Microsoft Closing Down Xbox Entertainment Studios

As part of a company-wide restructuring and reduction of jobs over the next year, Microsoft will shut down it’s Xbox Entertainment Studios.  XES just debut this past month with “Every Street United” and had a lineup of programming announced earlier in the year including Halo: Nightfall and the Halo TV Series.  All of the current productions will finish up including the Halo series, but Microsoft will slowly wind down the studio and continue pursuing app partnerships with other entertainment providers like Netflix and TV providers.  Microsoft started focusing on the gamers as evident with the presentation at E3 this year.  With the price reduction of the Xbox One removing the Kinect, sales of the console more than doubled last month.  More info about the announcement and a letter sent out from Phil Spencer, head of Xbox can be found on Recode.net.