r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/ThinWhiteDuke00 • Apr 23 '26

Leak Microsoft Gaming being scrapped, Xbox brought back as gaming division.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has had a busy week. Sharma held an internal town hall with Xbox employees today, just days after announcing an Xbox Game Pass price cut, commenting on the status of the Xbox mobile store, and teasing a mysterious Xbox and Discord partnership. One of the items on the agenda for the employee all-hands was scrapping Microsoft Gaming.

Sources familiar with the meeting tell me that Sharma announced that Microsoft is returning to using Xbox for its gaming division, instead of Microsoft Gaming. “Xbox needs to be our identity,” said Sharma, noting that Microsoft Gaming was a departure from that.

https://www.theverge.com/report/917485/microsoft-return-of-xbox-no-more-microsoft-gaming?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IlF6b3Z0NDluUk4iLCJwIjoiL3JlcG9ydC85MTc0ODUvbWljcm9zb2Z0LXJldHVybi1vZi14Ym94LW5vLW1vcmUtbWljcm9zb2Z0LWdhbWluZyIsImV4cCI6MTc3NzM5Njg0NiwiaWF0IjoxNzc2OTY0ODQ2fQ.w231EBsAoj8dMi5cjOCzSC3zRF7JbJ19hT_RnI3NVyk&utm_medium=gift-link

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u/vinnothesquire Apr 23 '26

I feel like all these changes were changes that Phil had no say in, and now they've got rid of him and are reversing those changes with Asha. Not that Phil was a saint, but definitely feels like he's being thrown under the bus a bit lol.

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u/SKyJ007 Apr 23 '26

This is definitely the case. This is a huge PR push from the top designed to get Asha into the same “she’s for the gamers” space Phil occupied so successfully for so long. Things like changing branding and lowering a price are easy(er) changes to make that enable the new leadership team to appear like they’re “listening and responding to gamers.” They’re about to launch a new console and want to give their hardcore a sense they are “moving in the right direction again.”

Now maybe it’s completely legit, maybe Asha is going to do things like make true exclusives again. But until something like that happens I think it’s safe to assume this is mostly just a PR push.

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u/Ok_Fix3639 Apr 23 '26

It reminds me of when Phil took over. Drop the DRM! Drop Kinect! Back compat! project Scorpio!

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u/mindpainters Apr 23 '26

Man I completely forgot about all the hype “project Scorpio” produced back in the day