It’s been rumoured with speculation swirling for weeks, but Xbox has just published a blog post containing an email that was sent to all staff that details 1,600 jobs being cut today, and an additional 1,600 that will be cut in the coming months as well as 4-5 studios that will be leaving Xbox.
Double Fine and Compulsion Games will return to their original management with their IP, cataloog as well as runway for their next games, with Ninja Theory and Undead Labs joining new ownership with funding to complete Senua and State of Decay 3. Arkane (currently developing Blade) is also beginning consultation to review potential options.
In summary:
Xbox has also confirmed that it will change and shift investment across Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and XBOX Game Studios with none of the publicly announced games to be cancelled as part of the reductions.
There’s a bunch of other structure changes such as management layers lowering to 3 and no more than 5, and a bunch of other organisational changes that will lead to better productivity and I’d highly recommend reading the full post on the Xbox blog which details the Xbox business not being healthy with operating margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses.