#It appears the one you love studios and upcoming video games have been axed so Microsoft might spend $80 billion on AI – Destructoid

To the shock of completely nobody, a brand new report signifies that Microsoft’s latest push to chop over 9,000 staff (or about 4 % of its complete workforce) took place as a result of the corporate wants more cash to speculate into AI.

In line with a report by the Seattle Instances, Microsoft is “trying to trim prices the place it may well” so it might proceed to pour cash into AI infrastructure, the prices of which have been on a gradual rise because the expertise turns into extra widespread. The report additionally states that this doesn’t essentially imply Microsoft is changing its staff with AI, however I discover it exhausting to consider that that motive isn’t hidden someplace between the traces.

Microsoft, per the report, is aiming to spend over $80 billion “to fulfill AI calls for,” which is a stark $25 billion enhance over the earlier 12 months.

If it have been simply Microsoft doing the standard enterprise by chopping yearly prices at a company stage, nobody in gaming would actually care. In spite of everything, for an organization using tons of of hundreds, bills can rack up fairly rapidly. Nonetheless, the cuts considerably impacted Microsoft’s gaming division headed by Xbox, the place the corporate invested tens of billions buying large studios and publishers in addition to spent years getting all the mandatory licenses and approvals to keep away from accusations of monopolization, all in service of AI.

Many studios have been closed, and hyped-up introduced video games have been canceled, to the nice dismay of avid gamers and notably Sport Cross customers. Microsoft’s complete schtick with acquisitions was to increase its first-party choices on day one by way of Sport Cross, the longer term potential of which has now considerably shrunk so Microsoft can proceed creating instruments to scale back human enter in artwork and expertise.

In spite of everything, there’s nothing extra vital at the moment than synthetic mass manufacturing, and whether it is online game artists who’re to be sacrificed to attain it, then so be it.