Games For Windows Live boss Chris Early is reportedly among the 1,400 staff laid off in Microsoft’s recently-announced cutbacks, according to media reports, with claims that 30 percent of Microsoft’s internal game testers have also been laid off.
Games For Windows Live general manager Chris Early is reportedly among the 1,400 staff laid off in Microsoft’s recently announced round of cut backs. According to a report from website VentureBeat, Early joins Microsoft Flight Simulator developer Aces Game Studios as the earliest victims of a planned cull of 5,000 jobs at Microsoft over the next 18 months. As the PC equivalent of Xbox Live, Games for Windows Live has had a mixed response from its inception -- though the company dropped subscription plans for multiplayer play in mid-2008. Even though it now requires no fee, PC gamers have still been slow to embrace the closed-system service, preferring the more open-ended online interfaces traditional in PC games. Titles such as Shadowrun, which allow both Xbox 360 and PC gamers to compete together in the same game, have also struggled to catch on. In a separate story, VentureBeat also suggests that around 30 percent of Microsoft’s video game testers will also be made redundant. The report also suggests a restructuring for the whole game group will occur this month.
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