As unfortunate as the latest round of Xbox layoffs were, we knew they were coming.
Microsoft may be, against all odds, riding a positive wave of PR – but it signalled its intent with its ongoing “reset” earlier in the year.
It started with the divestiture of several studios and 1,600 layoffs, but we were told there’d be a total of 3,200 redundancies by the end of the current fiscal year.
While my sympathies understandably go out to all those currently without work, the more interesting wrinkle for me is the restructuring, which has practically wiped out Xbox Game Studios as a publishing arm.
As I understand it, the only studios that remain under this umbrella are The Coalition, inXile Entertainment, Halo Studios, Playground Games (which has merged with Turn 10), and Xbox Game Studios Publishing.
(The latter is more like Sony’s XDEV, so it’s more a business support unit as opposed to an actual development team.)
Rare and the depleted World’s Edge now exist under Activision; Obsidian has become part of Bethesda.
It’s worth adding that Halo Studios suffered many job losses, and development of Master Chief’s future forays will occur under Activision, so I’m not sure how long that team will continue to exist under Xbox Game Studios either.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2026/09/xbox-is-disappearing-into-activision-and-bethesda-so-what-does-that-mean-for-ps5
