Xbox boss Phil Spencer keeps his job as fans call for him to resign
Per the words of Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer himself, the Xbox brand has 'never looked stronger,' with 'more players, games, and gaming hours than ever before.'
And yet this hasn't protected a significant number of Xbox staff from losing their jobs as part of sweeping layoffs throughout the entirety of Microsoft. An exact figure isn't known, but it does include staff from Bethesda, Activision Blizzard, and the entirety of Perfect Dark developer The Initiative.
As news of the layoffs emerged yesterday evening, a rumour began to spread of Spencer himself retiring from his position in the near future, but Microsoft has since firmly denied that.
The rumour originated from respected Call Of Duty leaker TheGhostOfHope on X, who claimed Spencer was planning to leave after the launch of the next generation of Xbox consoles and pass his position onto Sarah Bond, the current president of Xbox.
Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson added that he had heard similar rumblings while at this year's Summer Games Fest, only to be accused of making things up by Microsoft's own chief communications officer Frank X. Shaw.
A more formal statement by Kari Perez, head of Xbox communications, was later shared with The Verge, though all it says is, 'Phil is not retiring anytime soon.'
Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.
While the insinuation is that Spencer will stick around even after the launch of new hardware (which is expected to happen in the next year or two), you'll find no shortage of people on social media demanding he leave now – and for the record, the examples we're about to share are the more polite ones.
'How does Phil Spencer still have a job?' asks Will Dobbs on Bluesky. 'Like genuine question. So many closures, layoffs, and commercial failures under his leadership.'
'It's genuinely crazy how every single decision Phil Spencer has made in the decade he has run Xbox has been incorrect and financially disastrous yet he gets to remain in his position,' adds Kris Wolfheart.
Brendon Bigley writes, 'That Phil Spencer could make multiple billion dollar bets, fail all of them repeatedly and publicly, and not only keep his job but continue being 'the face' of the Xbox brand is astonishing.'
As a reminder, following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, more than 2,500 employees across Xbox were let go and though no hard figures have been shared, Game File reports that less than half of the 9,000 redundancies throughout all of Microsoft were within the Xbox division.
This puts the total figure of redundancies post-Activision buyout to somewhere in the region of 6,000. We reached out to Microsoft for clarification, but were told merely: 'The overall impact represents less than 4% of Microsoft's global workforce' – as if that wasn't a large figure. More Trending
With so much talent no longer with the company, it's easy to be sceptical of the future of Xbox's upcoming games. A few projects have already been scrapped, namely the Perfect Dark reboot, Rare's Everwild, and an unannounced MMO from The Elder Scrolls Online team.
Variety reports that every Xbox published game shown at last month's showcase is 'safe', and also shared an internal memo sent to the remaining staff by Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty.
'Our overall portfolio strategy is unchanged: build games that excite our players, continue to grow our biggest franchises, and create new stories, worlds, and characters,' it reads.
'We have more than 40 projects in active development, continued momentum on titles shipping this fall, and a strong slate headed into 2026.'
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.
MORE: Xbox hardware 'is dead' says former Microsoft exec in scathing YouTube video
MORE: Halo team promises 'official scoop' on series' future later this year
MORE: Xbox aggregated game library coming to PC with hints of Steam support
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Amazon tumbles after cloud computing growth disappoints investors
Aug 1 (Reuters) - shares fell 7% on Friday as the tech giant's results fanned investor fears its cloud unit was falling behind Microsoft and Alphabet in the artificial intelligence race. Amazon Web Services, long the cloud-computing market leader, edged past Wall Street estimates for June-quarter revenue on Thursday with a 17.5% increase, but it widely lagged the 39% growth seen at Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud's 32% gain. That disappointing growth came even as Amazon shelled out $31.4 billion in capital expenditure, more than rivals, and suggested it would spend a more-than-estimated $118 billion for the year. Google and Microsoft also pledged higher spending, but were rewarded from investors on signs AI was already becoming a major growth driver across their businesses, justifying the bill. The companies have been spending billions of dollars on datacenters and cutting-edge chips that they say are necessary to overcome supply constraints hampering their efforts to capitalize on soaring demand for AI services. "The spotlight was firmly on AWS and it didn't quite shine as brightly as expected," said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. "While Microsoft and Alphabet have already shown strong momentum in cloud growth, AWS wasn't the knockout many wanted to see." Growing expenses have also started to take a bite out of AWS's margins, the business that has long been Amazon's profit engine, accounting for about 60% of its operating income. AWS margins contracted to 32.9% during the quarter, their lowest level since the final quarter of 2023, and Amazon also issued a current-quarter total operating income forecast that was lower than market estimates. CEO Andy Jassy told analysts on a post-earnings call that it was still "very early days" in the AI race and that Amazon's massive cloud business, much larger than rivals, was primed to perform well once the AI capacity constraints start to ease. The stock, now down 1.5% for the year, was at $216.2 in late morning trading. The drop was set to erase around $170 billion from Amazon's market value, if the losses hold. The company still trades at a relatively high premium, with a 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio of 33.87, compared with Microsoft's (MSFT.O), opens new tab 34.19 and Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab 18.64, according to data compiled by LSEG. At least 30 analysts raised their price targets on the stock, while three lowered, giving it a median view of $260. Some of that analyst confidence comes from the strong performance of Amazon's retail business, which has remained resilient in the face of Trump administration tariffs that have hobbled many retailers and their supply chains. Amazon has yet to see a drop in demand or a notable rise in prices in the first half of the year, Jassy said, as its online store sales jumped a better-than-expected 11% in the second quarter. Manufacturers and suppliers have shouldered most of the tariff impact so far, analysts said, but noted that much of the inventory Amazon sold in the quarter arrived in the preceding three-month period. "If Amazon's retail business was a standalone entity, it would be trading dramatically higher following the near-perfect results," said Michael Morton, analyst at MoffettNathanson. "Unfortunately, as we all know, the success of the retail business is not what's going to matter in the near term for Amazon's stock price."
Metro
3 hours ago
- Metro
Battlefield 6 'doesn't need Nicki Minaj' says dev in knock against Call Of Duty
Fans of Battlefield 6 are worried the new game will pull a Call Of Duty when it comes to crossover skins, but the developer insists it will remain 'grounded'. According to current rumours EA is expecting to attract up to 100 million players to Battlefield 6, when it's released in October. That's orders of magnitude more than any previous entry in the series and more akin to the numbers enjoyed by the likes of Call Of Duty and Fortnite. Some influence from those games can already be seen in Battlefield 6, as the sequel will feature a separate battle royale mode. That isn't necessarily a bad idea but it has many fans worried that Battlefield may pick up some of Call Of Duty's other bad habits, especially when it comes to paid-for skins. Call Of Duty and Fortnite are known, for better and worse, for mountains of cosmetic skins based on movie stars, cartoon characters, real-life celebrities, and much more. Call Of Duty fans are getting increasingly fed up with the trend and it seems Battlefield 6 will be purposefully avoiding it. Speaking with DBLTAP during a recent London event, Battlefield 6 design director Shashank Uchil (who's been working on the series since 2018's Battlefield 5) expressed a disinterest in any sort of wacky crossovers for the game, insisting the game will remain 'grounded.' 'It has to be grounded. That is what Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 was – it was all soldiers, on the ground,' said Uchil. 'I don't think it needs Nicki Minaj. Let's keep it real, keep it grounded.' That second bit is a very pointed reference to how Activision added rapper Nicki Minaj as a playable skin in 2022's Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Not even as a character, but as herself and not in any sort of military wear. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Battlefield Studios head Vince Zampella (who famously helped create Call Of Duty) was also quizzed by Eurogamer about the possibility of crossover skins. 'We want to be true to Battlefield, we want this fantasy to feel like you'd expect of Battlefield, so that's what we've been focused on,' he answered. While it can feel like Call Of Duty fans are always complaining about something with each new game, the series' use of crossover skins has been a point of contention for many years now. Things started off with celebrity cameos like Lewis Hamilton and various footballers, but as the years went on the skins became more and more fantastical. It was one thing when Call Of Duty was adding action heroes like Rambo and John McClane, who at least somewhat fit with the series' aesthetic, but now you have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and cartoon characters like Beavis and Butthead running around shooting one another in Call Of Duty's otherwise realistic looking maps. There's no shortage of Call Of Duty fans hating on these sort of skins online, with the Beavis and Butthead ones prompting a Reddit thread labelled 'COD is cooked' with more than 8,000 upvotes. 'I was fine with the future tech, the anime, I reluctantly accepted the animal and mascot characters but… f***ing giant glowy cartoon character? Really?' reads the top comment. 'I remember coming around a corner and seeing Nicki Minaj knifing some dude and just turned the game off. It was the last time I played COD,' reads another. COD is Cooked [COD] byu/Purehate28 inCallOfDuty A separate thread from nine months ago innocently asked fans what their favourite Call Of Duty collab has been and while there are plenty legitimate answers, a lot of comments are people answering with none of them. The top comment is just a blunt 'No', with the second most upvoted being, 'None, I hate annoying skins, let alone crossovers.' As a result, a rumour from April, courtesy of frequent Call Of Duty insider GhostOfHope, suggests that despite the crossovers 'printing money,' Activision plans to rein them in because of fan complaints. By comparison, Battlefield fans have been elated at just how ordinary the skins for Battlefield 6 look so far. When the first line-up of skins leaked earlier this week, fans on Reddit praised them for looking like… generic soldiers. One comment simply reads, 'I love them, I love them, I love them,' while another says, 'Finally no weird operators, just plain anonymous soldiers.' That said, there remain concerns that EA will opt to sell weird crossover skins later down the line. After all, the reason Call Of Duty and Fortnite keep doing them is that despite the complaints plenty of people are willing to pay good money for them. More Trending 'The moment I see Nicki Minaj running through the map holding an M16, I'm out,' says one fan, with someone predicting it'll happen in just six months. Another fan writes, 'Modern military skins is totally okay, but that's a big no if we see some other characters for instance from Squid Game, Beavis & Butthead, Diablo 3, etc., etc. with anime guns and/or some other funky/pop/arcade things.' It's worth noting that Battlefield has dabbled in crossovers before, with Battlefield 2042 receiving skins based on Dead Space and Mass Effect. However, those are EA owned franchises and at least vaguely fit Battlefield's near future aesthetic. Even so, while the Battlefield 6 team might be disinterested in copying Call Of Duty's example when it comes to collabs, the higher-ups may have different ideas, especially if they want to market the game to a wider audience beyond the established fanbase. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Battlefield 6 pre-orders are live – here's everything you need to know MORE: Call Of Duty fans reject Blacks Ops 7 for 2025's other big shooter MORE: Call Of Duty 2027 will launch new franchise with martial arts theme says leaker
Daily Mirror
3 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
I played Battlefield 6 early and the game has returned to its roots in the best way
Lets all forget about Battlefield 2042, because Battlefield 6 is more like Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4, so if you liked them, you'll love this! After getting hands-on with Battlefield 6 at a preview event in London, I'm delighted to report that the series is reverting from Battlefield 2042's divisive evolution and is returning to what it does best, in the best way possible. Battlefield 6 's predecessor was extremely underwhelming for Battlefield players. The quest for innovation went too far, moving away from the destruction, realism, and magic that made the series so popular. However, with its upcoming FPS title, EA has instead recognised what players loved about the older titles and doubled down on what made players love Battlefield games in the first place. You've seen the first reveal trailer, and you've seen the multiplayer reveal trailer, but after playing it for around two hours at a preview event, here's my take on how Battlefield 6 is shaping up before launch. Introducing All Out Gaming Battlefield is back Battlefield 6's movement feels more realistic and, therefore, slightly more stodgy than Call of Duty 's extreme omnimovement, yet it still feels responsive and not at all cumbersome. This is in part thanks to new movement features like the ability to crouch while running, lean, and peek with weapons, and the fact that when you slide, there's very little visual recoil and crosshair movement. It feels really, really good, and I can't wait to play more in the upcoming Battlefield 6 beta. Gone are the operator-style choices, with Battlefield 6 bringing back the classic and iconic Class system, with four classes: Assault, Recon, Engineer, and Support. Each class has its own unique signature trait and signature gadget, with the Assault class featuring a stim that temporarily increases sprint speed and reduces explosion damage, while the Signature Trait is reduced fall damage and no movement speed penalty after falling. It's certainly a more simplified system, but it absolutely works, particularly as you're not locked to certain weapons depending on the class you choose. For example, you can still choose a sniper when playing as the Assault class. The gunplay feels great overall, with satisfying feedback and mechanics, particularly with carbines and sniper rifles, although I didn't really gel with the assault rifles that were on offer during my gameplay session, as they felt a little bit too slow, but without the payoff of being more powerful. It doesn't feel like Call of Duty, but that's a good thing. Battlefield shouldn't feel like Call of Duty; it has its own unique combat identity and movement mechanics. Instead of trying to copy competitors, Battlefield 6 feels like a spiritual successor to Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4, two of the most popular games in the series. And, unlike Activision 's latest, there's no Nicki Minaj or Seth Rogen in sight. The thing that Battlefield does better than anyone is destruction, and thankfully, there's even more destruction than ever before. Not only can you blast off the side of buildings and bridges to eliminate or get enemies in the open, you can also slam a sledgehammer into the floor of a building and take out a team below, or take out the roof and surprise them from below. The only thing I couldn't quite work out is which buildings feature this mechanic, and which don't, as I found there was one specific building in the Empire State map where this was possible, a townhouse-style building that features heavily in the trailers, and it was unclear if other buildings could be destroyed in this way. Maybe it was due to the lack of time I had with the game, or the fact that I was playing an early version with limited maps, but it's something to keep an eye on at launch about how far that specific feature goes. The maps I experienced all felt special and have the ability to be all-timers. Empire State, Siege of Cairo, Liberation Peak, and Iberian Offensive all looked and played great. And, thanks to them being huge maps that have cut down areas for certain game modes, and they've been tuned particularly for those specific modes, none of the maps felt out of place in Squad Deadmatch or Domination, as the playing area has been designed specifically for those modes. Battlefield 6 is chaotic, loud, and destructive; it's a quintessential Battlefield experience that takes everything that made the series so popular and turns it up to 11. If you loved Battlefield 3 and 4, you'll love Battlefield 6. But, you don't get on with Battlefield generally, it might not be for you, because it's unapologetically Battlefield, and that's exactly what the series needed.
