New York – Microsoft will lay off 1,900 employees at its subsidiary Xbox and Activision Blizzard, several American media reported Thursday, just over three months after finalizing its acquisition of the video game publisher.
When asked by AFP to confirm this figure, which represents around 9% of the teams dedicated to this activity according to an internal note published by several media, Microsoft did not immediately follow up.
In a message published on
“This is an incredibly difficult day,” the executive wrote, indicating that Thursday was his “last day” at the company, which has 22,000 people assigned to video games, consoles or software.
Microsoft had to wait more than 20 months to finalize its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard due to regulatory hurdles, which have finally been removed.
In an internal letter, published by several American media, the head of Microsoft video games, Phil Spencer, justified the decision with the desire to calibrate the entity “with a sustainable cost structure”.
He noted the “duplication” and Microsoft’s intention to prioritize projects that generate growth potential.
These job cuts come at a time when other major video game players have also recently announced layoffs.
On Monday, Riot Games, publisher of the League of Legends game and a subsidiary of China’s Tencent, indicated it would soon reduce its workforce by about 11%, or 530 jobs.
At the beginning of January, the streaming platform Twitch, a subsidiary of Amazon popular with “gamers”, said it wanted to lay off 500 employees, or about a third of the total.
Last year, Microsoft, like most tech giants with the notable exception of Apple, had already cut its workforce, with a first wave of 10,000 cuts announced in January, followed by another over the summer .
2024-01-25 17:33:39
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