Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya is leaving PlatinumGames, after helping to found the company back in 2006 when it was called Seeds Inc. Kamiya was recently promoted to VP, so this move comes as a slight surprise. He recently said on social media that it was "by no means an easy decision to make."

Kamiya still has a couple of weeks on his post, as he officially exits the company on October 12. As for the why of it all, he wrote that the move “came after a lot of consideration based on my own beliefs," but didn't offer further explanation. He says he’s still going to make games in his “Hideki Kamiya way”, but hasn’t announced if he’s heading to another company, starting his own or even just planning to tinker away in a garage somewhere. He’s only 52, so a complete retirement is highly unlikely.

Kamiya’s mark on gaming is massive. Most recently, he was the supervising director of the critically-acclaimed Bayonetta 3. During his more than 15 years at PlatinumGames, Kamiya worked on classics like the original Bayonetta, the Wii U and Switch cult hit The Wonderful 101 and the action-heavy Astral Chain, among others. He was staffed at Capcom and its spin-off studio Clover before founding PlatinumGames, helming Resident Evil 2, Viewtiful Joe and Ōkami.

Kamiya has been hard at work these past few years on a superhero title internally referred to as Project GG. He was lead director on the “heroic” game and the company has marketed it as a conclusion to his superhero trilogy, joining Viewtiful Joe and the Wonderful 101. PlatinumGames hasn’t announced if the game’s still coming or if it will poof into vaporware with Kamiya’s departure.

Panos Panay is leaving Microsoft after 19 years with the company, as confirmed via an official tweet. He’s been operating as the chief product officer with Microsoft, heading up Windows 11 development and the company’s Surface line. Rajesh Jha, Microsoft’s vice president of experience and devices, broke the news in an email to employees, as reported by The Verge.

Panay was hired on by Microsoft back in 2004 as a group program manager, overseeing a number of premium products. After heading the development of the initial Surface line of tablets and hybrid laptops, he was named the company’s chief product officer in 2018. His rise continued in 2021 when he was promoted to executive vice president after a successful Windows 11 launch, eventually becoming involved in a leadership team that directly advised CEO Satya Nadella.

There’s been no actual reason given by either party, but Panay says he has “decided to turn the page and write the next chapter.” The timing here is a bit suspicious, as Microsoft’s conducting a livestream event on Thursday that will almost certainly be dedicated to new Surface products. We reached out to the company for clarification as to why Panay left his position and what that means moving forward. We’ll update this post when we hear more.

As for what’s next, Microsoft has already said that Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s current corporate vice president of modern life, search and devices, will take Panay’s place as the head of the Windows and Surface divisions. The company also still seems committed to two areas of the business that Panay consistently championed: integrating AI into Windows 11 and mixed-reality. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement released to TechCrunch that the company remains “steadfast and convicted in our strategy.” We’ll have to see how this unfolds Thursday during Microsoft’s Surface-centric event.

The technology industry has been hit hard by layoffs this year, and GrubHub is the latest to cut staff. The company’s CEO Howard Migdal announced today that the company will be letting go of roughly 400 employees, or 15 percent of its corporate workforce. The layoffs will supposedly help Grubhub stay "competitive" with the market.

He said, "Over the last few months, I met with Grubhub teams to learn about the business from the ground up; I spoke to restaurants and diners to understand their needs – and challenges – when using our service." Impacted employees will be "notified over the next several hours." Migdal goes on to say that he understands that this will be a difficult time for all employees. For those who are keeping their jobs, he claims that more details about “our future together” will surface in the coming days.

Back in March of this year, Grubhub’s then CEO Adam DeWitt announced that he would be stepping down at the start of May amid increasing economic pressure. With Migdal as the new CEO, it’s not terribly surprising that his first move would be to try and reduce operating costs due to the continued economic pressure.

Grubhub isn’t the first and likely isn’t the last delivery service to start to cut employees. Late last year, DoorDash announced that it would be laying off nearly 1,300 employees due to "operating expenses." The company’s CEO Tony Xu said that DoorDash increased hiring during the pandemic and that operating expenses would continue to outgrow sales.

The big difference between DoorDash and Grubhub is that the former offered those who were laid off 13 weeks of compensation along with four weeks of severance pay. Grubhub’s announcement today did not mention any sort of compensation or severance pay for those who are being laid off.

Elon Musk is making good on his promise to step down as Twitter CEO following a poll. The entrepreneur has announced that a replacement chief executive will start in roughly six weeks. While he hasn't identified the new leader by name, it will be a woman. Musk will stay on as executive chairman and chief technical officer covering "product, software and sysops."

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One of streaming's most influential figures is stepping away from the spotlight. Netflix co-creator Reed Hastings is stepping down as the company's co-CEO. Ted Sarandos, who has been co-CEO since July 2020, will share the reins with newly promoted operations chief Greg Peters. Hastings will remain involved as Executive Chairman.

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Microsoft could announce wide-sweeping layoffs within the next few days. The possibility of the tech giant laying off a significant part of its workforce was first reported by Sky News and later corroborated by Bloomberg. Sky put the number of the cuts at approximately five percent of the company’s 220,000-person workforce or about 11,000 employees total. Bloomberg said it couldn’t find out the scale of the layoffs but reported they would affect “a number of engineering divisions” and that they’re set to be “significantly larger” than other rounds of job cuts undertaken by Microsoft over the last year.

A Microsoft spokesperson told Engadget the company does not comment on rumor and speculation. If the 11,000 figure is accurate, it would equal the 11,000 jobs Meta eliminated last year and fall short of the 18,000 positions Amazon expects to cut once the retailer is done with its far-reaching layoffs. In any case, Microsoft seemingly finds itself on a familiar trajectory. The company saw profits soar during the first two years of the pandemic, and it tried to capitalize on the moment by going on a hiring spree, adding 50,000 employees over that same time frame. But as recently as this past October, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warned of imminent belt-tightening due to worsening macroeconomic conditions. “We're focused on helping our customers do more with less, while investing in secular growth areas and managing our cost structure in a disciplined way," he told investors and analysts at the time. He’ll likely have more to say about Microsoft's current position when the company announces its second-quarter earnings on January 24th.

Warhammer shows and films may be coming to Prime Video in the next few years. Amazon has secured the global rights to Warhammer 40,000, according to Deadline, and Henry Cavill is set to star in and executive produce the franchise. The company's confirmation comes after the announcement by Games Workshop, the manufacturer behind the miniature wargame, that it has "reached an agreement in principle" with Amazon. It's unclear if the two companies have already worked out the details of their partnership, but Games Workshop said it's giving Amazon the rights to develop films and TV series based on the IP, along with any associated merchandising rights. Deadline lists games and animation as other potential projects.

The tabletop wargame has been around since 1987 and is set in the distant future with a rich lore that encompasses humans, alien races and gods. Based on Deadline's report, production company Vertigo Entertainment teamed up with Cavill, who once posted a photo of himself painting a Warhammer miniature in the middle of pandemic lockdowns, to secure the Warhammer 40,000 IP before bringing the project to Amazon. Cavill recently left The Witcher, where he played Geralt of Rivia, and was supposed to play Superman in future DC films. However, he was ultimately dropped as the superhero after DC Studios' new co-chairman James Gunn decided to write a movie for a younger Man of Steel. 

In a statement, Cavill said: "I have loved Warhammer since I was a boy, making this moment truly special for me. The opportunity to shepherd this cinematic universe from its inception is quite the honour and the responsibility. I couldn’t be more grateful for all the hard work put in by Vertigo, Amazon Studios and Games Workshop to make this happen. One step closer to making a nigh on lifelong dream come true."

Now that Elon Musk owns Twitter, he's officially taking the reins as CEO — for the moment, anyway. Twitter has made an amended filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicating that Musk is "the Chief Executive Officer" of the social network. This comes alongside the entrepreneur's moves to dissolve the company board, become sole director and fire many of the company's veteran executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal. He's clearing house, in other words.

It's not clear how long Musk will remain in the CEO position. He states that his sole director status is "just temporary," but hasn't elaborated. Musk already runs Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink, so there's only a limited amount of time to helm yet another firm. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has rolled over his shares (that is, transferred them to the new company), indicating his support for Musk.

Musk has already made or proposed sweeping changes in the first week of owning Twitter. On top of the leadership overhaul, he has reportedly ordered layoffs and unveiled plans for a "moderation council" that will make key content decisions. The new CEO has also floated a number of potential changes, including charging for verification as part of a Blue subscription and even resurrecting Vine.

The management shakeup is poised to be expensive, with The Guardianreporting that it could lead to a minimum $120 million in "golden parachute" exit payments. The figure pales in comparison to what Musk paid to buy Twitter in the first place, though.

Snap has confirmed reports that it will lay off around 20 percent of its employees — approximately 1,300 people — to reduce costs. The company has also canceled most original Snapchat shows (save for the long-running politics and news series Good Luck America) and shelved other projects. For one thing, Snap said it's putting games and mini-apps into maintenance mode. It will also sunset the standalone Zenly and Voisey apps to focus on Snapchat's Snap Map and Sounds features.

On the hardware front, Snap is "narrowing our investment scope in Spectacles to focus on highly differentiated long-term research and development efforts." In addition, the company has halted further development of its Pixy selfie drone only a few months after it started selling the device.

Snap said in a note to investors that the layoffs, project cancellations and other restructuring will save the company approximately $500 million in the annualized cash cost structure relative to the April-June quarter (for which Snap posted lackluster earnings results). The figure includes a $50 million reduction in content costs. The restructuring costs will be around $110 million to $175 million. Approximately $95 million to $135 million of that will likely be incurred in adjusted operating expenses, mostly in the current quarter.

"Unfortunately, given our current lower rate of revenue growth, it has become clear that we must reduce our cost structure to avoid incurring significant ongoing losses," Snap CEO Evan Spiegel wrote in a letter to staff. "While we have built substantial capital reserves, and have made extensive efforts to avoid reductions in the size of our team by reducing spend in other areas, we must now face the consequences of our lower revenue growth and adapt to the market environment."

Speigel noted that the company is restructuring around three pillars: community growth, revenue growth and augmented reality. "Projects that don’t directly contribute to these areas will be discontinued or receive substantially reduced investment," he added. 

Snap has been feeling the brunt of a broader economic slow down. Its share price has slumped by 80 percent this year (though it rebounded slightly following news of the layoffs and restructuring). So far in 2022, the company's year-over-year revenue growth is eight percent, which Speigel said is "well below what we were expecting earlier this year." However, the Snapchat+ subscription service is off to a positive start, with more than a million users signing up within the first month or so.

Meanwhile, company's leadership team has a fresh look. This week, its two top advertising executives departed for Netflix, which will soon start offering an ad-supported tier. Snap has promoted its former senior vice president of engineering Jerry Hunter to the position of chief operating officer. It will also bring in Ronan Harris, Google's UK and Ireland vice president and managing director, as president of its Europe, Middle East and Africa division.

It's the end of an era at the company formerly known as Facebook. Sheryl Sandberg has officially stepped down as Chief Operating Officer on August 1st, as revealed by a SEC filing noticed by TechCrunch. In the filing, Meta said Javier Olivan is now the company's COO and that Sandberg will only remain an employe until September 30th. After that and going forward, Sandberg will serve as a member of Meta's Board and will receive compensation as a non-employee director. 

Sandberg first announced that she was leaving her role as COO of Meta after 14 years in early June. Mark Zuckerberg revealed at the time that Olivan will take on the COO role, but that his responsibilities will be different from Sandberg's. Olivan will have a "more traditional COO role where [he] will be focused internally and operationally, building on his strong track record of making our execution more efficient and rigorous," the company CEO said. 

As The Wall Street Journal noted in a piece about Sandberg back in June, she joined Facebook in 2008 and led the business side of the company, allowing Zuckerberg to focus on engineering work. In more recent years, she became the face of the social network when it comes to leading public response to controversies, such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Before Sandberg announced her departure, The Journal reported that the Meta COO used company resources to help kill negative reporting about Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who she was dating at the time. In mid-June, the publication also reported that Meta’s lawyers are investigating Sandberg's use of the company's resources and employees for her foundation and to promote her book Option B. 

Sandberg is leaving the company just as it has started preparing for "serious times." In a meeting with employees, Zuckerberg revealed that Meta is experiencing "one of the worst downturns [it has seen] in recent history." As a result, Meta had to slash its target number for new engineers this year. In addition, company leadership reportedly told managers to identify poor performers and to "move to exit" them if they can't get back on track.