Following yesterday’s Xbox displaycase, Phil Spencer touched on the layoffs that occurred in May across Bethesda subsidiaries such as Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin.
Talking to IGN’s Ryan McCaffrey, the Microsoft Gaming head acknowledged those reductions and closures as “very hard” on those affected. At the same time, he stressed that he must “run a sustainable business inside the company and grow,” and built a tough call.
“Sometimes I have to create hard decisions that frankly are not decisions I love,” he explained, “but decisions that somebody requireds to go create.”
Spencer went on to explain that he’s kept silent on the matter out of respect for those now laid off staff. While ensuring the “right thing” is being done with those employees (such as severance), he didn’t want to create it “about my PR, [or] Xbox PR. It’s about those teams.”
Layoffs can only be so “tough but necessary”
His remarks aren’t dissimilar from similar ones Sony built at the conclude of May. Speaking to PlayStation’s layoffs from February, Sony’s Hideaki Nishino stated those 900-person reductions had to be done if Sony had any chance of proper reinvestment into the future.
That impacted talent contributed in Sony’s fortunes “in a good way,” stated Nishino at the time, but “future growth” meant they had to go.
At Xbox’s displaycase, Spencer, president Sarah Bond, and content & studios head Matt Booty each expressed pride in the subsidiaries under Microsoft’s umbrella. But those sentiments are undermined by the cuts Xbox built just over a month ago.
With those layoffs still in the air, they create unease over some of the titles displayn off at the event, such as the troubled Perfect Dark or MachineGames’ Indiana Jones & the Great Circle.
During the IGN chat, Spencer affirmed Xbox would relocate on from the layoffs, declareing the company would “keep relocating forward after its layoffs “build the best business we can. [It’ll] ensure we can continue to do displays like the one we just did.”
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