And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history.
Microsoft is selling off four Xbox studios as part of significant gaming cuts
Submitted 1 day ago by scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech to games@lemmy.world
https://www.theverge.com/news/961546/xbox-layoffs-studio-sales-2026
Comments
Zeddex@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
fpslem@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Reading the names of all those studios that Microsoft gobbled up, I just think how it never should have been permitted to consolidate so much of the industry in the first place.
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 hours ago
I’m pretty sure they hired Asha Sharma just to gut the entire Xbox department and force its closure. It’s losing them money, but they want to continue to pretend that they care about gaming.
They’ll hype up the PR, pretend that they are restructuring, and then announce some “sad news” that they had to completely shudder the Xbox brand after a few years of pretending.
The thing is that Microsoft isn’t doing great in the Windows department, either. They are pissing off so many people that they’re losing grip of their near monopoly. And Copilot is almost as bad as Llama in terms of LLMs.
What the fuck do they have left? Office?
WhoIsTheDrizzle@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Copilot isn’t an LLM. It’s just an application layer that utilizes other 3rd party LLMs like gpt. I think it’s shit because it’s usually a few versions behind and they put guard rails and external data filtering on their application layer.
NONE_dc@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well, at least that’s better than shutting down the studios…
Though is funny if you think about the Activision/Blizzard/King acquisition lol
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
At least those studios aren’t resolved and closed! Unlike a certain other company… like Sony does.
spacegoat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Executives have less than average IQ but decide our lives for us
tonytins@pawb.social 1 day ago
I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day
So more slop?
user_6282638282@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
XBOX, the everything app!
reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
It’s like they are trying to fix a train heading for a derailment, by speeding up.
NutinButNet@hilariouschaos.com 1 day ago
Would love it if they just let these studios spin themselves off and not be bought up.
But that’s not going to happen.
I imagine a lot of talented and creative people work at these studios and have great ideas that non-gamer owners won’t greenlight and are holding them back, but they know what actual gamers want.
Eternal192@anarchist.nexus 1 day ago
Is it me or is the gaming industry being gutted on purpose to make room for AI slop games?
Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That’s part of it, but it’s also because the industry saw a massive spike in profits during COVID when everyone was stuck at home, and shortsighted executives made hires and investments as if that money train was going to continue forever. Once things went back to normal they immediately started canceling projects and firing talent.
Microsoft is also going through leadership changes, and it’s unfortunately common for incoming executives to can projects started by their predecessor since they won’t get the credit for them.
Of course it’s the employees who pay for their idiocy and not the ones who actually fucked up.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 1 day ago
This is what I see too. Like so many industries short term profit chasers never thought that things might slow down after everyone went back outside.
They could have saved that profit and invested instead into long term longevity, but no, had to plan like it’ll be there forever. I swear to god it only takes a 5th grade completion certificate to be an executive.
zikzak025@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I wouldn’t rate Phil Spencer too highly either, though. He was the face behind these massive buyouts in the first place. He set the strategy for Xbox’s very lackluster console offering this generation. And he went all in on “You’ll own nothing and like it” with GamePass.
The studios that Xbox spent so much money on don’t appear to have really paid for themselves yet. With games being made at a glacial pace, you have not only the large sum of cash spent on the buyouts to worry about, but years of additional salaries, infrastructure, and services to pay before profit starts coming in. GamePass also appears to have been a major investment that hasn’t quite paid off, what with them now denying new contracts to third party studios while they reevaluate its business model.
TheVoiceOfRaison@thelemmy.club 12 hours ago
I think its 70/30 split with what you said being the 70. However woth Sharma’s background shes probably seen how much AI can save in replacing certain roles.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
There’s just a general downturn in the economy. People don’t buy video games when they’re struggling to pay for groceries.
That and MS probably wants to throw more into the AI money pit.
Sineljora@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Re: edit - correct!
Xbox thinks their biggest competition is Fanduel, Kalshi, and TikTok…
Prox@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What a stupid idea on their part, if accurate.
If you make AI slop, you have to compete with everyone else who is making AI slop. And pretty much everyone else is making AI slop with less overhead than Microsoft will EVER get down to. Shit, the new XBOX CEO probably makes more than most AI-centric devs/teams.
The advantage of being big is that you can gain access to resources and sources that aren’t available to competitors who are small. That’s real voice talent, amazing designers, capital to develop and maintain your own game systems (e.g. engines). So if you’re going to do small-company stuff while being big, you’ll always lose to the small companies (business-wise). Guess the new CEO either doesn’t realize this or doesn’t want to believe it.
zarathustrad@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ok, but let me tell you about the regulatory moat we are digging with lobbyist money… It’s gonna be huge!
Raise the floor, drown the little guy!
(The large firms will just shed the unprofitable parts and sell the shovels of compute to whomever will use them untill they can size and enshitify the product of their labor)