Xbox Entertainment Studios shuts down as new Microsoft CEO restructures company

If you hadn’t heard, there are some big changes happening at Microsoft. New CEO Satya Nadella has stated his commitment to refocusing the company on working in a “mobile-first and cloud-first world” which leaves anything not in the core mission a bit superfluous. Part of that restructuring resulted in 18,000 job cuts today, mostly from redundancies in the recent acquisition of Nokia. Unfortunately, for Xbox Entertainment Studios in Santa Monica, those cuts also include their operation. In an internal memo to employees, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that programs already in development like the Atari documentary and Halo series would continue as planned.

The future of Xbox will not be in original TV programming. Since Nadella has stated that Xbox is not a core part of Microsoft’s business, many are wondering just where the console’s future is headed.