Xbox has fired its Indie Relations team and stopped sending devkits to ID@Xbox partners In Latin America, it is claimed.
According to Brazilian content creator tvPH, Xbox has laid off its entire internal Indie Relations team responsible for Latin America and halted the distribution of development kits to ID@Xbox partners across the region. He mentioned that the changes have left numerous independent developers uncertain about whether they will be able to release Xbox versions of their games.
The report follows Xbox’s latest round of mass layoffs, which affected several first-party studios and related departments. However, tvPH said the issues facing Latin American indie developers began well before the recent job cuts. According to him, the initial information came directly from one of the affected studios and was later corroborated by multiple Brazilian developers, as well as studios from two other South American countries. He also mentioned that Microsoft was contacted for comment, but the company remained quiet.
Microsoft’s ID@Xbox program has helped independent developers bring their games to Xbox consoles. One of the initiative’s key benefits is providing developers with Xbox devkits to test and optimize games for the platform. These systems cost more than 1,000 US Dollars, making them difficult for smaller studios to obtain, especially in countries like Brazil where import costs significantly increase their price.
The content creator claimed that Xbox quietly froze the distribution of new devkits in South America between August and September of last year. According to him, Microsoft never provided an explanation for the pause or offered a timeline for when shipments would resume. As a result, studios that rely on direct support from ID@Xbox have reportedly been unable to work on and launch Xbox versions of their titles.
The recent layoffs appear to have worsened the situation. According to tvPH, at least half a dozen Microsoft employees dedicated to supporting Latin America were fired, including staff responsible for processing game approvals and members of the company’s philanthropy team overseeing social initiatives in the region. More than a week after the layoffs, developers reportedly still haven’t received any communication from Xbox.
Not every indie studio has been impacted, however. Two Brazilian developers told the content creator that work on Xbox versions of their games is continuing as normal because their relationship with Microsoft is managed through publishers based outside Latin America.
