{"id":354,"date":"2026-06-11T05:11:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T05:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longhaulmovingpros.com\/?p=354"},"modified":"2026-06-11T05:11:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T05:11:38","slug":"layoffs-coming-to-xbox-next-month-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longhaulmovingpros.com\/?p=354","title":{"rendered":"Layoffs Coming to Xbox Next Month, Report Says"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a move sure to speed up the development of games and improve sales, Microsoft will reportedly lay off Xbox employees in July. It will also apparently cut budgets in multiple areas of the Xbox division including marketing. This is according to an anonymously sourced Bloomberg report.<\/p>\n

Read more Oracle Upsets the Market With Even More AI Spending and Debt Issuance<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bloomberg\u2019s story is sourced from \u201cpeople familiar with the company\u2019s strategy,\u201d along with a bleak email to Xbox employees from Asha Sharma, the new Xbox CEO who started in February. Bloomberg says it reviewed the email, but didn\u2019t publish the full text.<\/p>\n

Microsoft rather cultishly uses its own term, \u201caccountability margin,\u201d instead of \u201cprofit margin,\u201d and in the email, Sharma says the Xbox accountability margin has shrunk to 3%. She says the company has spent $20 billion in the past five years \u201con ongoing investments in our content, platform and hardware subsidy,\u201d only to see revenue decline by \u201cnearly half a billion during that same time.\u201d That\u2019s excluding business from the relatively recently acquired Activision Blizzard King, she says.<\/p>\n

Layoffs in July of this year will come in the wake of more layoffs at Xbox one year earlier. Xbox was the main division mentioned in news about 9,000 layoffs across Microsoft in July of 2025. \u201cTo position Gaming for enduring success and allow us to focus on strategic growth areas, we will end or decrease work in certain areas of the business and follow Microsoft\u2019s lead in removing layers of management to increase agility and effectiveness,\u201d Phil Spencer, Sharma\u2019s predecessor, wrote in a memo last year.<\/p>\n

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There had been some promising recent developments at Xbox, including yesterday, when Sharma offered some seemingly straight talk about the state of console gaming\u2014namely that the prices are ruinously high for most people. \u201cWe have reached a point where it will be hard to imagine that mass audiences can afford thousands of dollars to spend on a console generation,\u201d she said. Indeed, the Project Helix console does look unbelievably cool, but it\u2019s also unbelievably obvious that no one I know is going to be able to afford one.<\/p>\n

Xbox Games Showcase 2026 was also strong, if not a total blockbuster. Neither the Fable reboot, nor the Halo remake, nor the A Plague Tale sequel look like they will suck for any obvious reason so far. That\u2019s great.<\/p>\n

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Nonetheless, things are apparently horrible behind the scenes at Xbox or this wouldn\u2019t be going on. To quote Sharma in an interview last week, things are \u201cnot in a healthy spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

One problem, Sharma\u2019s email says, is that Xbox \u201cexpanded our studio system when we needed a pipeline of content to meet multiple strategies across subscription, streaming and devices.\u201d To me, expanding your studio system does sort of seem like it would be one step toward creating a pipeline of content, but clearly a lot is going unreported here.<\/p>\n

Sharma genuinely seems to have stepped into a tough role amid a strange business environment for the Xbox, if recent remarks by her boss, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, are any indication. Last year, a few months before Sharma became CEO, Nadella told interviewers that the competitor to gaming is short-form video\u2014in other words that the kids are on the TikToks when they could be gaming, and folks, how can you compete with that<\/i>? Nadella then added, rather ominously, that \u201cThe best way to innovate is to have good margins. Because that\u2019s the way you can fund.\u201d It\u2019s a deflating thing to say, like saying the best way to raise happy children is to have a good job.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Last month, Sharma earned the goodwill of many gamers by announcing that Xbox would be sunsetting all of its Copilot AI features on mobile, and that it would no longer develop Copilot features for the Xbox console at all. If these layoffs come to pass, she\u2019ll likely be back to square one\u2014or maybe a few steps back from square one\u2014with Xbox gamers.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg did not have an estimate of the purportedly imminent headcount reduction at Xbox, only that it will be \u201cmajor,\u201d and an Xbox spokesperson declined Bloomberg\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

Read more White House Defangs AI-Testing Unit at the Worst Possible Time<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg says the bloodletting will be \u201cmajor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets"],"yoast_head":"\nLayoffs Coming to Xbox Next Month, Report Says - Long Haul Moving Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longhaulmovingpros.com\/?p=354\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Layoffs Coming to Xbox Next Month, Report Says - Long Haul Moving Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bloomberg says the bloodletting will be \u201cmajor.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/longhaulmovingpros.com\/?p=354\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Long Haul Moving Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-11T05:11:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longhaulmovingpros.com\\\/?p=354#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longhaulmovingpros.com\\\/?p=354\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longhaulmovingpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ed9c8f732aec56889e8fd0602fe5af4b\"},\"headline\":\"Layoffs Coming to Xbox Next Month, Report Says\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-11T05:11:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longhaulmovingpros.com\\\/?p=354\"},\"wordCount\":734,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longhaulmovingpros.com\\\/?p=354#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longhaulmovingpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/6d8f80e3ca5458adbcfc2033aa4cd4ee.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Gadgets\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/longhaulmovingpros.com\\\/?p=354#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longhaulmovingpros.com\\\/?p=354\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longhaulmovingpros.com\\\/?p=354\",\"name\":\"Layoffs Coming to Xbox Next Month, Report Says - 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