Microsoft is laying off 10,000 people, including Bethesda and other Xbox studios

Apparently Microsoft can no longer afford to employ so many people.

Microsoft has announced that it will lay off approximately 10,000 people by the end of the fiscal quarter. This affects a wide variety of areas of the company, including the gaming division, for example the Xbox division, developer studios and the relatively recently acquired game publisher Bethesda. This has now been confirmed again separately to VGC.

Microsoft apparently wants to cut costs and is laying off 10,000 people

Bad news: As reported by Bloomberg, among others, Microsoft is making staff cuts and wants to lay off almost 5 percent of its employees. A total of around 220,000 people are said to work for the group, which was founded by what is currently probably the fourth richest person in the world.

The 10,000 or so layoffs should take place by the end of the third quarter of the fiscal year, i.e. by the end of March 2023. Xbox studios such as those belonging to Bethesda and the entire Xbox division are apparently affected.

Why the layoffs? According to Microsoft, this is a reaction to “macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities”. In other words, it’s about money, apparently in the billions.

At least reasonably good conditions: In the US, those people who are laid off and who are eligible can look forward to at least some points designed to cushion their dismissal. For example, they remain on health insurance for six months, receive severance pay that is said to be above normal market value, and are notified 60 days before they are released.

Whether the whole thing affects the planned takeover of Activision Blizzard King (ABK) by Microsoft is not certain. Whether the deal can go through at all remains unclear. However, it has already been announced that Microsoft wants to pay almost 70 billion US dollars for it. So it’s probably not as if the company doesn’t have any money.

That was not all: As early as October 2022, 1,000 Microsoft employees were laid off. Amazon is currently also laying off around 18,000 people and many people are probably losing their jobs at Riot Games (via: Jacob Wolf on Twitter).