Microsoft Gaming scrapped as part of Xbox brand return under new CEO

Microsoft is pulling the plug on “Microsoft Gaming", instead reinstating Xbox as its main gaming division as part of sweeping changes from new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.

The details:

• As reported by The Verge’s Tom Warren and later confirmed by Microsoft, Sharma has announced that the company plans to return to the Xbox brand for its gaming division, as “Xbox needs to be [its] identity.”
• This comes after the unveiling of a new Xbox logo, which sees the brand return to its iconic green colour scheme, and is part of Sharma's larger push for the "return of Xbox". The company also recently reduced the highly criticised price tag of the Xbox Game Pass subscription service by removing day-one Call of Duty launches and plans to collaborate with Discord to potentially bundle Game Pass with the Discord Nitro service.
• Microsoft introduced Microsoft Gaming around 2022 as it geared up to acquire Activision Blizzard, with former head of Xbox Phil Spencer stepping in as its CEO. This coincided with the company’s gaming plans moving away from the traditional focus on console hardware and exclusive games to a multi-platform strategy that pushed cloud gaming and PC releases and even resulted in first-party Xbox IPs coming to PlayStation.