A leaf-strewn corridor of copper and gold.

So we're supposed to believe Microsoft is secretly preparing to sell XBOX while simultaneously: • Developing Project Helix • Co-engineering custom AMD silicon for next-generation hardware • Entering a multi-year partnership with AMD • Preparing developer alpha hardware for 2027 • Building an XBOX gaming layer into Windows • Expanding XBOX Play Anywhere • Maintaining four generations of backward compatibility • Launching Disc-to-Digital, allowing supported physical games to carry digital entitlements across the platform • Explicitly restructuring XBOX around hardware, content, experience and services • Publicly describing console as the foundation of its ecosystem That's an extraordinary amount of infrastructure, investment and forward planning to build for something supposedly about to disappear.

It's difficult to take the moral outrage seriously when there's so little willingness to acknowledge the policies and decisions that preceded this reset. Sympathy for those affected and accountability for how XBOX arrived here can, and should, coexist.

Asha Sharma has been in the XBOX leadership seat for relatively little time, yet the direction of travel is already unmistakable. XBOX is putting the console first again. Exclusivity is returning as a strategic priority, console development and regular platform updates are being prioritised, “Everything is an XBOX” is gone, Project Helix is moving forward, and the platform itself is receiving renewed attention. Recent developments increasingly point to a platform that is putting consumers first: Disc-to-Digital, backwards compatibility, player choice and Asha’s recognition that “players love physical media” all demonstrate a stronger emphasis on flexibility, control and the player experience. And the content strategy is gaining real traction, with a reliable pipeline of exclusives starting with Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution, alongside projects with creators such as Hideo Kojima. XBOX taking over publishing for PHYSINT after Sony dropped the project is a particularly telling example of the calibre and ambition behind what comes next. Most importantly, the proposition is becoming clearer: give people compelling reasons to buy the hardware and invest in the ecosystem. That’s how you rebuild mindshare.

Exclusives are back, which rather undermines the premise of your argument. I don't think it was ever realistic to expect XBOX to suddenly abandon games that had already been announced for other platforms, tear up existing commitments and absorb billions in unnecessary costs. The relevant question is what XBOX does with its future releases. And the case for continuing the previous approach is becoming increasingly difficult to defend. Asha Sharma has openly acknowledged the need to rebuild the brand. The multiplatform experiment did more to weaken the XBOX proposition than strengthen it, and cherry-picking a handful of outliers doesn't turn the broader experiment into an unqualified success. The direction now seems pretty clear: rebuild the first-party pipeline, make exclusives meaningful again and give consumers a genuine reason to invest in the XBOX ecosystem. You can disagree with that direction, but continuing to defend the old strategy is becoming increasingly untenable.