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Xbox Announces 3,200 Job Cuts and Spins Off Four Studios

Leadership says the move is a profit-driven reset to simplify Xbox’s operations and fund higher-priority investments.

Overview

  • Xbox will eliminate about 3,200 roles across fiscal 2027, with roughly 1,600 layoffs effective immediately and the remainder phased through the year, a restructuring framed as the division’s largest reset.
  • Compulsion Games and Double Fine will return to independent ownership while Ninja Theory and Undead Labs will transfer to new owners with funding secured to finish their in‑flight projects.
  • Arkane Lyon has begun the legally required works‑council consultation in France to review strategic options, leaving the studio’s longer‑term fate unresolved and likely stretching decisions over months.
  • Organizational changes include promotion of Helen Chiang to chief operating officer and direct reporting lines from Mojang and King to Xbox’s CEO, part of a plan to reduce management layers and simplify decision making.
  • Xbox leaders pointed to weak Game Pass economics, margins far below peers, and severe hardware and component cost pressures as the reasons for the cuts, a shift that will reduce studio headcount and reshape which projects receive Xbox resources.