It may have taken some last-minute decisions by the looks of things, but Xbox is going all-in on exclusives again. Or, more accurately, it will as soon as the new CEO Asha Sharma can make the business healthy again.
Speaking with Fortune Conversations, Sharma was very matter-of-fact about Xbox's current state. "Our business isn't particularly healthy," she said, but the effort to keep some games exclusive to Xbox is still there. Sharma sees the strategy similarly to the company's head of strategy Matthew Ball, saying it's important to start with one or two "signature exclusives," then, as the business becomes healthy, they'll add more.
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That statement might sound relatively humble from Sharma, but she has huge plans for Xbox in the next few years. Right now, she sees the company as the number 2 publisher, but wants Xbox to be number 1 by 2030. That might sound like a tough ask, but it means from a consumer perspective we'll be seeing the green team throwing some haymakers our way as it tries to convince us to makes Xbox #1.
The way to make the platform of Xbox more attractive to the consumer is, as Sharma says, by bringing exclusive content to it. "It's hard to find examples of platforms out there that don't have exclusive services and content," she says, and it's difficult to argue with the point. It would be like if Netflix just started chucking its movies onto Apple TV, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video all at once.