The rumor mill stops here
Lowkey, the internet has been spiraling lately about whether Microsoft was getting ready to dump Xbox. Reports from back in June suggested that CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood were looking into spinning the unit out, which had everyone wondering if the brand was about to hit the auction block. But in a recent chat with The New York Times, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma shut that noise down real quick: "Xbox is not for sale."
The "reset" phase
So, what’s the actual vibe? Instead of selling, Microsoft is leaning into a massive internal "reset" that Sharma announced earlier this summer. The goal here is streamlining, which—real talk—means some major cuts. The company is planning to lay off up to 3,200 employees by the end of its 2027 financial year in June.
Nadella seems to be fully on board with the shake-up, calling the streamlining effort "great to see" on the Sources podcast last week. The restructuring is already changing the landscape at the office, with big titles like Halo being moved under the Activision umbrella, alongside the teams behind Sea of Thieves and Age of Empires.
Is it giving... long-term?
The whole strategy seems designed to turn Xbox into a wholly owned subsidiary, similar to how Microsoft handles LinkedIn. They’re cutting down on middle management and offloading smaller studios to focus solely on the heavy hitters. While some might still speculate about a sale further down the line, Sharma insists they are committed to the brand. "We’ve got a long way to go with Microsoft," she said, "and we’re going to take the long-term view." Of course, she did add a caveat from earlier this year: "The plan’s the plan until it’s not the plan."
Why it matters
Xbox is in a transitional era. By cutting costs and shifting focus, Microsoft is trying to prove that gaming is still a core pillar of its business, even if the road to profitability requires some pretty brutal layoffs to get there.
