What’s old is now new again, and Xbox is back. Well, it never went away, but it was renamed from “Xbox” to “Microsoft Gaming.” Well, that’s being reversed.
During a recent meeting, Asha Sharma made it clear that Xbox will once again be the face of the company’s gaming business. The message is simple: Xbox is the brand going forward. This marks a shift from Microsoft’s recent push toward the broader “Microsoft Gaming” umbrella, which gained traction around the time of the Activision Blizzard acquisition. Instead of positioning gaming as a wide corporate initiative, the company now appears to be doubling down on a brand that players already recognize and trust.
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.
We are a high agency culture where wild and wonderful ideas thrive. Our job is not to smooth over our differences, but to connect everyone into something greater than any one studio or product.
You can read the entire post by heading over to Xbox News Wire.
The timing is interesting. Microsoft has already made adjustments to its gaming strategy, including changes to Xbox Game Pass and how major releases are handled on the service. While none of this confirms a complete overhaul, it does suggest the company is reevaluating how it presents and structures its gaming business.
Internally, the move is reportedly being described as a “return of Xbox,” signaling a renewed focus on clarity and brand identity. Rather than spreading its message across multiple labels, Microsoft seems ready to center everything under one name again. With this being done, the question that many are asking is will Xbox look at the return of exclusives, and if so, what does this mean for its 3rd party status since it has published games on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms.
Frankly, I just wish Xbox, or Microsoft, would make up its mind about what it wants its gaming division to be called. This back and forth is as bad as HBO. I understand the idea of bringing Xbox back to the forefront, but a name change alone is not going to accomplish that. Branding only goes so far if the strategy behind it keeps shifting.
That said, to Asha Sharma’s credit, she did say changes were coming, and this is just the start. We’ll have to see what else Microsoft has planned for Xbox before judging where this is really headed.
