Microsoft Corp. gaming division Xbox’s senior-most employee in India is departing as a part of the parent company’s global layoffs, The Hindu learned from two people familiar with the development.
The exit of Arjun Varma, India lead at Xbox’s Strategic Markets division, comes following weeks of Xbox hardware being unavailable in India.
The development also marks a significant retreat from India by the Microsoft subsidiary, which has also limited the quantities of Xbox consoles available in the country.
Mobile gaming reigns supreme in India, with console sales of PlayStation and Xbox devices in the current generation of hardware being well under 10 lakhs.
Adoption is unlikely to grow in the medium term, as both PC and console gaming have become much more expensive.
Microsoft Corp. gaming division Xbox’s senior-most employee in India is departing as a part of the parent company’s global layoffs, The Hindu learned from two people familiar with the development. The exit of Arjun Varma, India lead at Xbox’s Strategic Markets division, comes following weeks of Xbox hardware being unavailable in India. The development also marks a significant retreat from India by the Microsoft subsidiary, which has also limited the quantities of Xbox consoles available in the country.
Earlier this week, Microsoft announced a 2% headcount reduction around the world, and news reports indicated that the Xbox team was globally impacted. The firm faces multiple headwinds globally, but also specifically in India, where at least on the gaming console front, Sony’s PlayStation enjoys a considerably larger market share.
A Microsoft spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Varma did not respond to a text message.
Last year, Xbox launched its cloud gaming service with servers in Mumbai and Chennai, allowing users to access their game libraries from multiple devices. It is unclear if that service has taken off in a significant way. In a company-wide email on July 6, Xbox’s global head Asha Sharma said that while its cloud gaming business and other moves “have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected,” and pointed to low margins and losses on game investments.
Mobile gaming reigns supreme in India, with console sales of PlayStation and Xbox devices in the current generation of hardware being well under 10 lakhs. According to data reviewed by The Hindu, it is likely that there are fewer PlayStation 5 devices sold in India than there are gram panchayats.
Adoption is unlikely to grow in the medium term, as both PC and console gaming have become much more expensive. This has been the result of a memory component crisis that has led to sharply increasing prices for RAM, hard disks and solid state drives, pushing up the cost of personal computing considerably.
