Microsoft’s potential options for the future of the Xbox brand reportedly include spinning it off into a separate company or operating as a “wholly owned subsidiary” rather than a division within Microsoft.
According to The Information (via Reuters), these are just a few of the options Microsoft is considering. Xbox has struggled mightily in recent years, most recently losing millions of subscribers to its Game Pass subscription service after a major price hike. Game Pass has, at least partially, seen improvement following a price cut that also removed new Call of Duty games from the library.
A spin-off would, on paper, make the Xbox brand free from the high-profit-margin expectations of Microsoft as a whole, though it would also no longer have access to the vast resources of such a large company.
The Information’s report also said Microsoft is planning to increase investment in a few of Xbox’s biggest franchises, including Halo, The Elder Scrolls, and Fallout, in order to speed up development, but just what that means remains unclear. The Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout 5 were both technically announced many years ago, with very few updates on either, while Halo: Campaign Evolved will serve as a stopgap of sorts when it launches next month–for the first time on PlayStation 5 in addition to Xbox and PC.
That PS5 release may be a one-off for Halo, however, as Microsoft looks to renew focus on console exclusives. Gears of War: E-Day, for instance, reportedly had a PS5 version in the works, but is no longer coming to the platform.