Xbox has confirmed it’s considering a move back to exclusive first-party games. When the company appointed a new CEO, Asha Sharma, and Chief Content Officer, Matt Booty, in February 2026, it quickly became clear that significant changes were on the horizon. In the months that followed, Xbox has already seen some notable shifts, and it now sounds like the brand may continue to undo some of its more contentious recent decisions.
The new leadership team has called for a return to the gaming giant’s roots. Sharma recently announced Xbox is moving away from the Microsoft Gaming brand in an effort to appeal to long-time fans and create distance from the company’s evolution over the past few years. Before Sharma and Booty took the reins, many felt Xbox had lost the core of its identity, thanks largely to a lack of exclusives and the infamously confusing “This is an Xbox” campaign. It seems now the brand is trying to go back to what it once was, and that may include the return of exclusive games.
Xbox Says It Will “Reevaluate” Its Approach to Exclusivity and More
An internal memo shared on Xbox’s website detailed the brand’s new goals and next steps, including the promise to “reevaluate our approach to exclusivity.” This is not a guarantee that first-party Xbox games will be exclusive again, but it does confirm the earlier rumor that Xbox is having conversations about exclusivity amid the leadership shake-up. While the company has made an impressive amount of money from bringing some first-party games to other platforms, some have argued that the move away from exclusivity is part of why it’s struggled to compete with Sony and Nintendo in the hardware space.
The memo also repeatedly emphasized the need for affordability as a key part of Xbox’s value statement. Sharma and company are already making strides in that part of the strategy, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate just got a price cut, though this came at the cost of no longer releasing Call of Duty games as day-one Game Pass launches. There’s a chance that could apply to more games in the future, too, as the memo also listed windowing alongside exclusivity as one of the approaches Xbox is reconsidering. Alternatively, “windowing” in this context could also mean keeping first-party games exclusive for a limited window before bringing them to other platforms, similar to the way PlayStation releases its games on PC.
While a return to exclusivity is now officially on the table, some think it will not end up happening. One insider has gone so far as to say Xbox exclusives are “absolutely not happening” for the company’s next console, codenamed Project Helix. There seems to be justification for both sides, and the official comments from Xbox itself leave plenty of wiggle room, not indicating any preference for one direction or the other. For now, all fans know is that there’s a chance that exclusive games could come back to Xbox, but it’s not a done deal.
—
—
There are plenty of other details and small signs to pick apart in Sharma and Booty’s message to employees. It mentions offering players flexible pricing, which lends validity to the claim that Xbox Game Pass could implement a pick-your-own tier, and it also reiterates the company’s commitment to cloud gaming, potentially as a lower-cost alternative to Project Helix. Amid all of these statements and suggestions, one thing is clear, and that’s the notion that Xbox is aiming for a big revival.
Source: Xbox
