Microsoft Planning 'Major' Xbox Layoffs Next Week (theverge.com) 31
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Microsoft is planning to cut jobs in the company's Xbox gaming business, as early as next week. I first reported in Notepad earlier this month that Microsoft was planning Xbox layoffs "potentially by the end of the month," and now Bloomberg says a round of "major layoffs" is due next week.
I understand managers at Microsoft have been briefed about Xbox cuts and wider layoffs in other parts of Microsoft's businesses. The upcoming cuts are also expected to hit Microsoft's sales organization, just at the start of a new financial year. Microsoft is planning to restructure parts of its Xbox business as it looks ahead to its next generation of consoles. One source tells me Microsoft is restructuring Xbox distribution across central Europe, resulting in some Xbox operations ceasing in some regions. The expected layoffs will be in addition to the 6,000 cuts Microsoft already made in May, and on top of the more than 300 job cuts earlier this month.
I understand managers at Microsoft have been briefed about Xbox cuts and wider layoffs in other parts of Microsoft's businesses. The upcoming cuts are also expected to hit Microsoft's sales organization, just at the start of a new financial year. Microsoft is planning to restructure parts of its Xbox business as it looks ahead to its next generation of consoles. One source tells me Microsoft is restructuring Xbox distribution across central Europe, resulting in some Xbox operations ceasing in some regions. The expected layoffs will be in addition to the 6,000 cuts Microsoft already made in May, and on top of the more than 300 job cuts earlier this month.
OEM Xbox (Score:3, Interesting)
They are getting ready for the Xbox brand to just become a certification on OEM devices. Xbox branding is being applied to third party controllers made by 8bitdo, the VR headset Meta Quest Xbox Edition, and game handheld Xbox ROG Ally made by ASUS. Through a partnership with AMD, there will be an Xbox spec for PC devices to meet and be categorized as Xbox compatible. Microsoft is shifting away from making hardware that plays a smaller library of games to a full on PC with a gaming mode that may be easier for console players to use as it tries to hide away the rest of the operating system and let players focus on the games. They are working on emulation of Xbox console games to be added to Windows as well. Their Xbox division will slowly be folded into part of Windows, and their game studios will provide showcase content for the initiative. The traditional console hardware business they are part of will be going away, so they are stuttering their Xbox divisions in other countries that would market and distribute the hardware.
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As a gamer who goes between xbox and pc every few years I think this will be great. I especially like that the "xbox frontend" will support steam games inline as well.
The only real thing missing is ability to log into your PC via controller somehow.
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As a gamer who goes between xbox and pc every few years I think this will be great. I especially like that the "xbox frontend" will support steam games inline as well.
The only real thing missing is ability to log into your PC via controller somehow.
As a PC gamer who wisely avoided the whole "wannabe PC" console craze, I can't think of anything worse than Microsoft trying to consolise the PC. They tried to PC-ise the console and that didn't work because it's not possible. Consolising the PC is possible but won't work because few people would want to deliberately hobble their gaming PC (you can dumb down but you can't dumb up).
With Valve making a serious play towards Linux compatibility, MS risks shooting themselves in the foot by trying to force PC
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I just brought a Lenovo Legion Go S.
First thing I did was remove Windows 11, and put Steam OS on it.
don't want MS to ever get Valve.
they would jam the Windows Kernel into Steam OS.....
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I doubt it'd happen. It'd be a significant concern for the anti-trust cops (and even if the current US admin doesnt seem to have a problem with anti-trust behavior, the europeans are quite capable of raining hell). More to the point, it doesnt sound like Gabe has any interest in taking Steam public or selling it. Its a strangely organized hyper-flat company that seems to run more like a worker-coop than a traditional heirachical company and thats how Gabe likes it. And its making him ridiculous money. He's
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Hopefully he at least outlives me.
Costco is like that too. A bunch of vultures are circling it waiting for the owner to die. I think it's a publicly traded company but the majority of shares are held by one family and that guy at the head of the family runs the place really well.
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Valve is a private company. You're assuming that Gabe would say yes. And why would he? The man is worth $9.5bn he doesn't need money.
Why? (Score:2)
Because they can do it with AI
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Everyone knows a crash is coming (Score:4, Insightful)
Anytime we want we can stop the cyclic downturns and crashes but we're going to have to make some trade-offs, mostly around moral panics.
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The crash is inevitable now (Score:2)
The bill basically takes 5 trillion dollars out of the US economy and hands it to the top 1%.
That's going to spook the bond market, and pretty much everything in this economy runs off the bond market.
All of this in the service of either Peter thiel or Elon Musk becoming the first trillionaire.
And were to distracted by nonsense like woke and trans or whatever the current moral panic people prefer is to do anything about it.
The basic problem is
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Here's another secret, this time a dirty one. The politicians who tell you to vote for them because they will "make the wealthy pay their fair share", know all of this and don't care. They are doing the same thing their wealthy donors are doing and ar
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I'm afraid that your statement about China and Europe spending less that $2t per year isn't the case.
The UK govt. alone spends about a trillion pounds per year (so, about $1.3t USD).
https://www.gov.uk/government/... [www.gov.uk]
The UK is by no means the largest economy in Europe. Even if you don't count the UK as part of Europe any more post brexit, France and Germany alone have similar sized economies with similar levels of government spending.
The basic ratio doesn't seem too far out to me -
UK: 65m people and $1.3t of
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Perhaps, but you don't need a financial crisis to explain the fall of Xbox.
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Is it one of Elon's new startups? The one selling empty boxes with promises in them?
Reporting in Notepad? (Score:2)
It's like Creed's blog from The Office!