Xbox CEO Asha Sharma Admits “Players Are Frustrated,” Lays Out the Plan for the Next Era of Xbox

Minutes after we reported that Asha Sharma would be dropping the Microsoft Gaming brand and renaming the division back to just Xbox, and the significance of that change, Sharma shared a new Xbox Wire blog post that not only confirmed the change, but did so much more by laying out her and Matt Booty's plan for the next era of Xbox.

In a letter sent within Microsoft titled, 'We Are Xbox,' Sharma and Booty, who are credited as co-authors on the letter, begin by explaining how Xbox "has always been different" since it joined the industry at the start of the new millennium, and how the platform now reaches "over 500 million players around the world." It quickly turns, however, to discuss what is wrong with the current state of the brand, and acknowledges the core truth that "Players are frustrated."

The letter continues to describe how the Xbox platform doesn't have a strong enough presence on PC, that "feature drops on console have been less frequent," how pricing is a major issue that players are becoming unable to keep up with, and that as much as the players want change, so do developers and publishers. It also talks about how players expectations have changed over the years, and that games aren't just competing with other games but with social media, TV, movies, books, and everything else for players attention.

"The industry is becoming global and competitive. More than half of the market's revenue, players, and growth are happening outside of our core markets. But the rest of the world is not just a large market. Developers there are increasingly competing with the most established Western studios, combining scale, speed, and a willingness to reinvent genres many once considered mature. The model that got us here won't be the one that takes us forward."

That last line in particular is worth noting, because it may be an answer to one of the biggest questions surrounding what changes Sharma could bring in: exclusives. Will Xbox go back to actually having exclusive games is a question that will hang around Sharma's head until she answers it, and the idea that Xbox will move beyond the model that got it to where it is could also mean we will not see Xbox go back to having exclusive titles.

Which is seemingly further supported by the fact that as the letter moves on to describe what players can expect from Xbox's strategy going forward, exclusives are not explicitly mentioned save for a small comment that Xbox will "reevaluate our approach to exclusivity, windowing, and AI, and share more as we learn and decide."

Broken down into four categories: Hardware, Content, Experience, and Services, Sharma and Booty list a few bullet-points for each as to what its new goals look like, and says that the company's new "north star" will be daily active players.

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 letter then goes on to describe the values that Xbox will exemplify when it is "at our best," saying that it will look to:

• Earn every player
• Protect our art
• Stay rebellious
• Progress over perfection
• Signal over ceremony
• Core before more
• Outwork the problem
• Speed is learning
• Makers over managers
• Clarity is kindness

Also, as previously mentioned, the letter confirms that the Microsoft Gaming brand is gone, because "Microsoft Gaming describes our structure but it does not describe our ambition," the letter reads, "so we are going back to where we started and changing our team's name. We are Xbox."

"Xbox will be where the world plays and creates," Sharma and Booty write. "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...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."

Almost everything in this letter from Sharma and Booty are exactly the kinds of things players, particularly those who've dedicated their gaming libraries to Xbox across multiple generations, want to hear. They want to see the platform try to take back its strength instead of just bowing out of the industry and letting PlayStation and Nintendo be the only remaining juggernauts.

You have to give credit to Sharma, as she is definitely wearing the claim that she is "personally" leading the charge to rebrand Xbox. The drop in price to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass was a huge start to help bring players back to the side of Team Green, and communication and transparency like this letter carry that momentum forward.

But for now, most of what is in this letter is nothing more than words without actions. Getting rid of Microsoft Gaming, dropping the price of Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass are two great actions that have been taken so far, but as the top of the letter states, there's still work to do. At least things are starting to look a little brighter when it comes to the future of Xbox.

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