While Xbox CEO Asha Sharma had previously spoken about the company cutting around 1,600 more jobs over the course of the fiscal year, a new report indicates that the company will ultimately fall short of those goals. According to Windows Central’s Jez Corden, rather than cutting the target number of jobs, the company is seemingly opting to instead restructure its various divisions and studios, moving employees around rather than letting them go altogether.
Divesting itself of some of its studios also seems to be part of its continuing strategies. The company had announced back in July that it was releasing Double Fine Productions, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and Compulsion Games. While State of Decay 3 developer Undead Labs is being sold to another company, Compulsion Games and Double Fine have both gone independent instead. According to Corden, the company is similarly discussing the fate of Arkane.
The report comes in the wake of Xbox announcing that it has eliminated 268 roles across its various divisions, including Halo Studios and other development teams. Along with this, the company has also announced quite a bit of consolidation amongst its teams. The Halo franchise, for instance, is being handed to a new team at Activision, while Halo Studios itself will keep a “small team” that will support existing games.
Similarly, Age of Empires developer World’s Edge and Sea of Thieves studio Rare will also come under Activision. Obsidian – known for RPGs like The Outer Worlds 2 and Fallout: New Vegas, as well as survival crafting title Grounded 2 – will come under Bethesda as it continues to work on its new Fallout project. The studio behind Forza Motorsport, Turn 10 Studios, is being merged with Forza Horizon and Fable developer Playground Games.
In the same announcement, Xbox’s chief content officer Matt Booty has revealed that deals for another company to acquire Hellblade developer Ninja Theory have fallen through. As a result, Microsoft has begun consultation with the studio’s employees about potentially shutting Ninja Theory down.
“Today, our focus should be on supporting those affected and treating one another with care and respect. I will spend time with our studios over the next week. At our October 6 town hall, we will come together as an ALL-Xbox team to reflect on our progress and look ahead to one of the strongest game lineups in our history.”
Back in July, Sharma had spoken about the unhealthy state of Xbox as a business, which led to approximately 1,600 cuts. “Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined. We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio.
“We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset Xbox, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision.”
