New Xbox CEO Dumps 'Microsoft Gaming' Branding

Microsoft has dumped its Microsoft Gaming brand, bringing its global games business back under the Xbox name. The division's new CEO, Asha Sharma, says the previous name described an internal structure, but Xbox better reflects how people see its offerings. Together, executives describe this change as a fresh start for how Xbox works across consoles, PCs, mobile devices, and cloud services.

In a blog post published Thursday, Sharma outlined a set of principles that will guide the division moving forward. Xbox will treat daily active players as its main yardstick, focusing on how many people play every day rather than on hardware sales or subscription counts. It makes sense, then, that the brand just reduced the prices on some of its Game Pass subscriptions: The cheaper a streaming membership is, the easier it is for gamers to log on more often.

Leadership also highlights four priorities: hardware, content, experience ...