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‘We Are Xbox’: read the memo defining Microsoft’s gaming future
News Close News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All News Gaming Close Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Gaming Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Tech ‘We Are Xbox’: read the memo defining Microsoft’s gaming future Microsoft’s new Xbox leader starts to talk strategy for the company’s gaming business. Microsoft’s new Xbox leader starts to talk strategy for the company’s gaming business. by Tom Warren Close Tom Warren Senior Correspondent Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Tom Warren Apr 23, 2026, 6:59 PM UTC Link Share Gift Asha Sharma. Image: The Verge, Microsoft Tom Warren Close Tom Warren Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Tom Warren is a senior correspondent and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Microsoft’s new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has laid out a new strategy for what she describes as a “return of Xbox.” In a joint memo with Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty, Sharma and Booty lay out their vision for the future of Xbox that will be judged on daily active players and the priorities of hardware, content, experience, and services. “Players are frustrated,” admits Sharma and Booty. “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.” The answer isn’t the same model that got Xbox to where it is today, according to Sharma and Booty. Instead, Microsoft wants to “build a global platform that connects players and creators everywhere” with console as the foundation. “Xbox will be built to be affordable, personal, and open,” say Booty and Sharma. “We will offer flexible pricing so it’s easy to get started and keep playing. The experience will adapt to you, letting you customize how you play, helping you find what you’ll love, and connecting you with the right people.” Related Microsoft’s new Xbox chief is ‘reevaluating’ exclusive games Microsoft brings Xbox back, scraps Microsoft Gaming Microsoft’s new Xbox chief starts making her mark Microsoft is also “reevaluating” its approach to Xbox exclusive games or release windows. “We will reevaluate our approach to exclusivity, windowing, and AI, and share more as we learn and decide,” says Sharma and Booty. The memo also touches on being “honest about where we are,” and the team having a “level of self-critique that should feel uncomfortable.” You can read the full memo, below: Dear team, Xbox has always been different. We started with a simple idea. Games should bring people together through shared experiences. That led to the first Xbox in 2001, Xbox Live in 2002, and new ways to connect, from friends lists and achievements to parties and play across devices. Today, Xbox reaches over 500 million players around the world, with some of the most important franchises in entertainment. From the beginning, Xbox was built by people willing to try things that others wouldn’t. We placed a consumer bet inside an enterprise company because we believed gaming would define the living room, and we were at risk of missing it. That spirit has carried us through the last 25 years, and it is required to carry us forward. We have work to do Players are frustrated. 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. These changes are happening as the industry reshapes around us. Console remains large and stable. Windows now represents more players and more hours and is increasingly where competition is most intense. Players have access to more games than ever, even as the cost and time to build blockbuster titles continues to rise, putting pressure on what gets made and how risk is taken. Some of the biggest recent hits are coming from small teams or even single creators,
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