Microsoft Layoffs, Closures, and Anger
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Windows Central ☛ Microsoft's quest for short-term $$$ is doing long-term damage to Windows, Surface, Xbox, and beyond | Windows Central
Microsoft has made some absolutely baffling decisions in recent years. From sucking the life out of Surface, to putting ads in the Windows Start Menu, to killing Xbox exclusive games, what exactly is
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So Much for That: Microsoft Just Blew Up Its Gaming Strategy
Sometimes, you just make the wrong call and must admit it. Now, it is my turn to do that. Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) strategy for its Gaming division is far more shortsighted than I had initially believed.
A new round of layoffs and studio closures undercut the division’s growth opportunities at a time when the company should be capitalizing on its successes. Four studios, with a mix of recent successes and failures under their belts, were either shuttered or dismembered in the layoffs. Today, I’ll look at the three biggest and how these layoffs undermine Microsoft’s future in the video game industry.
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7 Companies That Went Downhill After Being Acquired
The acquisition led to massive layoffs and write-downs, and by 2016, Microsoft wrote off nearly the entire value of the acquisition and sold the remnants to a Finnish company called HMD Global. (RIP to Nokia's snake game; those sure were the days).
[...]Before the era of Zoom, Skype was all we had. A pioneering service in VoIP (voice over internet) technology, the app enabled users to make voice and video calls online. But in 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion. Despite some integration successes at the start of the merger, Skype’s user experience deteriorated over time due to frequent changes and competition from other services like WhatsApp and Zoom.
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Team Talk: Those Xbox layoffs and the closure of Mighty Doom
With the recent wave of layoffs hitting Xbox, the gaming division of Microsoft, we've seen many fan-favourite games like Hi-Fi Rush and Mighty Doom being axed alongside their studios. It was shocking across the board for many following the situation, whether that be casual gamers or business observers. Here at Pocket Gamer Towers, it was also a hot topic of conversation, about the reasons and what it meant for Microsoft's big push into mobile.
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Fortune ☛ Some of the most talented, high-ranking workers at Apple, Microsoft, and SpaceX jumped ship after return-to-office mandates, new study reveals [Ed: How Microsoft et al do mass layoffs without even mentioning the word "layoffs"]
The focus of return-to-office discussions have long focused on the individuals. Why might workers prefer to stay home? Which age groups are most amenable to in-person work, and which are most combative? Does office collaboration make the most sense for creative types or heads-down numbers people? Can workers really be productive left to their own devices?
Yet the lingering question of how widespread remote work shapes company outcomes, as well as the wider sector landscape, largely remains unanswered because the whole experiment remains in flux. But a new working paper from researchers at the University of Michigan and University of Chicago, titled “Return to Office and the Tenure Distribution,” comes fairly close to positing an answer: Return-to-office (RTO) mandates, when they’re not wanted, are bad news for companies looking to keep their talent.
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“They closed studios just to open a new one?”: Xbox and Activision Announcing ‘Elsewhere Entertainment’ in the Backdrop of 4 Studios Shutting Down is Impeccably Brutal Timing and in Very Bad Taste
In the last few weeks, we’ve witnessed Microsoft taking drastic measures and shutting down Hi-Rush studio Tango Gameworks, Redfall creator Arakne, and the two other studios. The tech giant believes that Xbox as a brand needs “small games” to garner its old prestige and get ahead of the competition. With the shutting down of such major studios, we thought we’d see further layoffs and reorganization of studios under Microsoft.
However, in a shocking move, Xbox and Activision have announced a new studio called Elsewhere Entertainment. While the brand-new studio features industry vets who’ve worked on successful games such as The Witcher and The Last of Us, many people in the community can’t believe Microsoft is closing well-established studios to open new ones.