Today, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma addressed all of Xbox in an internal meeting, the transcript of which was shared with Windows Central and verified by reliable sources. Xbox has been undergoing a reboot of sorts this year, with divestitures, layoffs, and structural changes. Xbox Game Pass removed Call of Duty and got a big price cut, Xbox also returned to exclusive games and content and started investing in marketing and features for its Xbox Series X|S consoles again for the first time in years. “Why do we exist?” Sharma said: “We exist to be where the world plays, we will know when we have a billion daily active people and we have the right to win because we are now focused on our fans and franchises.” DEAL: Get Surfshark VPN for 86% off with Windows Central 🦈 Xbox’s new CEO Asha Sharma has doubled down on the Xbox console as the core of the business. (Image credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg) Sharma noted that Xbox was declining in hours spent, players and revenue at the beginning of the year. Now it says that Xbox has stabilized in hours spent, and now it says that after year-over-year declines, Xbox has grown again. He reiterated that the previous Xbox Game Pass strategy sent Xbox into “free fall” declines in balance, likely referring to the damage on both ends of Call of Duty and Xbox Game Pass. “We are making the right decisions to reinvest in the business, after an all-time low, we have started to return to growth, more than 2 to 3 times what we were, and we expect that to continue.” Asha Sharma also criticized Gears of War: E-Day, Minecraft Dungeons 2 and World of Warcraft Forever for having “strong” starts, noting that Xbox has seen a 30% increase in positive brand sentiment over the past year. Growing Xbox Series X|S, taking advantage of Xbox Helix, Xbox Game Pass and more portable devices? Xbox puts consoles back at the center of its business. (Image credit: Microsoft) Core, content, creation and connection are the “four Cs” that Asha Sharma described as moving Xbox forward. He said Xbox’s market position suggests it needs to invest more in the Xbox console, even though the overall segment is not growing in the gaming industry; says Xbox still has a chance to grow in the space. He also said Xbox doesn’t have “the right” to grow beyond the console if it can’t serve its “most valuable players the right way.” Asha Sharma says strengthening Gen-9 (Xbox Series He also hinted that Xbox Game Pass will be more “flexible for more players” in the future, reiterating previous suggestions that users will be able to customize exactly what types of content they want to access on the service. Asha Sharma also mentioned Gen-10, Xbox Helix, describing it as a “family of devices”. There are some things we are the best in the world at making, and there are other things we will partner on. So, we’ll share more about that as our plans develop. We are very excited about this. Asha Sharma also spoke about Xbox PC and Battle.net, talking about the intention to grow Battle.net as a platform. He said Battle.net is almost on par with Steam in terms of user retention, and that the recent partnership to bring CD Projekt RED games like Witcher 3 to Battle.net will grow even further. “We’re going to do it the right way for those communities,” he said, hinting that Battle.net will remain a more select storefront compared to Steam or Xbox PC. On other occasions, Asha Sharma also revealed that Xbox PC is, in fact, the number one PC game store in China (although it has been suggested to me that this claim probably excludes China-based Steam users who use a VPN – I’m exploring this comment a bit further). Update: I was told Asha Sharma was referring to the Windows Store here, not necessarily the Xbox PC Store, which although linked, are technically separate. For context, the Windows Store is installed by default on Windows 10 and 11 PCs, and contains many games that are not available on Steam, including Fortnite and Roblox. Asha Sharma also stated that they will continue to invest in other PC apps where there is a different audience i.e. Steam in general. Sharma also said that Xbox is “simplifying” the goal and streamlining APIs for publishing on Xbox to make it easier for developers to ship on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Helix, and Xbox PC. — which has long been a sore point. Xbox’s strategy seems like the right one, for now, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty. (Image credit: Microsoft (Windows Central Edition)) Xbox has seen tons of layoffs over the summer in a major effort to restructure more of the business away from the rising costs of Microsoft’s bureaucracy. To that end, it has moved some Xbox studios to purpose-built subsidiary publishers like Activision and Bethesda, sold some and closed others. Microsoft has also doubled down on its core audience, Xbox console gamers, whose abandonment became unsustainable earlier in the year when Microsoft appeared to focus on future-facing telemetry data at the expense of today’s reality. In fact, I wrote two years ago that Xbox was neglecting its core at the expense of growth that may never materialize, and it appears in fact, that growth never materialized in the previous strategy. There are positive outbreaks throughout Sharma’s speech to Xbox staff, but he still warned about the state of the economy, the RAMpocalypse, and widespread disruption in the entertainment business. How do you feel about Xbox’s new strategy so far? Let us know in the comments. Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your ideas and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.
