Microsoft planning ‘major’ Xbox layoffs next week

Microsoft is planning to cut jobs in the company's Xbox gaming business, as early as next week. I first reported in Notepad earlier this month that Microsoft was planning Xbox layoffs potentially by the end of the month," and now Bloomberg says a round of major layoffs" is due next week.

I understand managers at Microsoft have been briefed about Xbox cuts and wider layoffs in other parts of Microsoft's businesses. The upcoming cuts are also expected to hit Microsoft's sales organization, just at the start of a new financial year.

Microsoft is planning to restructure parts of its Xbox business as it looks ahead to its next generation of consoles. One source tells me Microsoft is restructuring Xbox distribution across central Europe, resulting in some Xbox operations ceasing in some regions.

These latest layoffs will be in addition to the 6,000 cuts Microsoft already made in May, and on top of the more than 300 impacted earlier this month, too. Any major Xbox cuts will be the latest in a series of big gaming-related layoffs over the past 18 months, after Microsoftlaid off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees in January 2024 and then in May 2024 the companyclosed several game studios, includingHi-Fi Rushdeveloper Tango Gameworks andRedfalldeveloper Arkane Austin.

Microsoft alsolaid off 650 more Xbox employeesin September, and alsocut around 1,000 employeesfrom its HoloLens and Azure cloud teams in June last year.