It’s been a rough launch for the new era of Xbox. According to a recent fourth-quarter earnings report, Xbox lost over $1.7 billion in revenue last year, and while efforts to amend such losses and gain the trust of Xbox players back have been made, such as moving away from the “Microsoft Gaming” rebranding, strengthening the Xbox identity by focusing on console exclusives, as well as lowering the price of Game Pass (at the expense of day one Call of Duty releases). Amidst all of this however has been massive layoffs, letting go of smaller studios, and a massive price hike for the Xbox Series X.
The Verge recently received an internal memo sent out to Xbox staff, where CEO Asha Sharma discusses four core pillars that the company aims to focus on in order to increase revenue and drive company growth. This is meant to last the rest of the remaining fiscal year, with the aforementioned pillars being what Sharma refers to as “the Four C’s”- Core, Content, Creation, and Connection. According to the memo, Core is meant to “Strengthen our platform, led by console”, Content is meant to “Grow great games into global franchises”, Creation is meant to “Make Minecraft the world’s creator platform”, and Connection is meant to “Extend the worlds that fans love”.
The memo also mentions three stages of development for the company, the first aiming to see the Xbox brand return to growth by the end of the 2027 fiscal year, the second aiming to use the Four C’s to drive “meaningful player value and revenue acceleration” within the 2028 and 2029 fiscal years, and finally the third stage sets to “scale what works” so that by 2030 the Xbox brand is “halfway to [its] long-term daily-player goal with sustained double-digit growth in players and engagement”.