A Tuesday post on Blind, the anonymous workplace forum, claimed Microsoft Gaming is preparing to cut 15% of its staff with an announcement dated "5/6" — which the forum reads as either May 6 or June 5. [1] The post identified itself as from an Activision-Blizzard employee. Inven Global and Gamereactor picked it up overnight. The claim is unconfirmed. Microsoft dismissed a January layoff rumor with a "100 percent made up" line from spokesperson Frank Shaw and has not responded to the April claim. [2]

The paper's Tuesday standard framed the Q2 technology-layoff cluster at roughly 30,000 positions across Snap, Microsoft and Oracle, and the Take-Two AI-team piece recorded the pre-GTA-VI cost-rationalization pattern already in motion. Wednesday's brief adds the gaming-division datapoint. Asha Sharma took over as CEO of Microsoft Gaming in February after Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond exited. The 15% claim, if confirmed, would fall inside the same cost-recovery logic that put Epic Games through 1,000-plus cuts in April and Take-Two through its AI-team reduction on April 21.

The gap — and this is the Entertainment-desk frame, not Business — is that the platform subscription model Microsoft bought Activision-Blizzard to feed has been leaking subscribers since 2024 while Game Pass prices have risen three times. Speculation continues about a new first-party Game Pass tier and a Netflix bundle. Sharma is making calls against a subscription base Spencer never stabilized. [1] If the "5/6" date is real, the sector gets another datapoint. If it is rumor, the rumor still belongs to the pre-GTA-VI pattern. [3]

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles