MS Reorganizes Xbox Studios — 5ch: “It Literally Says ‘Layoffs’ Right There”

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The story

A thread on 5ch’s “Hardware & Industry” (gaming hardware war board, aka “Geha”) kicked off with a post calling it “bad news” for Xbox. Reading further, though, it turns out the news is that Microsoft is reorganizing its Xbox game studios — and with Bungie stating it will “keep Destiny going” and ongoing collaborations with Kojima Productions and FromSoftware, plenty of posters argued it isn’t necessarily bad news at all. On the other hand, the announcement did actually contain the word “layoffs,” so the thread was split between reading the reorganization as good news and reading it as a grim report of job cuts.

What people said

1AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:40
@klobrille
·
28m
10AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:41
Here comes the bad news for MS aaaaaaaaaaaaah
11AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:41
Nope, not happeniiiing lolololol wwwwwwwwww
14AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:42
They're bringing back "Dettiny 2" wwww (a jokey garbled mispronunciation of Destiny 2)
15AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:42
Isn't THAT the actual bad news here wwww
16AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:42
This is gonna get tangled up with Kojima Productions too, isn't it? wwww
26AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:48
Re: #1
No need to spam replies like that on Geha (this board's nickname)
35AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:53
Re: #26
I tried spam-posting when a thread first goes up the other day, thinking it might do something good, but grinding out posts that aren't even copy-pasted nonsense turned out to be a real slog
27AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:48
How many times have they done layoffs now lol
There can't be any decent talent left lol
42AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:57
Re: #27
Foreign companies basically run on quarterly-to-annual contracts anyway
Yearly layoffs are just par for the course
66AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:11
Re: #27
Whatever happened to the original Black Ops team members who left to join the studio Sony set up, saying they'd make "the true CoD"?
36AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:53
I was fully expecting BLADE to get cancelled
45AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:59
Re: #36
Talks with Arkane are still ongoing so it's not officially cancelled yet
But if Arkane doesn't make it through, it's getting axed for sure
41AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:56
Just hurry up and say you're using the money you saved to buy Sega
44AnonymousSep 22, 2026 23:58
Re: #41
They really should pick up a Japanese studio soon
54AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:04
Meanwhile, Bungie quietly declared: "We're keeping Destiny going"

Feels like something happened… nah, must be my imagination
65AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:11
Re: #54
Well, they'd already started rehiring staff, so there were signs it was coming
It's a "happy… but also… hmmm" kind of feeling
So you're back? Then hurry up and get to work, I guess
Bungie can't afford to fail again, so I doubt any new release ends up PS-exclusive
56AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:06
Microsoft killed its own studio for Kojima Productions; Sony dropped Kojima Productions for its own studio
73AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:15
Re: #56
Want to talk about what happened to the company that shut down Japan Studio and bet everything on live-service games?
75AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:17
Is Asha Sharma seriously new to the game industry?

That's a suspiciously perfect move
79AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:19
Re: #75
The whole Director Kojima thing looks like it had been in the works for a while already
Too perfect
92AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:25
Re: #75
Feels like Phil's been pulling strings behind the scenes
82AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:20
Obsidian ending up under Bethesda is good news, not bad news
86AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:22
Re: #82
Obsidian sometimes cooks up something weird and ships it on their own judgment and it flops, so I'm hoping Bethesda's oversight helps them level up
88AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:24
Re: #1
Halo Studios is basically shut down at this point, isn't it
113AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:36
Re: #88
What's getting shut down is a bunch of incompetents who've been floundering around the game industry for over 30 years without a single signature title to their name 🤗
91AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:25
Turns out Nintendo was the only one standing on solid ground
94AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:26
Re: #91
Better luck next time, PS-roach (a mocking 5ch nickname for PlayStation fans, lit. "cockroach")
97AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:27
Re: #84
Haven't you read Miyazaki's interview? Are you some kind of poser fan (ニワカ, 5ch slang for a fake/newbie fan)?

He said they're co-developing, and that Activision has been heavily covering the areas we're (lol) not so good at — accessibility, comfort, and proper onboarding
118AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:38
Re: #97
But FromSoft always seems to get outside help supervising playability lol
Sounds like they're taking advice from Nintendo these days too
102AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:31
Nintendo having rivals hypes up the whole game industry too
Looking forward to seeing MS come out of this reorg in good shape
Everyone else is basically pulling out, right? They dropped Director Kojima chasing profit after all
Guess the games industry just doesn't have great margins
111AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:34
Re: #102
Dropping Kojima was brutal, there's genuinely nothing left now
It's basically snuffing out the last flame of hope for PlayStation die-hards
103AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:31
I figured it was another round of layoffs or something, but it was actually a reorg
Guess it just means their future direction is locked in, in a good way
107AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:32
Re: #103
Nah, it literally says "layoffs" right there lol
105AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:32
Is there even an Xbox faction (箱, 5ch slang for "Xbox," lit. "box") around here?
109AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:33
Re: #105
There's no such thing as an Xbox-only user in Japan, right?
It's always PC, Nintendo, or PS too — everyone's got overlap with something
112AnonymousSep 23, 2026 00:35
Re: #107
Whoa, it really does say "layoffs"
So I guess things still haven't settled and it's all pretty unstable then

Background and Key Points of This Topic

Microsoft’s gaming division, which includes Xbox, has gone through repeated studio reorganizations and layoffs ever since its 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and this thread looks like part of that ongoing pattern. The thread kicked off with a post framing it as “bad news” for Xbox, but reading further reveals a more mixed picture: Bungie announced it will keep Destiny going, and collaborations with Kojima Productions and FromSoftware remain active — hardly all doom and gloom. On the other hand, as seen in the exchange at posts 112 and 116, the announcement itself did actually include the word “layoffs,” so opinions in the thread split over whether to read the reorganization as a positive move or primarily as job cuts. The specific figure of 3,200 people was cited by posters within the thread itself; nothing in the thread verifies it against an official announcement, so it should be treated as a claim made by a participant at the time of posting rather than confirmed fact.

※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware & Industry, “Geha”) thread “[Bad News for PS-roaches] Xbox Bad News Incoming, Here It Comeeeees!! → Turned Out to Be Good News About an MS Game Studio Reorg lol“.

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