If you have been following Xbox over the past few years, you know the vibe has been messy. Big acquisitions, big promises, and a brand identity that kept shifting every few months. Fans were left wondering what Xbox stood for anymore. That is why the recent interview between Game File’s Stephen Totilo and Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty landed with so much weight. It is the clearest look yet at how the new leadership team wants to rebuild trust and momentum.
And to their credit, Sharma and Booty did not dance around the state of things. They talked about the work ahead, the mistakes behind them, and the philosophy guiding what they are calling the return to Xbox.
Sharma has been in the job for just over sixty days, but she already sounds like someone who has diagnosed the problem and is ready to get to work. She told Totilo that the return of Xbox starts with fundamentals. In her words, the team needs to “restore the core fundamentals of our product and console” and strengthen Xbox’s presence on PC. She also pointed to discovery and search as areas that need real attention.
One of her first symbolic moves was retiring the Microsoft Gaming label and bringing the Xbox name back to the center of the division. It is a small shift, but it signals a desire to rebuild the brand rather than dilute it.
Sharma also made it clear that the metric that matters most now is daily active players. Not hardware sales. Not subscription spikes. Actual people playing games in the Xbox ecosystem every day. As she put it, “There’s no silver bullets, and our focus is going to be: how many players are playing every single day.”
One of the most striking parts of the interview was how directly Sharma acknowledged that Xbox had not invested enough in the Series X and Series S experience. She said a new team has been formed to focus on console features, performance, reliability, and quality. Her goal is simple. Make Gen 9 feel like a first class experience again.
“We know we just haven’t invested as much there and so we’re getting back to that,” she said. It is the kind of honesty fans have been waiting to hear.
She also talked about affordability. Hardware is more expensive than ever, and she did not pretend that Xbox can magically reverse that trend. But she emphasized that the team is thinking about performance and play time alongside innovation and cost. Her north star is making sure people around the world can play.
Game Pass has been the crown jewel of Xbox for years, but even that needed a reset. Microsoft recently dropped the price of Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, and Sharma was candid about why. The subscription had become too expensive for too many players.
“To grow a subscription business, you need more players who love the subscription, that are staying longer and that are happy,” she said. Lowering the price and removing day one Call of Duty releases is part of that recalibration.
On exclusives, Sharma was careful but thoughtful. She called exclusivity decisions “long swinging decisions that have decade long impact.” She stressed that Xbox will take a data driven and principle driven approach, and she refused to rush a timeline. “I want to make the right decision, not the fastest decision,” she told Totilo.
It is a refreshing contrast to the whiplash of the past few years.
Project Helix and the Future of the Platform
Totilo also pressed Sharma on Project Helix, the next-generation Xbox hardware that will play both console and PC games. The big question was whether Helix would support third-party stores like Epic Games Store. Sharma did not commit, but she did outline the philosophy.
“We want the platform to be open for more people to create on the platform and more players to participate in customizing and extending that,” she said. She also noted that she was not part of earlier conversations with Epic, so the team will make decisions together going forward.
It is clear that Helix is still in the oven, but the direction sounds more open, more flexible, and more player-focused.
While Sharma is setting the vision, Matt Booty is the one who has to make sure the games and studios deliver. In the interview, he backed up Sharma’s emphasis on sustainability, quality, and long-term thinking. Booty has been at Xbox long enough to know where the pain points are, and his presence in the conversation signals that this is not just a leadership reset. It is a cultural one.
The biggest takeaway from the interview is that Sharma and Booty understand the stakes. Xbox has spent years trying to be everything everywhere. Now it is trying to be something again. A platform with a clear identity. A brand that feels confident. A place where players know what to expect.
Sharma summed it up best when she said Xbox wants to return to growth next year. Not just hardware growth. Xbox division growth. That is a bold target, but for the first time in a while, the plan behind it feels grounded.
If this is the start of the return to Xbox, it is off to a promising start.
