Yesterday, ShackNews broke the story that Microsoft had just issued layoffs to all employees that were non-essential to the shipping of the Xbox 360 exclusive title, Halo Wars. This story was later refuted by sources at Kotaku. Their sources stated that while there were no layoffs issued today, Shane Kim, the former head of Microsoft Game Studios had made a trip down to Dallas, Texas. It was alleged that the reason for the trip was to deliver the news that the studio will be closed sometime during the coming year, shortly after the release of Halo Wars. This has since been confirmed by Gamespot, via an official Microsoft press release.
So why would Microsoft shutter a studio that had been open for over fifteen years and had shipped almost twenty million units? This looks like it could be signaling the end of the PC game era at Microsoft. Ironically, Microsoft would be abandoning one of the few areas where they had developed consistent success over the last decade. While Microsoft has confirmed that the studio's closure is "fiscally rooted," this may be an effort to shore up support for their budding Xbox business.
Lets look at the facts. In the last twelve months, Microsoft has been significantly trimming the proverbial tree within Microsoft Game Studios. The carnage started last year, on the heals of the failed cross-platform game Shadowrun. Shortly after launch, the boys in Redmond pulled the plug on FASA Studio. This decision essentially put all first party support of cross-platform gaming out to pasture...
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
Spiders: "We're going to cut straight to the chase so you're not left wondering: After a long period without clear answers, we have received confirmation that Spiders is being liquidated.
What does it mean? This means the company as a whole no longer exists. We'll cease our functions immediately. The planned DLC will release via Nacon, and then-- well, that's it.
We're sorry that it's come to this and would like to thank each and every one of you for your support over the years.
If you have any questions or run into issues with your games, please contact Nacon directly as we'll no longer be able to reply."
Sure, they are backing off of PC gaming in some areas but then they go and announce the new Sidewinder PC gaming peripherals line.
Microsoft knows where the money is at I don't blame them. PC gaming might not be dead but the cost for it aren't getting better with regards to upgrades for consumers.
Just another little hint about MS's true intentions towards the PC. They want people to buy a console to game and a PC to do the other stuff and why wouldn't they it makes perfect business sense. So far it seems to be working too with people falling for it.
However I think MS might find killing the PC off as a gaming system will be a lot harder than they think it will be.
That's a bad move.
The Xbox is clearly dead.
Why would you give away the area where you have a monopoly in computer software games in which you make billions of dollars?
Microsoft is stupid.
So that's it then Microsoft gives up on the Xbox, the Zune, Vista, and now the PC.
If Microsoft wants to give up on hardware that's fine but they should continue to make games for consoles if they are gonna leave the console business.
Microsoft is the next Sega.
It happened the same way they were on fire then they just gave up when things got tough.
It doesn't mean Microsoft can't help bring some of that Xbox Experience to the Playstation Brand.
it can never die.
Not even Microsoft can kill PC gaming.