New reports claim to show the extent of this week's Microsoft Gaming layoffs

Microsoft surprised the gaming and tech industry on Thursday when it announced mass layoffs in its Gaming division. The company confirmed that 1,900 team members, or close to 9 percent of its Microsoft Gaming workforce, got their jobs cut.

Since that reveal was made, there have been unconfirmed reports on the true extent of how these layoffs might have affected Microsoft's gaming groups. Microsoft has already confirmed that a major game in development at Blizzard Entertainment for several years was canceled as a result of these layoffs.

Windows Central's Jez Corden has posted unconfirmed, but likely reliable, reports on his X (formerly Twitter account). One post from Corden claims that Microsoft has "shut down departments dedicated to bringing Xbox games to physical retail." He later posted that doesn't mean Microsoft will never release physical games anymore, stating that the company could outsource those efforts.

Another post from Corden claims, "A huge amount of community managers have also lost their jobs across the company." He also stated that Microsoft decided to lay off "the entire internal customer support team(s)" for Activision Blizzard King games "save a few," with the rest being outsourced as well.

Call of Duty fan site Charlie Intel also revealed some deep cuts at various Activision Blizzard studios. Its X post today claims, "Every Call of Duty team saw a reduction in staff." Deeper cuts were reportedly made at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's main developer, Sledgehammer Games, which totaled 30 percent of its team members. That was also the same percentage reported at Toys for Bob, while High Moon Studios reportedly lost 10 percent of its workers.

It remains to be seen how all of these job cuts will affect the development of future Call of Duty games.

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