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‘We Are Xbox’: read the memo defining Microsoft’s gaming future

2026-04-23T15:07:32-04:00

Asha Sharma. | Image: The Verge, Microsoft

Microsoft's new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has laid out a new strategy for what she describes as a "return of Xbox." In a joint memo with Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty, Sharma and Booty lay out their vision for the future of Xbox that will be judged on daily active players and the priorities of hardware, content, experience, and services.

"Players are frustrated," admits Sharma and Booty. "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. Devel …

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Microsoft brings Xbox back, scraps Microsoft Gaming

2026-04-23T15:31:18-04:00

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.

Microsoft originally switched …

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Microsoft teases mysterious Discord and Xbox Game Pass partnership

2026-04-22T13:59:30-04:00

Microsoft has started teasing a new Discord and Xbox Game Pass partnership, just a day after lowering prices of its Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscriptions. Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma says the company is partnering with Discord again "as we continue to make Game Pass more flexible for our players."

It's not immediately clear what the latest Discord and Xbox partnership will result in, but given it's a Game Pass one it's likely related to some perks for subscribers of Xbox Game Pass. At the moment Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can get a month of Discord Nitro as part of the subscription, and it's possible that Microsoft and …

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Microsoft says the ‘idea’ of an Xbox mobile store ‘is not dead’

2026-04-22T13:42:45-04:00

Microsoft first revealed it was building an Xbox mobile gaming store to take on Apple and Google all the way back in 2022. Former Xbox president Sarah Bond even went on stage at a Bloomberg event nearly two years ago and promised the store would launch in July, 2024. Now, it looks like Microsoft has put the project on hold.

Better xCloud developer redphx noticed that the store URL Microsoft had been testing for the past couple of years no longer works. It's not clear exactly when it disappeared, but the last time the website was updated was nearly a year ago.

The store was originally supposed to compete with Google and Apple, but strict ap …

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Call of Duty never made much sense for Xbox Game Pass

2026-04-22T09:41:12-04:00

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. | Image: Activision Blizzard

Yesterday Microsoft announced some surprising news: at a time when everything in gaming is getting more expensive, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate was actually getting a price cut. Going forward, the subscription service will drop from $29.99 to $22.99 per month, less than a year after getting a major hike. But there's a caveat. Along with the cheaper price, Microsoft also announced that future Call of Duty games will no longer be available through Game Pass at launch.

It's the end to a strange experiment from Microsoft, in which it attempted to boost its subscription service at the expense of selling Call of Duty games, which also happens to be on …

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Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gets a price cut but loses new Call of Duty games

2026-04-21T13:15:06-04:00

After Xbox CEO Asha Sharma admitted last week that "Game Pass has become too expensive for players," Microsoft is dropping the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Starting today, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate drops from $29.99 to $22.99 a month, and PC Game Pass moves to $13.99, down from $16.49 a month.

The price drops are being fueled in part by future Call of Duty titles no longer joining Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch. "New Call of Duty games will be added to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass during the following holiday season (about a year later), while existing Call of Duty titles already in the library will …

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Microsoft’s new Xbox chief starts making her mark

2026-04-16T09:21:54-04:00

Microsoft's new Xbox chief has had a busy couple of months after promising "the return of Xbox." Asha Sharma met with publishers at the Game Developers Conference in March, and has also been on the road visiting Microsoft's own game studios and product teams in recent weeks. Sharma, who used to work in Microsoft's CoreAI division, is very much in learning mode and talking to as many people as she can before she makes strategic decisions on the future of Xbox.

Some of those decisions are about to be made very soon.

Sources at Xbox tell me Sharma has been looking closely at Game Pass pricing recently, with a view to offering a wider range of …

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Xbox Game Pass ‘has become too expensive,’ says Microsoft’s new gaming chief in leaked memo

2026-04-13T20:03:52-04:00

Asha Sharma. | Image: The Verge, Microsoft

Microsoft's new Xbox chief, Asha Sharma, has signaled that Xbox Game Pass pricing is about to change. In an internal memo to Xbox employees, obtained by The Verge, Sharma admits that "Game Pass has become too expensive for players" and that Microsoft needs "a better value equation."

"Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox. It's also clear that the current model isn't the final one," says Sharma. "Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around."

Microsoft hiked the price of Xbox …

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Microsoft’s new Xbox Gamepad Cursor adds a virtual mouse to handhelds

2026-04-13T06:29:17-04:00

Microsoft has started testing its own virtual mouse cursor inside its Xbox mode for Windows-based handhelds. The new Gamepad Cursor option provides a quick way to turn the left stick of a handheld like the Xbox Ally X into a virtual mouse.

While Asus has its own cursor as part of Armory Crate, Microsoft's Gamepad Cursor lives inside its own Xbox mode in Windows 11, and it's easy to activate from the Game Bar without having to use Armory Crate. Once activated, the Gamepad Cursor will turn your left stick into a mouse for precise control, or for apps that aren't designed for controllers.

The new Gamepad Cursor option in the Xbox mode. | Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge" data-portal-copyright="Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge">

The left stick will scroll around a screen like a mous …

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Xbox’s new era needs games like Forza Horizon 6

2026-04-08T08:49:21-04:00

It's a weird time at Xbox. Microsoft's gaming division is under new management, with its current leadership intent on what it describes as "a renewed commitment to Xbox." But given that no one really knows what an Xbox is at this point, that could mean many things. What Xbox needs is a game to signal to players what the brand is really about, and what it is actually committing to. What Xbox needs is more games like Forza Horizon 6, which is coming at exactly the right time.

The open-world racing game launches next month, but I recently had the chance to play a preview version to get a sense of what to expect. Even with just a brief taste of …

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