Microsoft: a restructuring plan with around 8% of the gaming division's workforce laid off

Microsoft is laying off 1,900 employees in its gaming division, representing around 8% of the total 22,000-strong workforce, announced the US company on 25/01/2024.

"As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard (acquired by Microsoft for $68.7bn/€60.1bn, on 18/01/2022) is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business. As part of this process, we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team. The people who are directly impacted by these reductions have all played an important part in the success of Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax (acquired by Microsoft for $8.1bn/€9.5bn, on 21/09/2020) and the Xbox teams," said Phil Spencer, CEO of Xbox.

As part of these announcements, the production of a "survival" video game announced by Blizzard on 25/01/2022 has been cancelled. Microsoft will be "shifting some of the people working on it to one of several promising new…