason Schreier has added to the latest reports, claiming Blizzard will be affected. Even though it has been proved time and again this year that no studio is safe from the Xbox axe, Blizzard potentially getting hit hard at this exact moment in time would be particularly puzzling. Not only has the studio been flaunted as one of Xbox's most successful right now, but this year's BlizzCon, which happened less than ten days ago, featured some huge announcements, including World of Warcraft Forever, and plans for a new Starcraft in 2030.
The layoffs are also coming directly after Xbox proudly poaching Hideo Kojima's Physint from PlayStation, adding it to the veteran's OD which has been in development under Xbox for years. Although claims PlayStation attempted to cancel Physint due to ballooning development costs have been denied by Kojima, it's going to hurt those affected by layoffs this week that little bit more to see money that could have kept them employed spent on getting one over on PlayStation. It's also yet another example of Xbox winning back some goodwill with users before immediately undoing it all days later.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/more-xbox-layoffs-studio-consolidation/
