Microsoft Game Studios is restructuring Rare, the Viva Pinata and Banjo Kazooie studio it acquired from Nintendo back in 2002. Rare studio manager Mark Betteridge told GamesIndustry.biz that a “small number of current positions” could be lost as a result; the studio will focus mostly on developing original IP for the Xbox 360 and adding content like avatars to the New Xbox Experience (NXE).

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The shift comes amid the round of mass layoffs Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) announced in late January, with restructuring that has impacted the company’s game operations in particular: it shuttered ACES, the studio behind its long-running Flight Simulator franchise, fired about 30 percent of its game testers and also dismissed Chris Early, head of its Games for Windows Live division.