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While the French publisher also shuts down two of its studios.
"Hello everyone and welcome back to another GRTV News. It's been a pretty good couple of weeks really for the games industry. Lots of exciting showcases and announcements made.
But things kind of have to come full circle at some point and you have to be brought back down to size. We've had a couple of less than nice reports over the last couple of, well overnight really. One was in regards to Xbox where they shared a statement where they were very transparent and they said there's going to be layoffs. They're going to be downsizing because the business is essentially too big, too bloated. Which means that people are going to be losing their jobs. We don't know exactly how many, we just know it's coming. To add to that, Ubisoft has officially laid off a bunch of people and we know exactly who's being affected, which studios are being affected. In fact two studios are being closed altogether."
"With that being the case, let's hop on in. Mass layoffs at Ubisoft, 380 employees affected and two studios closed. Ubisoft writes in an internal memo that they have been evolving its organisation to simplify how it operates, reduce its cost base and strengthen the company for the long term. We recently reported on Bloomberg's story suggesting that major layoffs are expected at Xbox in July, which could also result in the closure of a studio. Unfortunately however, they are not the only ones forced to take this step. The struggling Ubisoft finds itself in the same situation. Ubisoft Gaming is now reporting that up to 380 people are expected to lose their jobs as several Ubisoft studios are forced to downsize. Among those affected are Ubisoft Barcelona, Ubisoft San Francisco and the Rainbow Six Siege team. But Ubisoft Winnipeg and Ubisoft Belgrade are hit the hardest as they are shutting down completely. In an internal memo, Ubisoft Management writes over the past months Ubisoft has been evolving its organisation to simplify how it operates, reduce its cost base and strengthen the company for the long term. These decisions also reflect adjustments to the level of activity following recent portfolio reviews. We certainly hope that everyone affected finds new jobs as soon as possible and that Ubisoft actually recovers and becomes the successful giant it used to be."
"So yeah, 380 people have been laid off. Ubisoft Barcelona, Ubisoft San Francisco and the Rainbow Siege team which I'm assuming is at Ubisoft Montreal have all been affected. But Ubisoft Winnipeg and Ubisoft Belgrade have been officially closed down. Now, Ubisoft Winnipeg and Belgrade aren't primary developers in the sense that they lead development on major titles. They are support studios for the most part and they help other developers get their projects over the line."
"So you're probably going to see a reduction in capacity a little bit because of this you'd have to say. The thing about Ubisoft and it's really hard because you don't want to see people lose their jobs, but Ubisoft hasn't been a very efficient developer for a long time. I mean, you look at 2026 as a whole so far and what has Ubisoft offered up to fans? What has Ubisoft actually put out there to give people a reason to go out there and buy a Ubisoft game? I mean, we've got Assassin's Creed Black Flag re-synced in early July, there's Rayman Legends retold in early October, but we're talking about two remakes and otherwise it's for the most part they're just sort of building on their existing live service titles. Rainbow Six, Trackmania, you know, For Honor, these things that are still ongoing. Ubisoft hasn't been the most productive of publishers in quite some time and clearly, instead of figuring out a way to improve its development capacity, which would be very expensive because you'd have to spend a lot of money to make games, they're simply just downsizing a little bit. It's a difficult one with Ubisoft because you just, I don't know what the next steps is with this company that they are constantly laying people off and shutting down studios and it doesn't seem like there's much of a light at the end of the tunnel at the moment with Ubisoft. So, you know, you hope that it can recover, but I don't think we're ever going to, or at least in the foreseeable future, we're not going to see Ubisoft be the sort of games titan it used to be back in, you know, well, pretty much pre-pandemic era at this point. But yeah, a lot of people being affected. Expect some, another new story like, or another GeoTV News video like this in the near future when the Xbox information is officially shared and we find out which studio is, well, which developers are being laid off and likewise, which studio, if a studio is to be closed, which studio that'll be. Otherwise though, that's all the time that I have in today's GeoTV News, but I'll be back now tomorrow for the next one of the week. So until then, hope you enjoy the rest of your Thursday and I'll see you all tomorrow."
