What You Missed This Week in Video Games

“Game On” is The Fly’s weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.

NEW RELEASES: This week’s biggest new release is Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) action shooter game “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League,” which is based in the DC Comics universe and a spin-off of the “Batman: Arkham” series. The title releases for PC, PlayStation 5 (SONY), and Xbox Series X/S (MSFT) on February 2. Also out that same day is Sega’s (SGAMY) “Persona 3 Reload,” a remake of the 2006 role-playing game of the same name. The game launches February 2 for PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

MICROSOFT LAYOFFS: Last week, Microsoft said in an internal memo obtained by The Verge that the company would lay off 1,900 employees at Activision Blizzard and Xbox. The company, which is primarily cutting jobs at recently-acquired Activision Blizzard, is making reductions that work out to about 8% of the overall Microsoft Gaming division that stands at roughly 22,000 staff in total, according to The Verge’s Tom Warren. Meanwhile, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra announced he would be leaving the company.

“As part of this process, we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in the memo. “The Gaming Leadership Team and I are committed to navigating this process as thoughtfully as possible. The people who are directly impacted by these reductions have all played an important part in the success of Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and the Xbox teams, and they should be proud of everything they’ve accomplished here. We are grateful for all of the creativity, passion and dedication they have brought to our games, our players and our colleagues. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted during the transition, including severance benefits informed by local employment laws. Those whose roles will be impacted will be notified, and we ask that you please treat your departing colleagues with the respect and compassion that is consistent with our values.”

Just days after Ybarra’s announced exit, Microsoft named Johanna Faries as the new president of Blizzard Entertainment. Faries previously served as general manager for the “Call of Duty” series at Activision.

NEW SWITCH NEWS: Late last week, Bloomberg’s Takashi Mochizuki and Yuki Furukawa reported that Omdia analyst Hiroshi Hayase said Nintendo (NTDOY) will release a new video game console in 2024 with an 8-inch LCD screen. Hayase said that the new system will be responsible for a doubling in shipments of the “amusement” displays this year, with supply chain forecasts implying that the Japanese game giant is looking to make over 10M units for the new console’s first fiscal year on the market, the authors noted.

OTHER STORIES TO WATCH:

• Sony said that the PC version of “Horizon Forbidden West” launches on March 21 (read more)
• U.K. physical sales of Bandai Namco’s (NCBDY) latest fighting game “Tekken 8,” which released late last week, are more than double that of Capcom’s (CCOEY) “Street Fighter 6” in its launch window last year, Gamesindustry.biz says (read more)
• Embracer (THQQF) canceled a new “Deus Ex” title and plans to lay off a number of staff, Bloomberg reports (read more)