Latest news with #Everwild
Time of India
19 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to 15,000+ employees fired this year: "For that, I am ..."
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella delivered a sobering message to employees Wednesday as the company announced its fourth round of layoffs this year, eliminating 9,000 more positions and bringing total workforce reductions to over 15,000 this year. "Before anything else, I want to speak to what's been weighing heavily on me, and what I know many of you are thinking about: the recent job eliminations. These decisions are among the most difficult we have to make. They affect people we've worked alongside, learned from, and shared countless moments with—our colleagues, teammates, and friends," Nadella wrote in an internal memo addressing the latest cuts affecting 4% of Microsoft's 228,000 global workforce. The CEO continued: "I want to express my sincere gratitude to those who have left. Their contributions have shaped who we are as a company, helping build the foundation we stand on today. And for that, I am deeply grateful." Microsoft cuts 15,000+ jobs across multiple divisions despite record profits The year-long elimination spree began with performance-based cuts in earlier in the year, escalated with 6,000 layoffs in May targeting software engineers and project managers, continued with 300+ June reductions, and culminated in Wednesday's 9,000-person reduction. The gaming division suffered the heaviest losses, with over 3,000 positions eliminated since Microsoft's $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition closed in 2023. High-profile casualties include The Initiative studio's complete closure, cancellation of anticipated titles Perfect Dark and Everwild, and 200 job cuts at King, maker of Candy Crush. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer told gaming employees the cuts would "position Gaming for enduring success" while acknowledging the timing during Microsoft's strongest gaming performance period. Despite the workforce reductions, Microsoft reported $25.8 billion in quarterly net income with 18% year-over-year growth, maintaining its position among the S&P 500's most profitable companies. AI revolution drives management restructuring as technology writes 30% of code Nadella addressed the apparent contradiction between strong financial performance and mass layoffs, describing it as "the enigma of success in an industry that has no franchise value." The CEO emphasised Microsoft's transformation from a "software factory to an intelligence engine" while the company invests $80 billion in AI infrastructure this fiscal year. The strategic shift reflects AI's growing role in Microsoft's operations, with artificial intelligence now writing up to 30% of code in some company projects. Microsoft has systematically targeted middle management layers to eliminate organizational barriers and increase decision-making speed, mirroring similar restructuring efforts by Amazon and Meta. Affected employees receive comprehensive severage packages including healthcare coverage and job placement assistance, with priority consideration for other Microsoft positions. The restructuring aligns with Microsoft's new fiscal year launch, when the company traditionally announces major organisational changes.
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
After 11 years of development, 6 years of marketing, and a full reboot, Rare's Everwild has been canceled amid mass Xbox layoffs – 5 months after Phil Spencer's assurances it's making "progress"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Everwild, the gorgeous but mysterious Rare title first announced back in 2019, has been canceled amid the mass layoffs happening today at Xbox. Rare has not yet confirmed the news, but three separate reports now suggest that the game is, indeed, dead. News of Everwild's cancellation was first reported by VGC, which mentioned that "employees are likely to lose their jobs as part of broader restructuring" at the studio. IGN's sources have also corroborated that the game is canceled, as has Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who first reported on today's Xbox layoffs. We'd seen a handful of trailers for Everwild, which offered promises of a big adventure through a strange world filled with unusual animals. The exact details of the gameplay were never clear, but the almost Studio Ghibli-like vibes were enough to catch plenty of attention. Earlier this year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that the game was still making "progress." Reports circulated that Everwild's development had been rebooted in 2021, though Xbox representatives suggested those reports were "a little more extreme" than the truth. However, those same reports alleged that Everwild had been in some form of development since 2014, and a game rarely spends that long in development without some sort of trouble behind the scenes. What the cancellation and the looming layoffs mean for the future of Rare remains to be seen. The studio has a storied history going back to the British computer scene of the '80s, and was a prolific NES developer in its early days. It developed a close partnership with Nintendo throughout the '90s, during which it created the beloved Donkey Kong Country trilogy for the SNES, as well as titles such as GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, and Perfect Dark for the N64. Microsoft's acquisition of Rare in the early '00s shocked the gaming world at the time, and while many of the studio's games under Xbox were quite good - I'll defend Viva Pinata and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts forever - they never made quite the same impact as the earlier Nintendo titles. After years supporting Xbox's ill-fated Kinect peripheral, Rare seemed to finally find its footing with Sea of Thieves, which, while it took some time to really find its footing, proved to be an excellent multiplayer sandbox. Everwild had the potential to be a strong follow-up, but I guess now we'll never know. I expect we'll lose a few more upcoming Xbox Series X games before the day is out. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Another Xbox studio reacts to the layoffs exploding around it: with Rare's Everwild dead, Sea of Thieves dev says "it's impossible for something like this not to ripple through the studio"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Sea of Thieves studio Rare is the next Xbox studio to respond to the recent Microsoft layoffs and in this case, specifically the cancelation of the action-adventure game Everwild. Everwild, first announced in 2019 with a development story going all the way back to 2014, was one of the many casualties of Microsoft's recent downsizing, which resulted in the loss of around 9,000 jobs. We didn't see a whole lot of Everwild in the years since its reveal, but what little we did see of its colorful fantasy world was mighty promising, making its cancelation all the more disappointing for Rare diehards. In July's Sea of Thieves developer update, Rare production director Drew Stevens opened by addressing the elephant in the room, speaking out about the impact of Everwild's cancelation on the overall studio. "I think it would be strange to jump straight into our usual updates without acknowledging the news that we've ended development on Everwild here at Rare," Stevens said. "While this didn't directly impact Sea of Thieves, and we're continuing on as we'd planned, our focus as a team and a studio is on supporting our friends and colleagues whose roles are at risk." The layoffs at Xbox resulted in the cancelation of the Perfect Dark reboot and the shuttering of developer The Initiative, the downsizing of Forza studio Turn 10's workforce by about 50%, and the cancelation of an unannounced ZeniMax Online MMO. Longtime ZeniMax Online studio director Matt Firor of 18 years left the studio in the wake of the news, and later, the studio's union issued a statement on the cancelation, saying "a future has been stolen." "It's impossible for something like this not to ripple through the studio and affect us all in some way or another, so please bear with us," added Stevens. "And on that, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's reached out to check in on us and share their kind words of support. Genuinely, thank you, it really means a lot." As bummed as I am about Everwild, I really do appreciate that Rare took the time to acknowledge the situation instead of just pretending like nothing's happened. I can't fathom the pain and uncertainty at Xbox studios like Rare right now, and I can only hope that being able to continue work on Sea of Thieves gives the developers some sense of poetic escape similar to the whimsical distraction the open seas have provided players like me for years and years. "What happened with Microsoft was clear": Former Square Enix exec says Game Pass, "a service with barely any growth," didn't cause layoffs – competition with AI did Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'There has to be a better way than this': Game developers call Microsoft's latest layoffs 'a colossal waste of talent' from a publisher that seems like it's in 'a death spiral'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Yesterday, despite posting $26 billion in profits and outperforming Wall Street forecasts in the last quarter, Microsoft began its latest round of restructuring with a targeted goal of laying off 9,000 employees. Many of those cuts have affected the Xbox gaming division, leading to cancellations of projects like Rare's Everwild and an unannounced Zenimax MMO, and studio closures for teams like The Initiative, which had been developing the now-cancelled Perfect Dark reboot. Microsoft has now laid off over 20,000 people since the start of 2023. On social media, game developers from solo indies to triple-A studio staff and everything in between have shared their dismay over the continued turmoil affecting their peers and colleagues. "It's heartbreaking to watch what's happening to this industry that I love," said Eric Neustadter, former operations manager at Xbox Live and current VP of technology at The Pokémon Company. "The incentives are misaligned so strongly that fun games and profitable teams aren't what matter." BioWare veteran and current Skate narrative director John Epler said that he's "reeling" over the news that's continuing to break about further Microsoft cuts. "18 years in the industry and I can confidently say this is the grimmest shit has been yet," Epler said. "There has to be a better way than this," said Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail. "There has to be a better games industry than this happening to so many people, over and over and over. This isn't good enough." "The games industry is going to turn me into the joker," said award-nominated Civilization 7 and Marvel's Midnight Suns writer Emma Kidwell. Many devs see Microsoft's layoffs as emblematic of an industry trapped in a doomed pursuit of perpetual growth. "Laying off thousands of people so that your numbers look better for the quarter while making many more billions is such a f'd up reality," said Chandana Ekanayake, co-founder and creative director at Outerloop Games. "Making numbers go up forever is not sustainable and never was. What a colossal waste of talent." "When mass layoffs are just a quarterly event, is this not just a death spiral?" asked Bruno Dias, former lead narrative and systems designer on Fallen London, who notes that Xbox seems to be carving up its own publishing portfolio while it's seemingly moving away from hardware. "Xbox behaves like a company that's been sold to private equity and is having the copper stripped out of the walls." Andrew Carl, systems designer at Respawn, said the newest Microsoft cuts are particularly hard to stomach given the company's heavy investment into the "dumpster fire" of generative AI development. "Reminder that all this carnage at Microsoft is coming at the same time as they are financially doubling down on the agentic & generative AI slop that nobody wants because it lies to you, has terrible security issues, & has untenable energy costs," Carl said. Microsoft said in January that it intends to spend $80 billion on AI this year. Even Seamus Blackley, creator and designer of the original Xbox who left Microsoft in 2002, said that Xbox's current strategy—assuming there is one—is self-defeating. "Think of the number of great games that had troubled development histories. All of them?" Blackley said. "Now consider how often executives cancel troubled games. Smooth development comes only when you take no risks. Greatness comes only when great risks are braved. Do the math." When one of his followers joked that "the math is being done by Copilot," Blackley said "Then it will be wrong, and it will insist it's right." Elsewhere, Firaxis narrative director Cat Manning said what felt like a summation of the entire industry's exhaustion: "I just want to make things that get players excited, man."
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fresh from telling laid-off employees to console themselves with AI, Microsoft doubles down by advertising Xbox jobs with pathetic AI image: 'So tone deaf I hope it is satire'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The rollicking clown car that is Microsoft corporate leadership has outdone itself once again. Earlier this month Phil Spencer said Microsoft's gaming business has "never looked stronger" as he announced mass layoffs, which was swiftly followed up by an Xbox exec suggesting that affected employees use AI to console themselves. And now? A round of slow claps for Xbox's principle development lead Mike Matsel, another victim of terminal LinkedIn brain, who took to the social networking site this past weekend to announce some good news: we're hiring! Except… The post comes with an image that is clearly AI-generated (first spotted by Eurogamer). It shows a cartoon image of a woman smiling and wearing headphones in front of a PC: but look closer and you'll notice that this PC is very special, because the display is on the back of the monitor. Then you notice her eyes aren't on the front of the monitor either (I guess there's not much to see), and she's just staring gormlessly over the top and into the distance. The more you look the worse it gets: the shading on her top is all sorts of wrong; the keyboard just seems to have randomly shaped blocks rather than resembling a keyboard; there's a weird little divot between the thumb and index finger on the left hand. In other words, this is a classic AI-generated image, aka slop. The thing is, this is being posted by a senior figure at Xbox and is explicitly about hiring graphics designers. You'd think that might earn a bespoke visual for any hiring push. Tempting as it may be to dunk on Matsel, the guy also may be trying to keep his own job: Microsoft has said "AI is no longer optional" for its staff, and employees are being evaluated on how they use these tools. The first reply to the post is, appropriately enough, a poop emoji. "This is so tone deaf that I hope that it is satire," replies Kevin Catarino. "Does everyone left at Xbox have brain damage," wonders Rick Desilets. "Are you seriously posting a job ad for Xbox Graphics using this AI garbage? It looks like shit, man, what is happening over there?" "AI is a billion dollar industry, a lot of money and resources have been poured into this, and this is the result of it," says Joseph M. "My god, I don't believe in AI and I never will. It's not worth the hype or money. You could have just hired someone for cheap looking for help with their portfolio to do a much better job than this." Microsoft's latest cuts were a real bloodbath, with studios like The Initiative closed and several high-profile Xbox exclusives cancelled, including Rare's Everwild, an unannounced Zenimax MMO, and the excellent-looking Perfect Dark reboot. Since the start of 2023, Microsoft has fired over 20,000 people. It's also announced that it plans to spend $80 billion on AI this year. Well: I hope you all like hot garbage. Because right now, that's sure looking like the future of Xbox. Solve the daily Crossword
