Bonum Certa Men Certa

Techrights Was Months Ahead of "XBox" News (Mass Layoffs)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jun 12, 2026,
updated Jun 12, 2026

Next: end of XBox as a console

Microsoft's Xbox Unit Braces For Major Layoffs

At the start of this month Microsoft (MSFT) was at $461 and today it's down to about $385, but the stock market isn't a very good measure of corporate performance, just the "confidence" of insider traders and speculators of all kinds (e.g. gambling other people's pension funds "in Wall Street").

Many Fridays ago, around 9PM UTC on a Friday, Microsoft announced that the leaders of XBox were no more! The timing of the announcement was very much deliberate (US markets had just closed), so the impact on the stock was limited... constrained to "after market" (close). We saw the same two weeks ago on a Friday.

Yesterday news trickled out about the XBox mass layoffs we've long spoken about (even several times earlier this month) and today it's to be found/seen all over the world, in many outlets and also in many languages (it's mainstream and widely accepted). It also affirms what we said about timing about the colossal waves of layoffs at Microsoft, which they will frame as "right-sizing" or some other euphemism with a similar effect.

Years ago we said - and showed compelling evidence along the way - that XBox as a console was "dead man walking". It's doomed to stop production altogether - just ignore all the vapourware! - and would sooner or later (maybe a couple of years at most) be abandoned entirely. The vapourware has not and will not materialise; calling Vista 11 "XBox" and vice versa is just a rebranding exercise.

Get ready for what Microsoft insiders casually call "bloodbath" in a few weeks:

Probably but not necessarily first week of July. XBox news can help estimate the "d-day". We'll keep an eye open for any clues and assess their plausibility.

Earlier today in Mumble our core team discussed the danger of these layoffs. A lot of "former" Microsoft staff will end up occupying positions in government, other companies, schools and so on. They'll bring Microsoft with them.

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