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Phil Spencer, executive vice president at Microsoft, speaks at the company’s Xbox One X reveal event ahead of the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles on June 11, 2017.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Microsoft on Thursday said that it is cutting 650 roles at its Xbox gaming division, in the latest major round of layoffs to hit the video game industry.

It marks the third series of redundancies in Microsoft’s video game unit since the company’s blockbuster acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the publisher behind the Call of Duty franchise, for $69 billion in cash.

The U.S. tech giant confirmed to CNBC that it is cutting hundreds of roles at Xbox, in “mostly corporate and supporting functions.”

Bloomberg News reported the development earlier on Thursday.

In a memo obtained by CNBC, Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, told employees that the firm had taken this “difficult” decision to align its post-acquisition team structure and “organize our business for long term success.”

“We are deeply grateful for the contributions of our colleagues who are learning they are impacted,” Spencer said in the memo.

“In the US, we’re supporting them with exit packages that include severance, extended healthcare, and outplacement services to help with their transition; outside the US packages will differ according to location.”

Microsoft’s gaming chief added that there would be “some impacts to other teams as they adapt to shifting priorities and manage the lifecycle and performance of games.”

He stressed that no games, devices or gaming experiences were being cancelled, and that no studios are being closed as a result of the redundancies.

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Microsoft has been cutting back on costs at Xbox in an effort to make its mammoth takeover of Activision and its broader investment drive on gaming sustainable.

The company previously purchased ZeniMax Media, the owner of Bethesda Softworks, for $7.5 billion in 2021. Bethesda publishes major gaming titles, such as the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series.

Microsoft isn’t the only gaming titan slashing jobs. Major gaming studios have cut thousands of jobs around the world, beginning in 2023 and continuing into 2024.

In February, Japan’s Sony announced it was laying off 900 workers from its PlayStation unit.

Gaming software firm Unity, Amazon-owned livestreaming service Twitch, mobile game publisher Playtika, and social platform Discord have also announced substantial rounds of layoffs.

Redundancies have nevertheless been particularly brutal at Xbox. Microsoft cut 1,900 jobs in its gaming division in January, just three months after closing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

In May, the company announced it was closing a number of gaming studios, including Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog. Several employees were also laid off as part of the shutdowns, although Microsoft has not disclosed how many jobs were affected by these measures.

You can read the full memo from Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, below:

Subject: Changes to Microsoft Gaming

For the past year, our goal has been to minimize disruption while welcoming new teams and enabling them to do their best work. As part of aligning our post-acquisition team structure and managing our business, we have made the decision to eliminate approximately 650 roles across Microsoft Gaming—mostly corporate and supporting functions—to organize our business for long term success.

I know that this is difficult news to hear. We are deeply grateful for the contributions of our colleagues who are learning they are impacted. In the US, we’re supporting them with exit packages that include severance, extended healthcare, and outplacement services to help with their transition; outside the US packages will differ according to location.

With these changes, our corporate and supporting teams and resources are aligned for sustainable future growth, and can better support our studio teams and business units with programs and resources that can scale to meet their needs. Separately, as part of running the business, there are some impacts to other teams as they adapt to shifting priorities and manage the lifecycle and performance of games. No games, devices or experiences are being cancelled and no studios are being closed as part of these adjustments today.

Throughout our team’s history, we have had great moments, and we have had challenging ones. Today is one of the challenging days. I know that going through more changes like this is hard, but even in the most trying times, this team has been able to come together and show one another care and kindness as we work to continue delivering for our players. We appreciate your support as we navigate these changes and we thank you for your compassion and respect for each other.

Phil

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Microsoft will raise prices of commercial Office subscriptions in July

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Microsoft will raise prices of commercial Office subscriptions in July

A general view of the Microsoft office building is seen in Cologne, Germany, on November 18, 2025.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Microsoft said Thursday that it will increase the prices of Office productivity software subscriptions for commercial and government clients on July 1.

The company’s Office applications, which include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, have been facing increased competition in recent years from Google.

“We are continuously investing and innovating our platform for the future,” Nicole Herskowitz, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365 and Copilot, wrote in a blog post. “In the last year, we released more than 1,100 features across Microsoft 365, Security, Copilot, and SharePoint.” The new features have added value to the suites, she wrote.

Price hikes for commercial Office subscriptions have been infrequent. In 2022, Microsoft raised prices of its productivity bundles for the first time since launching the original Office 365 subscriptions in 2011. Microsoft changed the name of Office 365 to Microsoft 365 in 2020. In January, Microsoft announced a price hike for consumer Office bundles.

Microsoft offers Office 365 subscriptions for commercial use that include access to its productivity applications, along with higher-priced Microsoft 365 subscriptions that also include Windows operating system updates.

Here’s a breakdown of the commercial price changes:

  • For small and medium-sized businesses, Microsoft 365 Business Basic will cost $7 per person per month, up from $6.
  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard will be available for $14, up from $12.50.
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium will continue to cost $22.
  • The entry-level Office 365 E1 offering for enterprises will still be sold for $10.
  • Office 365 E3 will jump 13% to $26 from $23.
  • The Microsoft 365 E3 package including Windows for enterprises will rise 8% to $39 from $36.
  • The full-featured Microsoft 365 E5 will increase to $60 from $57.
  • For front-line workers such as cashiers, Microsoft 365 F1 subscriptions will cost $3, up from $2.25.
  • Microsoft 365 F3 will be available for $10, up from $8.

The U.S. Defense Department and other government clients will face similar percentage price increases.

The various subscriptions all exclude access to the $30 Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on that draws on generative artificial intelligence models. Some companies have started widely rolling out Copilot, while others have held off on expanding their deployments, CNBC reported last week.

In many cases, organizations receive discounts off of list prices, but Microsoft has cut back on direct volume deals for some types of customers.

Almost 43% of Microsoft’s $77.7 billion in fiscal first-quarter revenue came from its Productivity and Businesses Processes segment, which includes Office. In October, the company said revenue from Microsoft 365 commercial cloud services jumped 17%, while seats increased 6%, mainly from products targeting small and medium-sized businesses and front-line workers.

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Cramer says this retail stock is ‘one of the greatest performers of all time’

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Cramer says this retail stock is ‘one of the greatest performers of all time’

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Google taps AI vibe-coder Replit in challenge to Anthropic and Cursor

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Google taps AI vibe-coder Replit in challenge to Anthropic and Cursor

People walk next to the Google Cloud logo, during the 2025 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, March 4, 2025.

Albert Gea | Reuters

Google Cloud announced Thursday a multi-year partnership with artificial intelligence coding startup Replit, giving the search giant fresh firepower against the coding products of rivals, including Anthropic and Cursor

Under the partnership, Replit will expand usage of Google Cloud services, add more of Google’s models onto its platform, and support AI coding use cases for enterprise customers.

Google will continue to be Replit’s primary cloud provider. 

Replit, founded nearly a decade ago, is a leader in the fast-growing AI vibe-coding space.

In September, the startup closed a $250 million funding round that almost tripled its valuation to $3 billion, and said it grew annualized revenue from $2.8 million to $150 million in less than a year. 

And new data from Ramp, a fintech company that also tracks enterprise spending on its platform, found that Replit had the fastest new customer growth among software vendors. Google, meanwhile, is adding new customers and spending faster than any other company on Ramp’s platform.

Put those together, and you get a clearer picture of why both companies see opportunity.

Read more CNBC tech news

Vibe-coding emerged as a phenomenon earlier this year after AI models became more adept at generating code using only natural language prompts, allowing users with little experience in programming to use AI to create functioning code and potentially full applications. 

Anthropic announced on Tuesday that its product Claude Code hit $1 billion in run-rate revenue. The coding startup Cursor, in November, closed a funding round that valued it at $29.3 billion, while also announcing it reached $1 billion in annualized revenue. 

Replit, which bills itself as an easy-to-use product for non-developers, could help drive Google Cloud adoption among enterprises, and expand the reach of its AI efforts beyond traditional engineers. 

Google is riding on the momentum of its new top-scoring model, Gemini 3. Shares of Alphabet have risen more than 12% since its debut. 

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