Tom Warren from the Verge put out an interesting piece today, talking about what's been going on this week at Microsoft's gaming division just a couple of months after Phil Spencer stepped down as CEO and was replaced with Asha Sharma.
Earlier this week we saw the Game Pass price cut, which was a huge step in the right direction for putting Xbox back on people's minds. The several price hikes we saw over the past few years certainly pushed myself and many of my friends away from the service who were much more casual users.
But today, there was an internal town hall event with the employees of Xbox and apparently, the big item on the table was about how they are returning to the Xbox brand and scrapping the idea of Microsoft Gaming. Honestly? Great call. Xbox as a brand is huge and with Microsoft's diverse portfolio and annoying AI integrations, it's nice to see a little bit of distance even if its only in the name. According to sources, Sharma stated "Xbox needs to be our identity". Huge!
Microsoft Gaming was about as bad of an idea as Blizzard's idea of scrapping Battle.net's branding in favor of "Blizzard App"; That started when Microsoft acquired Activison Blizzard for an insane billion. I had written a piece about how we could even see the end of the Battle.net App as Microsoft would probably want to consolidate things more, and I'm so glad I was wrong about that. Instead, we saw more games come to BNet!
Xbox Senior Social Media Manager, @steinekin on Twitter, posted a fun new elevator skin in the building.
But, none of this is just a rumor. Sharma put on a blog post this afternoon with the contents of a message that was sent out to the entire team at Xbox titled "We Are Xbox". It details how they understand that players are frustrated:
Feature drops on console have been less frequent
PC presence is not strong enough
Pricing is hard for people to keep up with
Search, Discovery, Social, and Personalization are fragmented
Developers too want new tools and a better platform
That's a lot of things, plus Sharma addressed that new generation of gamers are online now with completely different expectations, which is incredibly true. The way that I engage with content is quite different than the young kids these days and Xbox does need to step it up and help direct an experience for them as well if they want to see growth. If you ask me, Xbox has been in a crisis ever since the debuted the Xbox One at E3 2013 where they focused the entire presentation on how you can use voice commands to tell your Xbox you wanted to watch TV and how it's so great that TV is now on Xbox its a proper multimedia hub for your living room. Talk about not being able to read the room, a room filled with people covering gaming for gamers.
Sharma made a bold statement, Xbox will be where the world plays and creates.
Quote From Asha Sharma We will build a global platform that connects players and creators everywhere. 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.
Xbox will be built to be affordable, personal, and open. 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. And we will be open to all creators, from individuals to the largest studios, giving anyone the tools to reach a global audience and keep their games growing over time.
That is a huge commitment from the brand. Putting console front and center when there were rumors of Xbox being on the way out before they had announced project helix, maybe this is their last big push to try and stay relevant? We then received an overview of how they plan to execute this mission.
Quote From Asha Sharma Hardware
Stabilize Gen9 as a healthy and high-quality base
Deliver Project Helix to lead in performance and play your console and PC games
Lead in comfortable, personal, high-performance accessories
Build a strong ecosystem that expands choice and reach
Content
Grow and extend an enduring portfolio of franchises players love
Evolve our 3P partnerships and strengthen our 5-year slate
Expand into China, emerging markets, and mobile-first audiences
Maintain and grow in live games and long-term stewardship
Elevate creator-centric platforms like Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls, and Sea of Thieves
Experience
Fix the fundamentals for players and partners
Make Xbox the best place for developers and creators to build and grow
Overhaul discovery, customization, social and personalization to connect the community
Services
Fortify Game Pass with clear differentiation and sustainable economics
Return the business to durable growth with strong cost discipline
Make cloud play feel native, fast, and reliable across TVs and low-cost devices
Use M&A deliberately to accelerate growth where organic paths are too slow
The transparency coming from the team is a great step in the right direction. Personally, I love Xbox as a brand and always have so I'm excited to see where they go with it, but actions are going to matter a lot more than words. With the current RAM and SSD pricing crisis due to the AI boom, will consoles even be affordable when Helix drops? I sure hope so because consoles are the easiest gateway into gaming, well phones are since everyone has a phone, but consoles are up there in second place due to their ease of use.
What do you think about the future of Xbox?
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