Elon Musk is hardly lacking for toys. He can spend the morning digging vast tunnels with Hyperloop, the afternoon launching rockets with SpaceX, and spend the evening posting on his very own X social media network. Even so, there is one gadget that could still tempt Musk: Microsoft’s increasingly error-prone Xbox.
It was reported this week that the Xbox division would be axing 3,200 jobs, the equivalent of a fifth of its workforce. The company is also selling four of its game development studios. Xbox has suffered from slim profit margins, spiraling hardware costs, and sluggish growth for Xbox’s Game Pass subscription service. And Xbox fans have been outraged at leaks suggesting the company may remove the disc drive in it’s upcoming machine. That would mean an end to the cheaper, second-hand games market. It’s a desperate attempt by Xbox to claw back some much needed cash from fans.
These machines are a vast, untapped reserve in an era when the world’s leading companies are scrabbling for chips
“Our business today is not healthy,” said Asha Sharma, who has been CEO since February. Xbox has “lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested” and management has ballooned to as many as 14 layers. Staff numbers have grown 40 percent since the release of Xbox Series X and S in November 2020, “even as our player base and playtime have declined,” Sharma explained. Xbox is in need of its very own DOGE.
