Xbox Makes a Surprising Comeback with Price Cuts and New Leadership

What's up everybody? This is the Actman here and today Xbox is back in the news cycle. OH GREAT, WHAT'S IT FOR THIS TIME? What unspeakable tragedy has befallen Xbox now? Just give it to me straight, Doc. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Price Update. Xbox Game Pass is getting an upgrade. We've listened to your feedback and now you have even Hey, I've seen this one. This is a classic. Well, you know where this is going, folks. Oh. Oh, yes. Oh, please, please take my money. Yeah, I don't

like money. I don't like having money. I like spending more money on things that were cheaper before. Starting today, Game Pass Ultimate drops from $29.99 to $22.99 a month. That's insane. PC Game Pass will also drop to wait drop as in decrease. The price is getting lower. I don't believe it. Oh my god. A corporation in America lowered its prices. Unbelievable. And they say capitalism doesn't work. What the heck is going on at Xbox? What do you What do you mean a price decrease? Dude, I saw a post on Twitter that had like over a 100,000 likes. It was quote retweeting this and it basically just said, "I have never seen a service decrease in price in my

lifetime." Wait a minute. Good. Good Xbox news. It's been 84 years. It's okay to be a fan. I don't have to feel it massive embarrassment anymore. Oh my god. The critically endangered Xbox W has at last been cited. Those of you familiar with my channels, uh you have likely seen the plethora of Xbox sucks videos, which I truly don't like making because I am such a huge Xbox fanboy. But I feel like I would ra I would rather complain and criticize what I don't like than to just stop talking about it altogether. Cuz if I stop talking about it, then that means I've stopped caring. Well, let's dive into it because there is a ton of big

announcements for Xbox and they're changing the future over there. The future looked bleak. Like I said, if you've seen my previous Xbox videos and if you want to see them, I have an entire playlist set up. So, check that out. link in the description and pinned comment. But you're no doubt just as tired of beating this dead horse as I am. But to quickly recap, you know, the state of this brand, about 2 months ago, Phil Spencer stepped down, got fired, left, quit. He stepped down as CEO and head of Xbox. In his place came a woman named Asharma. Someone who had no previous professional experience working in the video game industry and had transferred over from Microsoft's AI department. Oh, you're coming from the

AI department and you have no previous video game experience. Well, yeah, my expectations are uh low as But uh you know what? I got I'm eating my own words right now cuz Asha Sharma is coming out hot. Xbox CEO ends C-pilot AI development and overhauls leadership. Asha Sharma confirmed Xbox will wind down co-pilot on mobile and halt console development entirely. She says they need to deepen their connection with the community and retire features that don't align with their future plans. Did anybody see this coming? that the former head of Microsoft's AI division would come in as CEO of Xbox and be like, "Nah, we don't need AI. If they SET THAT ANDROID FREE, IT WILL BE THE END OF ALL of us." No.

In my opinion, this is a good change because despite whatever ads or selling points Microsoft tried to give for co-pilot on consoles, I never saw a single instance where it looked like, oh, this AI feature, this co-pilot is going to enhance my Xbox gaming experience. I just I was never sold on that idea. Maybe because she was head of AI, she understands the proper practical applications of it and when AI can be helpful and when it is a detriment. She said Xbox needs to move faster, deepen our connection with the community, and address friction for both players and developers. This balance is important as we get the business back on track. As part of this shift, you'll see us begin to retire features that don't align with

where we're headed. Is this an indication that Copilot as a whole is not where Microsoft should be headed or just not where Xbox should be headed? Time will tell, but I'm getting whiplash because under Phil Spencer over the last year or two, Xbox has basically done nothing but destroy its own identity and gone full anti-consumer approach. Genuinely, I could not tell you a single piece of solid good Xbox news that released in the last year or two. It almost felt like getting rid of Phil and putting in Asha when it first happened. It seemed like these were the

end times. They were going to shut down Xbox, raise the prices for everything, and just milk the remaining fans for all they could. At least that's what I thought. I am so happy to eat my words today. Personally, my expectations for the future of Xbox were down in the sewer. Might have been all the way down in Blight Town. One positive of Phil stepping down was that, you know, there was that idea, well, it can't get any worse, right? This stage just can't get any worse. Surely, we have hit rock bottom. I mean, a 50% price increase. You're talking like $19.99 to $29.99. There's nowhere to go but up.

How are we going to get out of here? We'll dig our way up. And that Game Pass Ultimate price increase, well, they got absolutely clowned on and dogged on with posts of people showing their cancellation for Game Pass generating hundreds of thousands of likes. Xbox overnight just became a laughingstock. It was a PR disaster to say the least. Now, Game Pass Ultimate is going down to $22.99, which is not quite where it was at 1999, but in this economy, lower prices is just unheard of. What is also really cool about this is that they didn't just say, "Oh, here's the date where we're going to lower the price." No, it's it's lower right now. Check this out. Oh, yeah. I want to sign up for Game Pass, but lower price. Look at

that. Look at that. They highlighted it in yellow. They really want to draw your attention to the fact that they're lowering the price. All right, for a company as greedy and as stereotypically shitty as Microsoft, this is like when the worst person, you know, just made a great point. Now, as a caveat, Call of Duty will be removed from Game Pass Ultimate. Now, granted, the last entry was Black Ops 7, which I genuinely forgot existed, so at least for right now, it doesn't seem like a huge trade-off or a huge loss. But obviously for Call of Duty fans, this is going to be pretty big because well, man. At 30 bucks a month, if you play it for more than two months, just buy the game. Now, from a business perspective, packaging in Call of Duty

in with Game Pass, it's like they wanted to put all of their eggs in the game pass and the subscription model. And fundamentally, like I have always disagreed with that idea. This is me speaking purely from a business perspective. If Call of Duty it tops the sales charts basically every year, it's it's at least in the top three over the past 15 plus years. It's usually the number one bestselling game of the year, no matter how it is. And just the idea that you would forego full sales over subscriptions is a very odd choice, right? Because what do they teach you in business or investment? Differentiate, right? Spread your investments out. you need to diversify your bonds, And this was like, "No, we're putting it

all into Game Pass." Now, instead, Call of Duty will come to Game Pass a year after it launches. So, around the time the next one is coming out, you'll be able to play the previous one for free. Well, for free on Game Pass. And I think that's a good compromise. Like, I don't have any major issues with that. I don't have any major issues with a new Xbox announcement. This is crazy. This is actually all positive news. It seems like in any case, Microsoft's strategy for Xbox has just been all over the place. Xbox Play Anywhere. Everything is an Xbox. Okay. So, therefore, nothing is. And what makes Xbox special doesn't

exist because everything functions as one. I never understood this or foregoing the entire concept of console exclusives. Are you not trying to sell consoles? They recently raised the price of the Xbox consoles. And while it doesn't seem like there's any uh retraction of that price increase, at the very least, Asha is talking about and planning around Project Helix, the next gen console. And so they put all their eggs in the Game Pass basket and basically neglected every other aspect of the business. Like, but this is more than just a price decrease. Okay, Asha. Asha's cooking a bit, but what other recipes does she have in the books? We are Xbox and all it is just the Xbox logo restored to its green glory. Ladies

and gentlemen, we have a rebrand. I actually made fun of this in a video before. I can't remember which one, but they had actually changed their internal gaming department from just like Xbox or Xbox Studios to Microsoft Gaming. It's no longer Xbox. It's Microsoft gaming. It was like a parody. Like, why would you call it that? Like Xbox is so cool. You know why Xbox is cool? Because the X signifies the X factor, the unpredictable, the guy that comes out of left field to make the killer play that you never expected. The guy who returns the kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown. Xbox was the X Factor. It was the unpredictable, the rogue, the rebel. A simple logo change posted from the official Xbox account is worth over 219,000

likes. Ju all they did was add the green back to the logo. That green. That green right there. Can you think of another video game console that picked green as its sole color? Green and black. There's no foot. There's no NFL team that's green and black. Is there a college team? I'm getting way off track. The point is we're going back to marketing 101. Because you want to tap into the things that make your brand recognizable. Xbox, Xactor, the Rebel, the Rogue. Uh, it took me this long to realize that I genuinely despised the

new logo. Like even on my Series X over there, the Xbox button is white. And I don't think I had ever truly thought about it too much, but like it confuses me. Like why is it white? This is an Xbox. Even at the top of the Series X in those little vents, that's the only part that has any green in it. It's just a simple color scheme change to make it stand out more. And it's also a sign that we are Xbox. We are not Microsoft Gaming. It just it seems like Xbox is pulling a 360 on all their previous blunders and bad choices. You even have the official Mountain Dew account saying we are so back. And if that does not signal a return to form, then I don't know what does. See, the thing about like having the logo be white,

devoid of color, like this new logo is literally bringing the color and life back to Xbox. It's literally bringing the color back. The thing about this previous rebrand of Microsoft gaming and this white sterile logo is that it didn't feel like the only reason Xbox was dying, but it was definitely a symptom of Xbox's decaying identity. Like it had lost track of what made it special. I can't tell you how big of a difference it would make if when I turned on my Series X, that Xbox logo was just green. It would stand out in my living room. Microsoft is cancelling the Microsoft gaming branding. The entire gaming division is now simply Xbox as it always should have been. My Twitter timeline has been absolutely filled with

people just talking about Xbox and praising the new decisions and the rebrand. It's quite refreshing to see. We made it. The soulless, minimalistic, flat design era is finally over. The sun always rises. A quote to remember if you're ever depressed. By the way, the sun always rises. The sun comes up. Look at the difference. That's what I'm talking about. Look, there's more dimension to it. It's the exact same logo. It's just, you know, there's bright spots. There's bright spots where this is nothing. It's just white and black. Yeah. And you can tell, you can tell I'm not the only one hyped about this change. The Xbox community has been so starved for good news that just

within her first 60 days as uh head of Xbox, they're already making messiah memes for her. A akin to Gabe Newwell. By the way, this is top tier quality. Uh I think maybe it's going a bit far, but it's the sentiment that like, oh my god, a good decision has been made within a position of leadership at Xbox. Like people are just not used to this happening. We like we've become so accustomed to like, oh, there's Xbox news. All right, what are we making fun of today? To round things out, I want to take a look at Asher Swarm's blog post. I Let's Let's read what she has to say, what her creative vision for the future of Xbox is. And now, keep in mind, all of this is just words. At the end of the day, this is

just words, but words preempt action. So, she posted, "We are Xbox." That's the title. And as you can see, she is wearing a Jarvis. Jarvis, zoom in. She's wearing a Halo jacket. Okay, so bonus points. The first part talks about uh Xbox's legacy. But here's the important section. We have work to do. You don't say. Players are frustrated. No, we're not. Everything is fine. Like I said, I Can you make the g all the games $90 because I have so much money? Can you make your game Can you sell them to me for $90? I would pay $50 a month for a Game Pass subscription. I'm not frustrated at all. I'm not being

sarcastic at all. We're not frustrated. No, no, we're we're cool. You're just crazy. New feature drops on console have been less frequent. I cannot tell you the last time I heard about uh a legitimate like Xbox console update. I actually can't can't tell you. Pricing is getting harder for people to keep up with. Three, three facts in a row. There you go. And core experiences like search, discovery, social, and personalization still feel too fragmented. I don't really feel any personalization with Xbox because I have no incentive to actually use it as a gaming console. My Series X over the last few years has predominantly been uh a DVD and streaming player. It ironically became what Don Matrick envisioned. Developers and publishers

are asking for more too. Better tools, better insights, and a platform that helps them grow faster. At the same time, a new generation of players is coming online with different expectations. Their time is split across games, media, and everything else competing for attention. They expect more content in familiar places, want to shape the worlds they plan, and want to create and socialize together, not just play together. Socialize together. There's nothing I disagree with here so far. Xbox revolutionized online gaming. Xbox Live chat is a meme for a reason, but the truth and what it really comes down to is uh the 360 revolutionized just voice chat in video games. I mean, the OG Xbox and Xbox Live

did as well, but the 360 perfected that formula, right? Every console came with a headset. It wasn't about just playing together. It was about socializing together. And a big thing that uh modern games have been missing is just the social features. Again, look at Halo as the poster child, right? Uh there's no persistent lobbies as far as I remember last time I played Infinite. I don't think there was map voting. You think about uh fileshare, custom games, Forge, all this stuff. Xbox was leagues ahead of PlayStation and Nintendo when it came to online features, when it came to socializing, when it came to like building a community, achievements. Literally every other platform has copied achievements from the Xbox 360 except Nintendo. I

don't think Nintendo has done that. But Steam has achievements. PlayStation has trophies. This these are Xbox's core strengths. And putting that into words and not just saying a bunch of nonsensical corpo jargon is extremely refreshing to hear. All at the same time, she's acknowledging that uh old bastards like me who are millennials who have been around for a while, there's a new generation of players uh with different expectations than I have. And so acknowledging that like there is a demographic shift or that there is a new demographic they should be trying to appeal to comes across to me as good business sense. Players have access to more games than ever. Even as the cost and time to build blockbuster titles

continues to rise, putting pressure on what gets made and how risk is taken. Some of the biggest recent hits are coming from small teams or even single creators and places like Roblox are producing experiences that rival major franchises in scale. Okay. Bes besides Roblox, she's right. Indie smaller teams are making the banger hits that are getting the game awards that are selling millions and millions of copies. Of course, you still have games like Resident Evil Reququum who are capitalizing on their AAA status and actually like making a AAA game, but uh for the most part, yeah, Expedition 33, Hollow Knight, people are just gravitating towards AAA games because they represent what AAA used to be. And

again, she's she's recognizing things that I have at least pointed out in my videos. And I'm sure not the I'm not the only one who thinks or feels this way. More players are also choosing subscriptions and services as their primary way to play with expectations set around instant access, ongoing value, and libraries that evolve continuously. Instant access. It just I'm sorry. The Battlefront 2 brain brought me back to instant action. I want some instant action. Yes, I want instant access. The industry is becoming global and competitive. More than half of the market's revenue, players, and growth are happening outside of our core

markets. But the rest of the world is not just a large market. Well, hold on. The world isn't just a market to make money. Hold on. All right. You're You're a CEO, though. You're Call me crazy, but it sounds like you might be putting some kind of intrinsic value on the customer. We're We're not just a farm. Developers there are increasingly competing with the most established western studios, combining scale, speed, and a willingness to reinvent genres many once considered mature. The model that got us here won't be the one that takes us forward. She sounds smart. She like this is not dumb

corpo speak that like when we were looking at uh Satia Nadella's comments about AI and he's like rich scaffoldings of AI infrastructure can flippity flity do the fling uh bumbleshake you know it wasn't like that sort of dumb incomprehensible corposo speak like I understand this. So number one you just get points for being a CEO that speaks proper English. It also sounds like she understands the holes in Xbox. Xbox's market acknowledges that the model that got us where we are right now is not the one that takes us forward. So again, these are all just pretty words.

These are these could all just be lies, sweet little lies. Tell me what I want to hear. The fact that you know what I want to hear says something. Xbox will be where the world plays and creates. Kind of generic. We will build a global platform that connects players and creators everywhere. Console is at the foundation. Everything is an Xbox, isn't it? You can play where you want and your games, progress, friends, and identity stay with you across PC, console, mobile, and cloud. Xbox will be built to be affordable. Af you've gone off the deep end, Asha.

Affordable in this economy. Hold on. We will offer flexible pricing. So, it's easy to get started and keep playing. The experience will adapt to you, letting you customize how you play, helping you find what you love, and collecting you with the right people. Uh, by the way, I think they made some kind of announcement that they were testing some kind of like Game Pass personalized experience where like you pick the games that you want to rent or subscribe to and it adjusts the your monthly subscription price based on that. It's got me thinking about how, you know, when Blockbuster was open, uh, you could go rent a movie for like three bucks. So, if you just want to rent or subscribe to a couple games for a month

and just play those, maybe it takes it down to like eight bucks, 10 bucks a month. That's what I heard. I like expanded to China. We got to get the Chinese market. Trust me, I understand. Another important bit. Along the way, we will re-evaluate our approach to exclusivity, windowing, and AI. I just I can't believe it. You're going to re-evaluate your approach not just to exclusivity in the sense that you have had no exclusives this last generation, but AI. What kind of black magic wizardry has Asha Sharma pulled on Satia Nadella? Like for whatever reason, it seems like one of two things is true.

Either Satia did not trust Phil Spencer and therefore did not allow him to make these decisions that he may have wanted to do, or Asha is just keyed in on what makes Xbox cool, what we're about, or at least at the very least how to fix this non-stop cavalcade of fuckups and mistakes that have been made over the last few years. Uh, one of those two things is true. Ah, here we go. I love to hear this. We are Xbox. To achieve our master plan, the way we work must transform. Our best work happens when the full stack moves together. Microsoft Gaming describes our structure, but it does not describe our ambition. So, we are going back to where we started and changing our team's name. We are Xbox spoken like a conqueror. I know

this is like relatively speaking, this is all very like minute minor things to be excited about, but that's just how low the brand had gotten. Like I had truly given up on Xbox and I thought things were only going to get worse. I genuinely like in those last two Xbox videos I made, I thought I thought they were scrapping it. They were scrapping everything Xbox just to milk what they could from it. And this is like a genuine This is a 360, baby. This is a full change in identity and culture and like the logo I showed. They are literally bringing the color and life back to the Xbox brand. They outline their top priorities. Number one, earn every player. Protect our art. Stay rebellious. I like that one. Progress over perfection. Signal over ceremony.

Core before more. Yes, we should make a good core Halo experience before we try to do more. Before we try to do a battle royale or an extraction shooter or whatever the Outwork the problem. Speed is learning makers over managers. She speaks a beautiful English. We're going to wrap this up. Over the last 5 years, Xbox and the industry have been through an unimaginable amount of change. That's that's corpo speak for we up a lot. and this team has continued to deliver through it for our community. Thank you for staying focused on what matters. 62 days in, we're proud of how we're we've honored our commitment of great games, return of Xbox, and future of play. We're here to

do the most creative and courageous work of our lives, and that's what we'll do together with gratitude, Matt and Asha. Now, I'm sold on Asha, but Matt Booty was still around when everything was getting up. So, I don't know. Maybe he wasn't the problem. Maybe Phil was the problem. Maybe Phil Spencer is sitting in his like $30 million home like, "Oh, I could have kept my job if I lowered Game Pass prices. Oh, oh, oh, it seems so simple now." But I have always been an Xbox fan. I'm always going to be an Xbox fan. If I stop talking about it, then you'll know I've stopped caring. And this to me, they have already made good positive changes with the logo and the rebrand

and the decrease in Xbox game price. Uh, I think seeing where we were back in October, like literally thousands of posts generating hundreds of thousands of likes just because they're showing off that they canled Game Pass. There was that much hatred and animosity towards the brand. It had been torched to an astonishing degree. And Microsoft's like major push for AI, Microsop, right? I'm sorry. I have called them Microsoft throughout this video, even though I promised to call them Microsoft for the rest of the year, but it just they're learning, it seems. I don't want to jump the gun. I don't want to jump the gun or get too crazy, but I mean, this all sounds good to me. That's where we're at with Xbox. Oh my

god, a positive Xbox. We can make out again. I can kiss you. I can say I'm an Xbox fan without being totally embarrassed now. But I'll wait. I'll I'll see what else Asha can cook up. But if they're they're making Gabe New type messiah memes of her already. So it's it seems like she has it all figured out. But what do you think? Are you excited for the future of Xbox like me? Uh does all this sound too good to be true? Are you still like skeptical? Let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comments below. Like the video if you enjoyed it and subscribe to the ActMan for more awesome content. All right everyone, that's all I got for today. This is the Sexbox man signing out. Peace.