Bonum Certa Men Certa

XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 14, 2025,
updated Jul 14, 2025

Silly gimmicks as a smokescreen while Microsoft's gaming division is collapsing and "Copilot" staff too is subjected to mass layoffs because it is based on lies

Microsoft’s new AI “Copilot for Gaming” struggles to justify its existence

We are hardly astounded or surprised that Microsoft is closing down many studios [1], as the writings have been on the wall for years already. As someone put it about a day ago: "Xbox is crashing before our eyes, but lets see if they can compete with PS6. Windows 11 is sluggish and full of bugs. Why is Xbox raising their prices at the end of their console lifecycle? Lucky PS5 hasn't change in that department. However, Xbox integration with Windows is the only neat thing. They missed the phone market."

Pro-Microsoft sites are protesting the slop experiments [2], arguing that it kills the company by wasting a ton of money. Given that even slop (so-called 'hey hi') staff is being laid off, it's clear that even Microsoft is begrudgingly throwing in the towel.

Today there are many articles (examples include [3-5]) about Microsoft using slop in XBox, having previously angered people with the lie about slop being viable for making games - a lousy claim soon to be blasted and dismissed as PR lies. Once the media called out the "BS", Microsoft mostly stopped repeating these claims.

Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money. It's about putting a bunch of monkeys in a circus that no longer attracts audiences, hoping to pretend the circus is still financially viable despite issues or in spite of missing income sources. Eventually this circus too will shut down.

Earlier today Aaron Wolf wrote: "The purpose of AI [sic] in most of this context is **not** about improving productivity!! It's about taking away tech-worker labor power. Cory Doctorow explains it all very clearly: There will be a day when AI is actually productively helpful, but that's not today for most things. Today, it is a cudgel for bosses to use to take away power from workers, even if the results for productivity are worse."

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Xbox’s Recently Closed Studio The Initiative Was Said To Be ‘AAAA Team’

    Xbox’s latest wave of layoffs was followed by multiple cancellations and studio closures. Among the more disheartening announcements was the revelation that Perfect Dark was cancelled and The Initiative was being shut down.

    This information becomes even more surprising when considering the fact that Xbox previously referred to The Initiative as a fully AAAA team.

  2. The Xbox Layoffs Make It Clear That It’s Past Time To Stop Playing With AI

    Microsoft laid off more than 9000 employees earlier this month. This has resulted in long-gestating games like Perfect Dark and Everwild getting axed, alongside an unannounced MMO project from the makers of The Elder Scrolls Online.

    In each individual case, you can point to potential causes for their demise. The Initiative and Rare were arguably taking too long to deliver their games, and both seemed to be struggling through its own troubled development cycle. The ground has shifted for live-service games in recent years and a new offering, even one from a proven MMO developer like Zenimax Online, has no guarantee of success. More broadly, Xbox has made puzzling decisions in recent years — like going all-in on Game Pass at the expense of its hardware — that may have finally come back to bite it.

  3. Fresh from telling laid-off employees to console themselves with AI, Microsoft doubles down by advertising Xbox jobs with pathetic AI image: 'So tone deaf I hope it is satire'

    The rollicking clown car that is Microsoft corporate leadership has outdone itself once again. Earlier this month Phil Spencer said Microsoft's gaming business has "never looked stronger" as he announced mass layoffs, which was swiftly followed up by an Xbox exec suggesting that affected employees use AI to console themselves. And now?

    A round of slow claps for Xbox's principle development lead Mike Matsel, another victim of terminal LinkedIn brain, who took to the social networking site this past weekend to announce some good news: we're hiring! Except…

  4. Microsoft Employee Criticized for Advertising Xbox Graphics Role Using AI 'Slop' Artwork, Just Weeks After Mass Layoffs

    A Microsoft employee has drawn criticism for sharing a widely-ridiculed AI image to advertise empty roles on Xbox's graphics team.

    The image, which features a woman sat at a computer typing code — shown on the rear of the monitor, rather than its screen — is clearly made by AI. Accompanying text states: "Xbox Graphics Is Hiring".

    Reaction to the post, which went live on LinkedIn over the weekend and is still available at the time of writing, is a mixture of bafflement and outright anger — with many responses criticising the "embarrassing" quality of the image, and the timing of the post, just weeks after mass layoffs at Xbox as Microsoft doubles down on AI.

  5. Xbox Graphics Lead Puts Out Tone-Deaf Hiring Call With AI-Slop, Shortly After Devastating Layoffs

    July 2025 kicked off with devastating news for Microsoft employees, as it laid off 9,000 workers across the entire company, with a significant number of those layoffs hitting Xbox and Microsoft's gaming division. Studios and game projects were shut down, veteran developers were either laid off or left because of the cuts, and amid reports that the layoffs are directly related to Microsoft wanting to invest more in its AI efforts, Microsoft and Xbox executives have failed to read the room multiple times.

    While claims were circulating that Microsoft and Xbox are "trying their damndest to replace jobs with AI agents," it was unfortunate, to say the least, that a seemingly automated invite went out to developers inviting them to a roundtable at Gamescom 2025 all about how AI tools can aid in game development. Disdain towards Xbox, Microsoft, and the c-suite executives who didn't lose their jobs compounded when an executive producer at Xbox suggested that laid-off workers confide in ChatGPT to help them cope with being laid off.

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