On the commercial side, she said the cuts would build on Microsoft\u2019s US$2.5 billion ($4.38b) push, announced last week, to embed 6000 engineers with major clients to accelerate AI adoption.<\/p>\n
At Xbox, CEO Asha Sharma told employees in a separate memo that 1600 positions were being cut immediately, with the rest to follow through fiscal year 2027.<\/p>\n
Xbox has been through successive rounds of cuts since Microsoft\u2019s US$68.7b ($120.47b) acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2024 after a long review process by regulators over competition concerns.<\/p>\n
Sharma described Xbox\u2019s business as \u201cnot healthy\u201d, with profit margins \u201c3-10 times lower\u201d than rivals.<\/p>\n
She said the division had bet on Game Pass, its Netflix-like subscription service, to drive growth. But the service lost millions of subscribers after a subscription price hike last October, forcing the company to reverse course and slash the fee.<\/p>\n
Sharma succeeded longtime Xbox chief Phil Spencer, who retired in February, and has pledged to return the division to growth by 2027.<\/p>\n
She wrote: \u201cHistory is full of companies that mistake longevity for inevitability. We will not be one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four studios will leave Xbox as part of the restructuring.<\/p>\n
Compulsion Games, known for South of Midnight and Double Fine Productions, maker of Psychonauts, will become independent, retaining their intellectual property and game catalogues.<\/p>\n
Ninja Theory, the makers of Hellblade, and Undead Labs, behind State of Decay, have entered terms to join new owners with funding to continue their current projects.<\/p>\n
In France, Arkane\u2019s management is beginning a required consultation with its Works Council to review what Sharma called \u201cpotential strategic options\u201d – a process that could result in further closures or a sale.<\/p>\n
Arkane is currently working on the high-budget Marvel\u2019s Blade game with industry reports saying Microsoft may cancel the project after delays and cost overruns.<\/p>\n
Microsoft on June 25 said it will raise the price of its Xbox video game consoles worldwide as a component-cost surge fuelled by AI affects the industry.<\/p>\n
Sony and Nintendo have also raised the prices of their game consoles, and Apple announced substantial increases for its Macs and iPads.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the commercial side, she said the cuts would build on Microsoft\u2019s US$2.5 billion ($4.38b) push, announced last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[251967,1443,1040,138,204338,29429,22218,147411,3447,1437,78,232,609,2683,111,139,69,8190,48083,11590,26639,666,11987,1361,61,1533,18370,37877],"class_list":["post-513234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-251967","tag-about","tag-bid","tag-business","tag-costcutting","tag-deliver","tag-division","tag-eliminating","tag-gaming","tag-global","tag-in","tag-jobs","tag-microsoft","tag-move","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-restructuring","tag-roughly","tag-save","tag-shed","tag-struggling","tag-sweeping","tag-that","tag-to","tag-will","tag-workforce","tag-xbox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}