Microsoft Gaming is reverting to Xbox under its new leadership, it has announced, as part of a sweeping new mission statement shared with staff.<\/p>\n
The company adopted the Microsoft Gaming brand in January 2022 following its acquisition of Activision Blizzard<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a memo to employees published on Xbox Wire<\/a>, CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty said Microsoft Gaming “describes our structure but it does not describe our ambition.”<\/p>\n Sharma and Booty stated that Xbox’s “new north star” will be daily active players and prioritising improvements in hardware, content, experiences, and services.<\/p>\n The console remains central to Xbox’s future plans, and will be “built to be affordable, personal, and open.”<\/p>\n “The model that got us here won\u2019t be the one that takes us forward,” wrote Sharma and Booty.<\/p>\n The executives added: “Along the way, we will re-evaluate our approach to exclusivity windowing and AI and share more as we learn and decide.”<\/p>\n They also outlined plans to expand into China, emerging markets, and mobile-first audiences, while maintaining and growing Xbox\u2019s presence in live games and long-term stewardship.<\/p>\n Xbox aims to achieve durable growth and strong cost discipline by strengthening Game Pass with a sustainable financial model.<\/p>\n The firm will enhance creator-centric platforms such as Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls, and Sea of Thieves, and to improve discovery, customisation, social, and personalisation features for the community.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, Xbox reduced the price of its top-tier Game Pass subscription and removed Call of Duty from its day-one launch lineup in response to customer feedback.<\/p>\n This decision followed internal communication from Sharma<\/a>, who said the service had “become too expensive for players.”<\/p>\n Game Pass Ultimate dropped from $29.99 to $22.99 per month, while PC Game Pass fell from $16.49 to $13.99 per month.<\/p>\n The price reduction does not fully reverse the 50% increase implemented<\/a> in October 2025.<\/p>\n Last month, Xbox announced its next-generation console<\/a>, codenamed Project Helix.<\/p>\n Jason Ronald, Xbox VP of next generation, said the console will deliver “high performance and provide the ultimate player-first experience<\/a>.” This is supported by a multi-year partnership with AMD<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft Gaming is reverting to Xbox under its new leadership, it has announced, as part of a sweeping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[74],"class_list":{"0":"post-603597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}