Xbox cuts around 3,200 jobs; Double Fine and Compulsion go independent
1,600 gone on 6 July, the rest across the year. Two studios leave with their own games.
On 6 July Microsoft laid off roughly 1,600 people in its gaming division. Across the fiscal year running from July 2026 to June 2027 the company plans to cut about 3,200 positions in total.
A separate strand of the same announcement: Double Fine and Compulsion Games are spinning out as independent studios and keeping the rights to their games, with Microsoft providing runway funding.
Formally this is not a closure, and for the studios it beats one. But roughly $20 billion went into gaming over five years while divisional revenue fell by about half a billion a year. Cuts on that scale of investment mean the studio-buying strategy did not work the way it was supposed to.
Source: gamerant.com