Microsoft wants its biggest game franchises to live far beyond consoles and PCs. On Thursday, the company announced Xbox XP, a separate business unit built to handle entertainment, brand licensing and physical experiences outside traditional game publishing.
Heading the effort is Matthew Ball, chief strategy officer at Xbox. In an announcement on Xbox Wire, Ball explained that the unit groups together functions that previously drifted across separate teams inside Microsoft. The new organisation splits into four pillars: Xbox Pictures, Xbox Places, Xbox Products, and Xbox Partnerships.
"Great games remain at the center of these franchises and at the heart of Xbox," Ball said, framing XP as an effort to work with creative partners while studios focus on code.
The push into non-gaming projects comes right after big theatrical and television bets started paying off for the company. An adaptation of Minecraft collected more than $550 million in its initial two weeks in theatres last year, securing an immediate green light for a sequel. On television, the second season of Fallout reached 83 million viewers across its first 13 weeks of streaming. That gave Xbox a genuine hit after the disappointment of its live-action Halo series, which Paramount cancelled following a two-season run.
Xbox Pictures will take charge of screen projects already in development, which include feature films based on Gears of War and Sea of Thieves. It also pits Microsoft directly against rivals who have built lucrative media empires out of their game catalogues. Nintendo banked $1.36 billion from the first Super Mario Bros. Movie and another $1 billion from Super Mario Galaxy, while Sony is currently seeing returns of more than $280 million from its latest Resident Evil cinematic outing.
Then there is Xbox Places, which handles physical venues. Mojang and Xbox have already committed more than £85 million to build dedicated Minecraft theme park attractions across the United States and the United Kingdom. Those themed locations are scheduled to open their gates between 2026 and 2027, and Xbox Places will manage that rollout alongside any future in-person ventures.
The timing tells its own story. Over the past few years, Microsoft pushed through deep cuts across its gaming studios, shutting teams down and trimming headcounts to rein in costs. Setting up XP is an explicit effort to mine the remaining intellectual property for revenue outside software sales, selling movie tickets, plush toys and theme park passes to people who might never pick up an Xbox controller.
GDFiled by The Games Desk
Consoles, handhelds, PC gaming and the platforms and hardware behind them.
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