Xbox CEO Asha Sharma held an all-employee meeting this morning to elaborate on Xbox’s future development direction and brand mission, and explained its “Xbox Return” strategy to employees. Microsoft will abandon the "Microsoft Gaming" brand and fully return to the Xbox brand. Sharma also revealed that Xbox is considering "re-evaluating" Xbox exclusive games. "Exclusivity, windowing and AI" are three areas that need to be re-evaluated, but no decision has been made yet.
As for the concept of "windowing", it should refer to launching games on different platforms at different times - for example, "Forza Horizon 5" was exclusive to Xbox before finally landing on PS5 last year.
In recent years, Xbox has become more of a third-party publisher, publishing games for Nintendo and Sony platforms. It now appears that this strategy is being reconsidered.
At present, Xbox does not seem to have a clear exclusive game strategy. Some games will be released simultaneously with other platforms, while other games will be launched on Xbox first, and then launched on PS5 and Switch and other platforms about a year later (such as "Midnight South").
"Re-evaluating" the exclusive strategy does not necessarily mean that all Xbox games will no longer be available on other platforms, but it may mean that new release plans for these Xbox first-party games will be considered. This is mainly because games like Forza Horizon 5 already bring in significant revenue.
Foreign media reader survey: Players who support the return of exclusives still account for the majority (44%+37%)
