Kotaku78%
Xbox CEO Lays Out Post-Layoff Priorities For Ambitious Growth After A Terrible Year 42%
By Ethan Gach67%
7/30/2026, 4:23:41 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 15 faulty reasoning types, including Optimism Bias, Negativity Bias, and Availability Heuristic, with Hasty Generalization as the most egregious example at 14.1% saturation with 64 hits. Analysis detected 529 faulty-reasoning hits from 454 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 45.6% and a BS Rank of 42% (13,018 of 22,280 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 58.40% of the article peer group.
A new Asha Sharma memo has hit Xbox.
In it, the CEO shed light on her core priorities and goals to get Microsoft’s gaming division back to strong growth and profits after another
<a href="https://kotaku.com/heres-the-part-about-the-xbox-reset-i-still-cant-figure-out-2000712258">1,600 of its employees were laid off at the beginning of the month</a>.
Among other things, the plan calls for Xbox to be halfway to a stated goal of 1 billion users per day.
It’s currently at 100 million.
Insight into Sharma’s plan comes
<a href="https://www.theverge.com/games/973520/xbox-ceo-memo-one-year-growth">from <em>The Verge</em></a>, which shared excerpts from the latest memo to be sent to Xbox staff on July 30.
In its earnings report this week, Microsoft reported double-digit declines in revenue on both the hardware and games and services sides, with total revenue for the year declining by $1.7 billion.
Xbox’s new CEO laid out four main priorities to pull the platform out of that tailspin in the next fiscal year:
<blockquote>
<p>CORE: Strengthen our platform, led by console</p>
<p>CONTENT: Grow great games into global franchises</p>
<p>CREATION: Make Minecraft the world’s creator platform</p>
<p>CONNECTION: Extend the worlds that fans love</p>
</blockquote>
While each priority begins with the letter C, the actions entailed in following through on them are less obvious.
Heading into 2028 and 2029, the plan is to “move into businesses producing meaningful player value and revenue acceleration.
” By 2030, the goal is to be “halfway to our long-term daily-player goal with sustained double-digit growth in players and engagement and industry leading margins.
”
In her now infamous “reset” memo announcing cuts to 3,600 Xbox employees over the next 12 months, including closing or spinning off several studios, Sharma said she wanted Xbox to be one of the few companies that “entertains” more than a billion people each day.
Today’s memo stated that Xbox is
<a href="https://kotaku.com/xbox-lays-off-thousands-entertain-more-billion-people-daily-2000712897">currently at 100 million</a>.
Getting halfway to a billion within four years would seem to require unprecedented growth of nearly 50 percent annually.
Sharma went on to call Xbox “one of the largest stadiums in the world,” a metaphor reminiscent of Google’s failed Stadia play, and said that while the Xbox console remains a “flagship experience,” Xbox will also be searching for new players through PC, cloud, and other platforms.
Long-term plans include monetizing big franchises like Fallout “across film, television, consumer products, sponsorship, live experiences, and form new partnerships globally, including China,” as well plowing even more investment to <em>Candy Crush</em> and <em>Minecraft</em>.
At one point, the CEO reportedly mentioned being more focused on not just the company’s biggest franchises but its “biggest new ideas.
” It looks like we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out what those might be.
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.