Update 23/04/2026: Minutes after reporting on this change, a letter sent internally within Xbox, co-authored by chief executive officer Asha Sharma and chief content officer Matt Booty, was published on the Xbox Wire blog. It not only confirmed the name change and the sunsetting of the Microsoft Gaming brand but also laid out a new plan for the next era of Xbox. Read the full article here.
Original Story:
Asha Sharma, the recently installed chief executive officer at Microsoft Gaming who has already been taking some big swings by decreasing the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has reportedly just made another big shift by already making good on her promise to "return to Xbox," at least in name. A new report from The Verge claims that Microsoft's gaming division will no longer be called Microsoft Gaming, and will instead be back to just being called 'Xbox.'
The report claims that during an internal meeting, Sharma identified the name of Microsoft Gaming as a shift away from what the brand needs. "Xbox needs to be our identity," Sharma reportedly said according to sources familiar with the meeting.
It may not feel like the biggest shift considering the fact that it is a reversion back to how things once were, but if it weren't significant, Sharma likely wouldn't do it in the first place. Xbox, not Microsoft Gaming, is a name that means something to players, and if Sharma has any hope of personally leading this rebrand to a place of success, it's worth switching back to the name that players have a connection towards.
The report also adds that part of the rebrand will be a bit of a new logo for the Xbox brand as a whole. Not the Project Helix symbol we've been seeing, but the classic 'X' logo we've known with a bit of a glossier finish to it and a different shade of green.
A different name under Microsoft's divisions and a different shade of green doesn't mean that we can start to expect Xbox to turn its ship around anytime soon, but these changes, along with the decrease in price for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, already shows that Sharma is not afraid to make large sweeping changes.
And even if these changes don't lead to a better Xbox down the line, it at least shows that Sharma is trying something to change things for the better, and make the Xbox name inspire a certain degree of agency and confidence again. Unlike what we had before where every new change just felt like another reason to leave the entire platform behind.
Hopefully, we'll be able to look back on these changes in several years time and mark them as a turning point for the platform, and a turning point for the industry that led to a better future. Because the video game industry is a better place if its major platform owners are all at full strength, competing with each other for first place, instead of the ranking being permanently set as it feels like it has been recently.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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