In yet another significant pivot , Microsoft is reportedly abandoning its Microsoft Gaming umbrella in favour of a full scale "return to Xbox." As reported by The Verge the move marks a dramatic shift in identity under the lead of gaming CEO Asha Sharma, who took the helm following the high profile exits of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond earlier this year.
Asha Sharma confirms Microsoft Gaming to be scrapped at internal town hall
According to an internal source in contact with Tom Warren at The Verge, the rebranding represents a complete change in focus and a restructuring of how Microsoft views its gaming division. For years, the Microsoft Gaming moniker represented an effort to decouple the Xbox brand from specific hardware requirements and to push the "play anywhere" philosophy that emphasized cloud gaming and mobile accessibility.
However, that strategy, marked later by the infamous "Everything is an Xbox" campaign, faced a lot of internal pushback and failed to reverse years of declining hardware revenue. Everything is an Xbox was one of the first things scrapped under Sharma's watch, and now she's taken the axe to Microsoft Gaming too.
Sharma has reportedly told employees that "Xbox needs to be our identity," a sentiment now physically manifested at the company’s headquarters. The report states that "Return of Xbox" slogans have been plastered across the walls of Xbox offices, accompanied by phrases like "Great Games" and "Future of Play."
UPDATE: Xbox Wire just officially published a blog post in which, amongst other updates, Asha Sharma states,
"Our best work happens when the full stack moves together. “Microsoft Gaming” describes our structure but it does not describe our ambition. So, we are going back to where we started and changing our team’s name.
We are Xbox."
Yet another popular move from Xbox
This rebranding coincides with a massive overhaul of the Xbox Game Pass service. Sharma recently stated that the subscription service had become "too expensive for players" following a series of price hikes. To remedy this, Microsoft recently slashed prices, dropping Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99 per month.
However, the lower price comes with a significant trade-off for subscribers. In a complete reversal of the strategy used to justify the $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft announced that future Call of Duty titles will no longer be available on Game Pass on their launch day. Instead, these blockbuster releases will arrive on the service approximately one year after their debut.
By shedding the corporate Microsoft Gaming label and refocusing on the core Xbox brand, Sharma appears to be keeping her word on the 'Return to Xbox' motto, prioritizing the company's current and more traditional fanbase over the aggressive, and arguably unsuccessful, pursuit of new shiny customers through cloud and mobile.
And I think we all agree, Microsoft Gaming sounded lame, right?
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