Three months after completing its $68.7 billion acquisition of gaming company Activision Blizzard, Microsoft is laying off 1,900 employees in its gaming divisions.
This amounts to about 8.6% of 22,000 Microsoft employees in gaming.
Blizzard president Mike Ybarra also announced he will step down, now that the acquisition is finalized.
According to game developer and consultant Rami Ismail, about 5,600 gaming employees have been laid off so far in 2024.
Thats more than half of all gaming layoffs from 2023.
After laying off over 1,000 workers across divisions last week and cutting 100 jobs at YouTube, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a memo to its staff warning more layoffs are expected this year.
Pichai’s memo said the company will have to make “tough choices” to meet its ambitious goals, as reported by The Verge.
But I know it’s very difficult to see colleagues and teams impacted,” he said in an email to staffers.
At the time, the company also confirmed to TechCrunch that Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman were leaving the organisation.
On Wednesday, Google laid off 100 YouTube staffers as part of reorganisation.
Given it’s a free alternative, it’s somewhat surprising that Copilot’s launch hasn’t seemingly impacted ChatGPT’s installs or revenue as of yet — but that could be explained by the lack of promotion.
Unlike some apps, Copilot’s installs are also somewhat evenly split across iOS and Android, with 59% on Google Play vs. 41% on the App Store.
According to Appfigures, ChatGPT’s downloads have also been slowing in December — but this started before Copilot’s release.
During the time that Copilot was amassing its 2.1 million installs, ChatGPT gained another 4.2 million downloads.
The firm told TechCrunch there’s nothing to indicate that Copilot itself is having any impact on ChatGPT’s installs or its revenue, the latter of which continues to rise, in fact.
VF Corporation, the U.S.-based owner of apparel brands including Vans, Supreme, and The North Face, has confirmed a cyberattack has impacted the company’s ability to fulfill orders ahead of Christmas, one of the biggest retail events of the year.
When reached by email, VF Corp. spokesperson Colin Wheeler provided TechCrunch with a statement that echoed the company’s filing with regulators.
In its regulatory filing, VF Corp. warned that the cyberattack would have a “material impact” on its business until its systems are recovered.
VF Corp disclosed the incident on the same day that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s new data breach disclosure rules came into force.
This regulation means that organizations must report cybersecurity incidents, including data breaches, to the federal government’s securities regulator within four business days.
Area 120, the Google incubator responsible for products such as Checks, Tables, Stack and ThreadBite has been significantly affected by broader layoffs at Google parent company Alphabet. Area 120’s three…
