Xbox is nearly definitely planning to put off a big variety of employees next month. Reports that cuts are coming led some to fear for his or her favorite smaller Xbox-owned studios, and early follow-ups to the layoff reports suggest Xbox users nervous about those studios are right to be scared.
Imminent Xbox Layoffs Could Result In Studio Closures
While Xbox CEO Asha Sharma hasn’t outright confirmed that she and her team shall be putting potentially hundreds of individuals out of labor this July, she did admit that things need to alter. Bloomberg reported that widespread layoffs are coming to Xbox, and Sharma shared a memo that was distributed internally, seemingly in response to Bloomberg’s claims.
In it, Sharma admits that Xbox will end this fiscal yr with only a three percent accountability margin, and that after spending $20 billion within the last five years, Xbox’s annual revenue has dropped by $500 million. Again, no mention of layoffs, but further reporting by The Verge claims the cuts may involve a studio closure or changes to the Xbox studio lineup.
People Are Fearful About Double Positive
That additional information has Xbox users fearing the worst about where Xbox might swing its studio-shutting axe. Top of the pile is Double Positive. Although the legendary studio at all times has the subsequent Psychonauts to point to if asked by Xbox what it’s cooking, Double Positive’s last two games have really been personal projects that do not appear to have made its publishing overlords much revenue.
Double Positive released Keeper at the top of 2025. Sales data is not available for the title, nevertheless it seems unlikely it secretly sold within the hundreds of thousands. This yr, Double Positive released Kiln, which, while again, there is no sales data, we all know that game didn’t perform in addition to Xbox would have liked on account of its player numbers on Steam.
The opposite studio whose future Xbox owners are fearing for is Rare. Again, like Double Positive, Rare has an enormous game to point to every time Xbox asks what it’s as much as due to Sea of Thieves. A successful live service game, which definitely helps. Nevertheless, with Everwild getting canceled, it’s unclear what exactly Rare is working on for Xbox without delay when it comes to recent games.
Some have suggested smaller studios under the Xbox banner have to speak to Toys for Bob and ask how the studio, which just announced its recent Spyro game, managed to flee from its Xbox-owned clutches. That is a costly endeavor for any studio that wishes to do it, because it means buying back your independence, and it’s almost definitely too late for whatever studios are getting shut down next month, if there are any.