Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
My dear team,
Xbox has always been different.
We started with a simple idea. Games should bring people together through shared experiences. This led to the first Xbox in 2001, Xbox Live in 2002, and new ways to communicate, from friend lists and achievements to parties and cross-device play. Today, Xbox has over 500 million players worldwide, with some of the most important franchises in entertainment.
From the beginning, Xbox was built by people who wanted to experience things others couldn’t. We made a bet on the consumer within an established company because we thought gaming would define the living room, and we were at risk of losing that.
That spirit has carried us through the past 25 years, and it is needed to move us forward.
We have work to do
Players are frustrated.
New features being dropped on the console have been less frequent. Our presence on the computer is not strong enough. Pricing is becoming more difficult for people to keep up with. Core experiences like search, discovery, social, and personalization still feel very fragmented. Developers and publishers are demanding more, too: better tools, better insights, and a platform that helps them grow faster.
At the same time, a new generation of gamers is coming to the Internet with different expectations. Their time is split across games, media, and everything else competing for attention. They expect more content in familiar places, they want to shape the worlds they play in, and they want to create and socialize together, not just play together.
These changes are happening as the industry around us is being reshaped.
The controller remains large and stable. Windows now represents more players, more hours, and is increasingly present where competition is fierce. Gamers have access to more games than ever before, even as the cost and time to build blockbuster games continues to rise, putting pressure on what gets produced and how risks are taken. Some of the biggest recent successes come from small teams or even individual creators, and places like Roblox are churning out experiences that rival major franchises in scale. More players are also choosing subscriptions and services as their primary way to play, with expectations around instant access, ongoing value and ever-evolving libraries.
The industry has become global and competitive. More than half of our market revenue, players and growth occurs outside of our core markets. But the rest of the world is just not a big market. Developers there are increasingly competing with more established Western studios, combining scale, speed and a desire to reinvent genres that many previously considered mature.
The model that got us here will not be the model that moves us forward.
Xbox will be where the world plays
What will Xbox become in this next era?
Xbox will be the place where the world plays and creates. We will build a global platform that connects gamers and creators everywhere. The console is key, providing a premium experience, and the cloud brings that experience to any device. You can play wherever you want, and your games, progress, friends, and identity stay with you across console, PC, mobile, and the cloud.
Xbox will be designed to be affordable, personal, and open. We’ll 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. We’ll be open to all creators, from individuals to the biggest studios, giving anyone the tools to reach a global audience and keep their games growing over time.
Our new North Star will be an active daily player.
We will do this across four priorities: devices, content, experience and services.
Devices
Install Gen9 as a healthy and high quality base
Connect Project Helix to drive performance and play your console and PC games
Get comfortable, personal, high-performance accessories
Build a strong ecosystem that expands choice and access
content
Grow and expand an everlasting collection of perks players love
Developing our partnerships with third parties and strengthening our five-year portfolio
Expand into China, emerging markets and mobile-first audiences
Maintain and grow in live games and long-term supervision
Level up on creator-focused platforms like Minecraft, Elder Scrolls, and Sea of Thieves
expertise
Fix the basics for players and partners
Make Xbox the best place for developers and creators to build and grow
Fix discovery, personalization, social, and personalization to connect the community
Services
Fortify Game Pass with clear differentiation and sustainable economics
Return the business to sustainable growth with strong cost discipline
Make cloud gaming feel authentic, fast and reliable across low-cost TVs and devices
Deliberately use mergers and acquisitions to accelerate growth where organic paths are too slow
Along the way, we’ll reevaluate our approach to Singularity, Windows, and AI, and we’ll share more as we learn and decide.
We are Xbox
To achieve our master plan, the way we work must change.
Our best work happens when the whole group moves together. The phrase “Microsoft Gaming” describes our structure but not our ambition. So, we’ll go back to where we started and change our team name.
We are Xbox.
We are a high agency culture where wild and brilliant ideas thrive. Our mission is not to mitigate our differences, but to connect everyone to something bigger than any one studio or producer.
We have to be honest about where we are. We are united, and meeting this moment will require speed, energy and a level of self-criticism that should make us uncomfortable. At our best we:
Over the past five years, Xbox and the industry have gone through an unimaginable amount of change, and this team continues to deliver for our community through it. Thank you for staying focused on what matters. 62 days later, we’re proud of how we’ve delivered on our commitments to great games, the return of Xbox, and the future of gaming. We are here to do the most creative and courageous work of our lives, and that is what we will do together.
With gratitude,
Matt and Asha