Microsoft has denied rumours of Xbox boss Phil Spencer’s retirement, although plenty wish it were true.
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.’
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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.
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.’
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