GoKawiilTwo weeks ago there was a buzz in the air inside Microsoft’s studio D building. Hundreds of Xbox employees gathered early on a Thursday morning, packed into the hallways and atrium, to hear from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. The “return of Xbox” slogan was plastered all over the walls of the building, the same message Sharma first delivered to Xbox employees in February. It was time for Sharma to rally the troops, after two years of turbulence, and hint at the future of Xbox.
During the roughly 40-minute all-hands, sources tell me that Sharma laid out a four-point action plan for Xbox employees, focusing on several areas in turn: hardware, games, platform, and services. “We have to be honest about where we are. We’ve got work to do,” admitted Sharma. “Players are frustrated with us, they feel like we haven’t updated our console enough, they feel like our PC presence isn’t very strong.”
The answer to those frustrations is what many Xbox employees and fans had been hoping for, a renewed focus on fixing things for the existing audience of Xbox. “We’re going to start by restoring our core. We have to fix the fundamentals on console and PC. We have to sweat every single detail and every single part of the experience to get to fun much faster and make it simpler,” Sharma told Xbox employees.
Microsoft used to ship interesting new Xbox features every month, but over the past year the company hasn’t done enough of that. Sharma quickly started instructing Xbox engineering teams to work on highly requested console features in early March, in an early effort to make her mark on Xbox and impress fans. But during the all-hands meeting, she went a step further and promised biweekly console updates until the end of the year.
Most of the all-hands felt like a coach hyping up a sports team, according to Xbox employees I’ve spoken to. Sharma also dropped the Microsoft Gaming name, reverting the organization back to just Xbox. It’s a “we are Xbox” change that multiple Xbox employees tell me has gone down well internally.
Sharma also briefly addressed another Xbox fan pain point during the all-hands: exclusivity. More than two years ago, Microsoft revealed that four Xbox-exclusive games were coming to PS5 and Nintendo Switch. It was the start of an initiative, codenamed Project Latitude, to grow Microsoft’s gaming revenues beyond the company’s Xbox consoles. Latitude was a response to Microsoft CFO Amy Hood’s increased margin targets for the Xbox division, but it has upset the hardcore Xbox fans, and it’s never been clear how many games would ultimately release on PS5.
“We will reevaluate our approach to exclusivity,” Sharma told employees. Sources tell me Sharma has been evaluating a range of options for Xbox exclusive games, but is treading carefully here and isn’t yet ready to commit to any major changes. Exclusivity is a thorny issue for fans, particularly because there has been a lack of clarity on Microsoft’s strategy here over the past two years.
Sharma is now focusing on winning back fans, either way. “We will focus on players coming back every single day, because our platform and our games are great. We have to execute really well to get there, and we’re going to do that in a four-point plan, and it starts with hardware,” Sharma told employees.
Software improvements to existing consoles are rolling out, but looming in the background is the next-gen console, codenamed Project Helix. One of the first things Sharma did after getting the Xbox CEO job was announce Helix in a post on X, promising that the next Xbox console “will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games.”
Alpha versions of Project Helix are heading to developers in 2027, so the next generation of Xbox is still a ways off. Sharma didn’t reveal much more about Project Helix during her all-hands, though. “We have to deliver Project Helix as a big step forward, for our console games and also our PC games, as well as performance and security,” said Sharma.
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