Xbox to Layoff 268 Employees, Activision to Develop Next Halo Title, Obsidian Joins Bethesda, More - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 4 days ago / 2,714 Views
Following a report late last night, Xbox has officially announced it will be laying off 268 employees, as well as making structural changes across most of the company.
Halo Studios, other first-party studios, and Xbox Game Studios management and central functions layer have been hit with layoffs. This brings Xbox to around three-quarters of the way through the previously announced restructuring.
A number of structural changes are also happening across Xbox:
- Activision will be expanding the number of studios to include World’s Edge and Rare. Activision will also be developing the next entry in the Halo franchise, led by a new purpose-built team separate from the developing and plans for Call of Duty. A small team at Halo Studios will continue to support the Halo community and games in-market.
- Obsidian will be joining Bethesda and continue work on a new Fallout project made in collaboration with Bethesda Game Studios, as well as Grounded.
- Microsoft Casual Games will be moving under King, which will bring the two casual studios under one umbrella.
- Playground Games and Turn 10 will be joining together as one studio to focus on the Forza and Fable franchise.
Since the last round of layoffs and changes in July, Compulsion Games and Double Fine have become independent studios once again, and Undead Labs has transitioned under a new publisher. State of Decay 3 will still release as a day one Game Pass title.
Two separate agreements for Ninja Theory to be acquired fell through and Xbox is now in consultation with employees on a possible closure while other paths will continue to be explored. Consultation with Arkane remains underway and is expected to continue through the end of the year.
"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," said Xbox's Matt Booty. "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."
Activision president Rob Kostich has sent a statement to Game File discussing the Activision taking over Halo.
"For Halo, our goal is clear: make the greatest Halo game ever, worthy of its universe and legacy, while staying true to what made players love it in the first place," said Kostich. "It is a bold ambition, one that this franchise deserves. We have already begun assembling a purpose-built team, unique in capability and talent, ready and excited to deliver this next chapter with the community."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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I mean, people really need to learn that there are consequences to not doing your job.
I'm sure the people that are laid off would be more eager to agree with you if they got more than just their salary when their employer is doing well, but I don't believe that to be the case commonly in the gaming industry. It's a beatiful idea that employees are responsible for the company, but expecting that to just happen seems naive to me.
Regardless, game design is probably one of the key factors to a game's success. Most empyloyees probably have very limited ability to affect that.
If there's something wrong with the game a studio works in general, that's a management issue. If you hire the wrong kind of people, that's a management issue. If you can't cultivate an environment where your employees do well even if they're capable people, that's also a management issue. Of course employees have a responsibility as well, but if you let people fail freely, that's also a management issue. That's important because if you have poor management, individual employees can hardly be expected to keep the whole company running properly (unless it's a small company where everyone knows each other).
Because the management is more often at fault than the employees.
They are at fault for not doing this sooner. They shouldnt have waited 7 years to finally figure out that these mofos were not doing their jobs.
Absolutely ignorant take.
If you found out tomorrow that the company you worked for was struggling financially and got fired, would you consider it a fact that you did a terrible job? Or would you believe you did the best you could and the poor decisions were outside of your control.
It's a griter take and im surprised to see it here. It states that Microsoft is 100% right to cut thousands of jobs because its trimming the fat created mostly by the existence of women and minorities or something else as asinine that... ignores that Microsoft bought many different companies and publisher to prop of GP... which didn't work and is no coming back to haunt the workers. The new griffter meta is anti worker pro corporate autocracy.
You understand MS employs over 225,000 people right? They provide more jobs on this planet then the entire gaming industry and were ranked 1 on Forbes for most Happiest employees.
Complaining they trim the dead weight is always a wierd take. Id say good on them, give someone else the chance to prove themselves.
Sounds like a made-up stat considering in 2023 there were 166,123 people employed in the Video Games industry in the UK alone.
This isn’t about Microsoft, but specifically Xbox who have much higher failure rates than anywhere else in Microsoft. Most of the people losing their job worked on products they had no direct control over. They didn’t fail at their job, their company failed them for the most part.
A Failing company which removes/replace staff is normal in the real world.
You would know this if you had a real job, ill assume you dont work based on your anwser.
They wouldn't have that many employees if they didn't buy half of the studios in North America.
I'm sure you can understand this simple concept.
Google is easily accessible
"new" griffter meta?
Well... In the end, Activision is the one that acquired Xbox.
Oh, not at all, Microsoft is one of the og evil tech corporations!
Yes, without a doubt...
But as time goes by, there’s less and less left of what Xbox was before the ZeniMax and ABK deals.
I remember starting a thread saying Microsoft would bury smaller studios and franchises to focus solely on big titles, and that’s exactly what’s happening.
Even founded by SOMEONE IN THE EPSTEIN FILES. You know what you did, Bill Gates, you fucking pedophile.
Not in favor of people loosing their Jobs
But the industry is way over staffed
Is it? Like how do you know that?
As long as there is one job still not taken by AI, the industry will be overstaffed to the shareholders.
Then the shareholders need to fuck right off.
So Ninja Theory basically gone? Senua game was just a CG trailer to entice but presume little is actually been made. and Unlike other studios, original owners didn't want to come back and buy it, or for what MS were wanting.
Microsoft would never do something like that haha
Anyway, when's Perfect Dark coming out again?
Hoping Activision tries to make a faithful Halo entry and not just a CoD game wearing Halo's skinsuit
Realistically though, we’re gonna get Call of Duty: Alien Warfare.
So Halo might just become a COD game with Halo skin? This is such a shame. Is there a game out there like Halo (CE era) in terms of gameplay level design and game design?
Its already like that now, id trust Activision then the current Halo team.
New video discussing the latest restructuring and layoffs at Xbox is now live. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF3ed1I0e5Y
Turn 10 and Playground joining to do Forza stuff... that makes sense.
But Activision taking over Rare... and making HALO!!!!!
COD Halo, and all of the COD haters will suddenly love it.
This is just to appease Microsoft shareholders, who are a bunch of greedy shitheads in suits out of touch with what actual human beings want.
These are some great moves by Asha. Moving Rare under Activision, Obsidian under Bethesda, Playground merging with Turn 10 all makes sense.
Some of these make sense, like Obsidian to Bethesda and merging Playground and Turn10.
But urgh, I am not holding out hope for Halo under Activision’s stewardship. I can see it going down the same road as Star Wars Battlefront with EA.
So NT is going shut since theres no buyers...
Yup, no one wants them.
Not a bad shake up all things considered. Many of these restructings make sense. Hopefully Ninja Theory doesn't close, but they didn't exactly do themselves any favors. They spent way too much time focused on a niche IP like Hellblade instead of something with wider appeal when they basically had an open checkbook available to them.
Honestly, asside from NT closing and the layoffs, i think this move is a good thing. Let's face it, Xbox def hasn't performed well at all in the last decade and it make sense they need to rearrange things. Just sad that a studio like NT was bought, was probably mismanaged and ends up closing :/
RIP AoE2
