As part of Xbox's big shakeup that began with the departure of longtime CEO Phil Spencer and president Sarah Bond in February, new CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty say the gaming brand will reevaluate its approach to exclusive games, AI, and windowed releases.
Today, Sharma and Booty published a joint message shared to all employees on Xbox Wire, laying out the company's plans in broad strokes. It's all very vague and open to some degree of interpretation, but it does a good job providing the general sense of direction Xbox is headed under its new leadership.
The writeup leads with the admission that Xbox has "work to do" because "players are frustrated," with the co-leads saying "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."
The solution? Microsoft Gaming is now just Xbox again, and Sharma and Booty are pledging changes to the company's approach to some of the biggest hot button issues facing the industry. Again, nothing specific was shared, and it's not really clear what Xbox's stance on these issues was before the leadership change, especially with regards to exclusives and AI, but going forward, the company is prioritizing "progress over perfection," "signal over ceremony," "core before more," and "makers over managers." It also says it needs to "earn every player," "protect our art," "stay rebellious," "outwork the problem," and emphasize its belief that "speed is learning," and "clarity is kindness."
In order to achieve its "master plan," Xbox says it'll need to "change the way we work," adding, "our best work happens when the full stack moves together. 'Microsoft Gaming' describes our structure but it does not describe our ambition," which is the reason for the name change. "Our new north star will be daily active players," reads the message.
"Along the way, we will reevaluate our approach to exclusivity, windowing, and AI, and share more as we learn and decide," the company adds.
I don't fully know what all of that translates to for players, but it sounds like Xbox is pushing for transparency, creator-centric properties, a focus on its core franchises, and this is where I'm really veering into guess work with blind optimism, protections against AI-generated art. Despite previously being president of Microsoft's CoreAI division, Sharma has gone on the record to say the company won't descend into "soulless AI slop," and whether or not you put any stock into that, I'm inclined to think "protect our art" is a subtle nod toward gen-AI fears. But don't quote me on that.
As far as exclusives, before Spencer's departure there was a big multiplatform push that brought previous Xbox exclusives and first-party games like Sea of Thieves, Avowed, and Forza Horizon 5 to PS5, sometimes with a timed exclusivity window on Xbox. It seems that strategy is now shifting, but there's no way to say in what direction right now.
"We are a high agency culture where wild and wonderful ideas thrive. Our job is not to smooth over our differences, but to connect everyone into something greater than any one studio or product," reads the letter.
"We have to be honest about where we are. We’re a challenger, and meeting this moment will require pace, energy, and a level of self-critique that should feel uncomfortable."
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