by TK0Asante
Every once in a while, you hear news that forces you to take a seat.
For about a week now, there has been rampant speculation regarding the status of Xbox Game Studios and which studios or teams, if any, will be shuttered or spun out. While we have heard a lot of wild speculation, all signs seem to coalesce around the idea that this will be a massive shift, leading to significant turmoil for developers, creatives, and their families.
Because this hasn’t been officially announced by XBOX, I would take it with a grain of salt, but the platform where this is coming from lends a lot of credibility to the claims.
The Anonymous Microsoft Leak on Blind
On Blind, the anonymous corporate social media network that requires users to verify their employment with a company before accessing its internal posts, the following was reportedly posted on June 22nd at or around 3:00 PM Pacific Time:
Anonymous poster AlphaCat64 posted:
“XBOX GAME STUDIOS= Cooked
Big Week coming up next week for XGS
Compulsion Games
Ninja Theory
Flight Simulator
Worlds Edge / Age of Empires
Double fine
All closed. Just over 1000 People laid off across studios.”
Another employee asks for “Source?” and AlphaCat64 replied with “Extended LT meeting which occurs every Monday”
The person then asks if Pierre Hintz is affected but he is told by AlphaCat64 “Halo is Safe, Gears too, Most of the layoff numbers come from entire studio closures”
Impact on Xbox Services and Platform Orgs
A different user chimes in and asks:
“Aside from the studio closures, any news on All-up Layoffs across the rest of XBOX? I’m assuming there’s going to be a pretty significant event impacting all of the other studios and services teams.”
A separate user replies with “Yes, Services org and potentially platform orgs.”
And then AlphaCat64 responds with:
“There will be layoffs at other studios, no closures outside of those listed. The core platform org is safe for engineering and PM.”
The only part of this situation that can be verified is that the poster must be a Microsoft employee to post on the Microsoft and Xbox-related sections of the platform. Beyond that, this text simply serves as more smoke pointing toward a potential impending fire. While I have screenshots in my possession of this conversation, I will not be posted them online for obvious reasons.
Needless to say, hopefully the teams affected by this land on their feet sooner rather than later.
Watch this space and join US for more articles like this.