Microsoft Gaming officially changed back to Xbox as brand evolves under new CEO

Microsoft Gaming has apparently been retired as the last vestiges of the former gaming rebrand have been stripped out of Xbox.

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For some time now, Microsoft has been trying to slowly rebrand the Xbox games division as Microsoft Gaming. The name would pop up frequently in the FTC v Microsoft trial documents, and was often used interchangeably with the term 'Xbox.'

Now that's all over; sources tell The Verge's Tom Warren that the division's identity crisis has been solved. The Xbox moniker is back and Microsoft Gaming has been cut out of the naming scheme.

"Xbox needs to be our identity," new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma reportedly said in an internal meeting with employees.

As we were writing this report, Microsoft published a memo from Sharma, which discussed the Microsoft Gaming name change:

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.

The news comes after the new Xbox CEO has reversed course on a number of its Microsoft Gaming-era decisions, including removing Call of Duty as a day and date game on Xbox Game Pass, reducing the service's upfront cost to gamers, as well as nixing the incredibly unpopular 'This is an Xbox' marketing campaign--a slogan that reminded consumers that they didn't actually need to be Xbox consoles to play Xbox games.

This reinvention comes at a cost, though. Like most of the video games industry, Xbox has laid off thousands of workers and cancelled dozens of projects, as per Bloomberg's Jason Schreier. This frees up lots of resources and budget spending for the new Xbox regime.

In another memo, Sharma says that Microsoft is prepared to invest more into Xbox than it ever has before in an attempt to improve efficiencies in content production.

Microsoft also recently hired a reputational brand manager to help turn around the Xbox brand image.