Xbox Leadership Nixxes 'Microsoft Gaming', Shifts Focus On Reviving The Brand

• Asha Sharma and Matt Booty send a global letter to staff, 'Microsoft Gaming' branding is no more.

• Management may evaluate console exclusivity

• Aim to make the Xbox platform more affordable for players and more flexible for developers

Quite an exciting couple of weeks for the Xbox brand. It seem not a period goes by when there is something happening with Team Green. More than 60 days into the new leadership role for Asha Sharma and Matt Booty, filling for Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond, the new heads at the top have been quite active in their new objective for Xbox. A letter was sent to the global Xbox team, a rallying message that paints an ambitious road for Xbox to pave labeled "We Are Xbox". Throughout the read, Sharma and Booty acknowledges that fans are frustrated, prices are too high, and there has been less dynamic bonuses to make services like Game Pass enticing.

New feature drops on console have been less frequent. Our presence on PC isn’t strong enough. Pricing is getting harder for people to keep up with. And core experiences like search, discovery, social, and personalization still feel too fragmented. Developers and publishers are asking for more, too: better tools, better insights, and a platform that helps them grow faster.

At the same time, a new generation of players is coming online with different expectations. Their time is split across games, media, and everything else competing for attention. They expect more content in familiar places, want to shape the worlds they play in, and want to create and socialize together, not just play together.

Following the new leadership role under Sharma, we have already seen Xbox lower the prices on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. They have also removed Call of Duty from day-one access on Game Pass, a move done to hopefully bolster sales numbers. Call of Duty as a game Pass Ultimate perk resulted in a loss of $300 million in unit sales. It will be determined if this ends up being a popular decision.

The letter talks about how Xbox has to re-establish its presence on console, which puts to bed the mission statement previous president Sarah Bond was running with of making everything out of an Xbox. A marketing campaign that seemed mostly to confuse and alienate players.

Console is at the foundation, delivering a premium experience, and cloud brings that experience to any device. You can play where you want, and your games, progress, friends, and identity stay with you across console, PC, mobile, and cloud.

Going forward, the leadership of Sharma and Booty will potentially re-evaluate the approach to exclusivity, something that sparks the interest of fans and pundits. Throughout this current generation, we have seen Xbox export games once deemed as exclusive to the brand to PlayStation and Nintendo. This had pretty much cemented the days of Xbox being numbered, as they were fairly content with third party porting, following the purchase of Activision Blizzard. Games once deemed as flagship must-haves for an Xbox console, like Gears of War and Forza, ended up becoming top sellers when making the jump to the PlayStation 5. To Xbox's credit, this has been fiscally lucrative, as Forza has sold over 5 million copies on PS5 in 2025. One would wager that it would be tough to go back on that kind of business commitment with results like this.

Perhaps the answer could be more timed exclusives? Or would Xbox place an emphasis in developing brand new titles with a smaller development scale from the ground up? Despite the consolidation and mass layoffs in recent years that have resulted in thousands of jobs lost since the purchase of Activision Blizzard, they still own studios like Ninja Theory and Obsidian.

The message also includes an objective to expand further into the growing Asian market. In the last two years, there has been an effort to push forward on that front, after initially viewing that demographic as not worth the venture. Popular Hoyoverse games like Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero are now available on Xbox, along with the highly acclaimed Black Myth: Wukong. Microsoft also highly promoted Metaphor ReFantazio prior to its launch.

Over the last five years, Xbox and the industry have been through an unimaginable amount of change, and this team has continued to deliver through it for our community. Thank you for staying focused on what matters. 62 days in, we’re proud of how we’ve honored our commitments of great games, return of Xbox, and future of play. We’re here to do the most creative and courageous work of our lives, and that’s what we’ll do together.

This is certainly an ambitious roadmap that Xbox is aiming to pave. There is a lot to consider, as recent years have seen a strong shift in a direction that has left fans puzzled. Under Phil Spencer, the plan centered heavily around Game Pass, but little else. Not since the Xbox 360 days has Xbox left a strong impact on the world of gaming. PlayStation remains the market leader, with Nintendo sitting comfortably behind. A lot of words can be used by leadership to define the Xbox message, and while Asha Sharma has proven to be more clear action, there is a lot of work to do. Thus far, is not lost on Booty and Sharma.

SOURCE: Xbox Wire