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Microsoft Laid Off Employees in the Game Division, Including The Xbox Team

About 1,000 employees were laid off across the company
By Xueyang
Oct. 25, 2022 updated 07:33

In the global economic downturn environment, Microsoft seems to have some carry and has developed a series of initiatives to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

The U.S. well-known technology media "Business Insider" (Business Insider) reported that Microsoft this week laid off a total of nearly 1,000 employees. Business Insider's sources revealed that some of the dismissed employees had just joined Microsoft a few months ago.

In July, Microsoft announced that it would lay off less than 1 percent of its workforce (at the time, Microsoft had a total of about 180,000 employees) and would significantly slow down its hiring schedule in response to the coming recession. It is not clear whether the current round of layoffs is part of Microsoft's related plans.

According to Business Insider, the Xbox division was affected by the layoffs, but the number of employees laid off is unknown. In addition, Studio Alpha, which focused on creating war simulation software within Microsoft, was shut down completely, and all of the team's employees were fired.

Studio Alpha chief architect Greg Chapman confirmed the news on social media. "Wow, this is an adventure ......," Chapman tweeted, "Today, my entire team and I were let go. I've been in game development for 25 years and at Microsoft for 12 years. I'm not leveling off yet and will announce details later."

After news of the layoffs broke, a Microsoft spokesperson told Business Insider, "Like all other companies, we regularly evaluate our business priorities and make structural changes accordingly. We will also continue to invest more and hire talent in key growth areas over the next few years."

Separately, Zach Kramer, head of Microsoft's mission engineering division (Mission Engineering), revealed in an email that the division had to cut some projects already in progress due to prioritization. "The company had to weigh the pros and cons and make trade-offs because resources are not unlimited, and time happens to be among the scarcest of resources."

Source: Business Insider