Say "reportedly" on every line of this one. The source is a single report, Microsoft hasn't confirmed anything, and the people it affects find out this week.
## The report The Information, citing a source briefed on Microsoft's plans, says Xbox will lay off hundreds more employees this week and "consolidate several studios." The report doesn't say which ones. It points at movement or mergers across the four publishing arms: Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, Activision and Blizzard. VGC picked it up early Tuesday.
## The math so far July's first wave hit 1,600 jobs, with Microsoft saying another 1,600 would follow by the end of its business year. Hundreds of those landed at ZeniMax Online (The Elder Scrolls Online) and around 100 at id Software, whose staff said they'd been cut down to support-studio size. Blizzard was mostly untouched in round one. This week's report would be part of that second 1,600.
## The reset, in Sharma's words New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told the Bloomberg Tech conference in June the business was "not in a healthy spot" and that she was "resetting" it. Since then Compulsion Games and Double Fine have gone independent, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs "entered terms to join new ownership," and Xbox owned studios keep leaving the building. Add last summer's 9,000 Microsoft cuts, which killed the Perfect Dark reboot and Rare's Everwild, and the 1,900 cut in early 2024.
## Why it lands on this show Physint is an Xbox game now. Kojima said this weekend that Xbox is the reason OD and Physint are alive. The same week, the publisher paying for them is cutting hundreds of the people who'd ship them. That's not a contradiction, it's the industry: big bets on outside names, fewer people inside. Watch which studios get merged, and watch whether any of it touches the single-player pipeline.
## Sources - Xbox will reportedly 'consolidate several studios' in new major wave of layoffs — VGC, Sept. 22, 2026 - Exclusive: Xbox to cut hundreds of jobs, consolidate game studios — The Information, Sept. 21, 2026 - Xbox confirms plans to cut 5 studios and thousands of jobs — VGC, July 2026

