Exclusivity, Affordability, Third-Party Partnerships in Focus as New Xbox Leadership Vows to ‘Fix the Fundamentals’

In a new mission statement of sorts emailed to Xbox staff and posted on Xbox Wire, new Xbox CEO and Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty laid out new priorities and objectives for the Xbox team, including a reevaluation of exclusivity, a focus on affordability, and evolving third-party partnerships while acknowledging that “players are frustrated.”

The post, titled, “We Are Xbox,” admits that “new feature drops on console have been less frequent. Our presence on PC isn’t strong enough. Pricing is getting harder for people to keep up with. And core experiences like search, discovery, social, and personalization still feel too fragmented. Developers and publishers are asking for more, too: better tools, better insights, and a platform that helps them grow faster.”

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.