Details from Fortune’s new interview with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma are making the rounds, and there’s a lot packed in: hardware dates, a console price range that will make you wince, a first-party handheld that is still alive, more layoffs, and the clearest picture yet of where Game Pass is going.
The headlines
- A next-gen Xbox handheld is planned for the holiday 2027 season.
- The next-gen console is targeted for holiday 2028.
- Price: Xbox is reportedly projecting $1,200 to $1,800 for the console unless Microsoft subsidizes part of the cost.
- Game Pass overhaul: a major restructure that lets players pick features à la carte, with add-ons for console-only games, cloud gaming and multiplayer, sitting on top of a tiered structure.
- More layoffs are planned for this month, November and January, according to people familiar with the plans.
- Project Helix, the next-gen hardware effort, sparked a turf war with the Windows side over which OS should run the handheld. Windows leaders wanted a trimmed-down Windows Home; Sharma’s team wanted to build and control its own software for the best gaming performance. Per Fortune, one senior Xbox executive threatened to scrap the handheld rather than ship the Windows build. Xbox is now largely steering the OS, though Sharma stressed the teams still collaborate closely and said Xbox can’t build Helix alone.
- Sharma had Xbox’s new motto put up on office walls when she took over: Great games; return of Xbox; future of play.
- She said she has no timeline for how long she expects to stay in the CEO role.
In their words
Sharma was candid about the job, admitting it’s hard to be a first-time CEO with everyone watching everything you do, and that the team is trying to do an enormous amount in very little time. Her stated goal isn’t a tidy, minimum-viable business; it’s for Xbox to become the No. 1 entertainment company. She also made a point about leadership style that stuck with me: leaders are taught to be confident, but she argues curiosity matters more, because a confident person might be right while a curious one will find a better way.
Matt Booty, looking back at the last five years, said the problem wasn’t that any individual bet failed; it was that Xbox hadn’t connected the dots between them as well as it should have.
Microsoft’s Judson Althoff made the enterprise case for keeping Xbox around: its low-latency demands stress-test Microsoft’s cloud, it keeps retail relationships with giants like Walmart warm, and Minecraft connects the company to creator demographics. On the sale rumors, he was blunt: Sharma is one of the best leaders at the company, and Microsoft wouldn’t put her on a business it intended to sell. He added that there’ll be plenty of speculation and that time will tell.
My take
The hardware is going to be pricey. If Xbox’s timetable holds, that $1,200 to $1,800 range tells you how they’re thinking about the next console: premium first, subsidies maybe. What surprises me more is that a first-party handheld is still in play. Given how well the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally has been received, I fully expected Microsoft to let partners shoulder the hardware cost and simply supply the OS. Instead they’re building the device and fighting Windows for control of the software that runs on it.
Game Pass may get cheaper and more expensive at the same time. This has been hinted at for a while. A more granular Game Pass is good news for players who don’t care about first-party exclusives, Fortnite Battle Passes being bundled in, or EA and Ubisoft catalog access. Only want PC Game Pass without streaming for new and old indie titles? Done. Want Xbox’s first-party games on your console plus Fortnite? Done too. More ways to play and more choice in how you pay for it is a win, as long as the lineup still makes sense.
The danger is making it too messy for people to understand. Subscription menus with five tiers and six add-ons are how you lose customers at the checkout screen. But if Xbox can thread that needle, they’ll have something.
More layoffs are bad, no matter how many they originally said they planned. Three more rounds between now and January is a rough backdrop for a “return of Xbox” story.
All of this remains to be seen. The full interview is worth your time for the deeper picture: read it at Fortune. We’ll keep tracking what any Game Pass restructure means for the catalog right here.
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