Report Confirms Big Layoffs at Xbox Next Week

I’ve heard from two reliable sources that Xbox will experience a massive round of layoffs in early July, and that was just confirmed by Bloomberg.

The publication reports that Microsoft will undergo a company-wide reorganization to mark the start of its next fiscal year, which starts July 1. As part of that, Xbox will undergo a “major” round of layoffs, with “substantial” cuts across the entire group. Bloomberg also notes that this is the fourth set of layoffs at Xbox in the 18 months since it acquired Activision Blizzard in late 2023.

This is what I’ve heard as well. And to be clear, these layoffs are separate from the layoffs in sales that we reported on last week. That said, it’s likely that both sets of layoffs are tied to the coming reorg.

What I do know is that Microsoft originally planned to implement the Xbox layoffs last week. But the week came and went without any changes, and my sources told me that the company belatedly realized that it would send mixed messages to do this right after the big Xbox Ally reveal at the Xbox Games Showcase. So it was rescheduled to early July, which is the more typical timeframe for this type of change.