New Xbox Leadership Vows to ‘Fix the Fundamentals’ in Mission Statement

It promises that “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,” while citing four priorities: hardware, content, experience, and services. In hardware, Xbox will seek to “stabilize Gen9 as a healthy and high-quality base” and “deliver Project Helix to lead in performance and play your console and PC games.” On the content side, the team aims to “grow and extend an enduring portfolio of franchises players love,” “evolve our [third-party] partnerships and strengthen our five-year slate,” and “expand into China, emerging markets, and mobile-first audiences.” Regarding experience, Xbox wants to “fix the fundamentals for players and partners,” and with services, “fortify Game Pass with clear differentiation and sustainable economics” and “use M&A deliberately to accelerate growth where organic paths are too slow.” Thus, it would seem that Xbox might not be done acquiring studios.

“Our new north star will be daily active players,” Sharma and Booty stated in the letter.

Perhaps most immediately notable for gamers, the duo say they will “reevaluate our approach to exclusivity, windowing, and AI, and share more as we learn and decide,” seemingly leaving every option on the table while not committing to any new direction in those areas just yet.

In her first two months running the Xbox business, Sharma has already jettisoned the unpopular “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign and, just this week, lowered Xbox Game Pass Ultimate’s and PC Game Pass’s prices in exchange for new Call of Duty games no longer being available on those services for the first year of release, the latter of which I called a key first step to fixing Xbox’s problems.