Off The Record Podcast #175 - Why Does Xbox Keep Laying Off So Many People? Perfect Dark, Everwild, Rare & More
Added 2025-07-04 12:10:19 +0000 UTCWe delve deep into the bloodbath that has unfolded this week at Microsoft as they have laid off more than 9,000 employees, closed entire studios and cancelled multiple major projects including Perfect Dark, Everwild, a new Zenimax MMO, a new John Romeo FPS, and more. We try to make sense of why this keeps happening at Xbox based upon things we've heard from developers over the years and try to answer why we think Xbox continues to decay like this.
Sources
My Crash 5 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzHwPNPW2VM
Eurogamer Xbox layoffs article: https://www.eurogamer.net/microsoft-xbox-layoffs-june-2025-tracking-the-situation-as-it-happens#coverage-61dro0
VGC Coverage of Rare layoffs + Gregg Mayles departure:
Perfect Dark developer Adam McDonald’s thread: https://bsky.app/profile/adammcdlt.bsky.social/post/3lt23bz2dwk2z
Romero Games layoffs message:
https://bsky.app/profile/romerogames.bsky.social/post/3lt2io5pmfk2v
Bloomberg Xbox Executives Playing Zenimax MMO article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-07-03/microsoft-s-xbox-cancels-blackbird-an-upcoming-game-that-impressed-executives?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc1MTU2ODYyNiwiZXhwIjoxNzUyMTczNDI2LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTWVU2WjREV1JHRzAwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.qsy2COuNIZabsf38JG6uvZ2JOF4hCCs1hdYhMXpS9pw
