ASHA

CEO @XBOX

[Call of Duty @CallofDuty]

Director Peter Berg revealed today at @FanaticsFest the @CallOfDutyMovie is set in the Modern Warfare universe.

In theaters June 30, 2028.

[ASHA @asha_shar]

Todd Howard just shared plans for the Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and Starfield franchises. These worlds have earned a special place with hundreds of millions of people over many years. I'm looking forward to what's next, including the partnership with Obsidian on a new Fallout game and closer collaboration with ZeniMax Online Studios on The Elder Scrolls. The achievements of these franchises are remarkable: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has crossed 65 million units sold, becoming one of the 10 best-selling games of all time, Fallout 4 has also crossed 35 million units sold, joining the top 25, and Starfield will soon reach over 1 billion hours played.

[Bethesda Game Studios @BethesdaStudios]

A NOTE FROM BETHESDA GAME STUDIOS

We love making these worlds as much as you love playing in them. Today, we want to share what's next for Bethesda Game Studios and what you can expect from us in the years ahead.

For forty years, we've built games that have entertained almost half a billion players. More than just games, these are worlds. Worlds for you to explore, shape, and make your own. Worlds we return to together.

That's what's driving us forward. We're investing more deeply in the worlds players love, giving creators a bigger role in shaping their experiences, and bringing our teams closer together so we can get our games into your hands sooner, support them longer, and continue building them alongside you for decades to come.

STARFIELD CONTINUES

With over 17 million players logging almost a billion hours to date, Starfield remains an important part of our future. As we enter Year 3, we'll continue expanding the Settled Systems with new stories, targeted gameplay improvements, and additional updates, while preparing for the launch of new Starborn content next year. More than 40% of players already customize their experience through Creations, and we'll continue investing in creators and giving players new ways to make Starfield their own.

CREATED BY PLAYERS

We've believed from the beginning that our worlds belong not only to the people who make them, but also to the people who play them. That's why we've long provided players with the tools to create their own experiences, dating back to the Morrowind Construction Set. This year marked another major milestone for Creations with its expansion to Fallout 4, joining Skyrim and Starfield. We're proud to say Creators have already earned more than $10 million in royalties from their work.

THE FUTURE OF FALLOUT

Fallout is one of our biggest priorities today. Fallout 5 remains our long-range destination, and we have multiple Fallout projects in active development right now.

Fallout 76 continues to be home to millions of players exploring Appalachia together. With nearly 70 free updates released to date, the journey is far from over. In fact, we have a major Fallout 76 expansion planned for next year: Raven Rock, a prequel story to Fallout 3.
Fallout 4, the most award-winning game in the franchise, just celebrated its 10-year anniversary and recently passed over 35 million copies sold, continuing to attract a new audience every year.

We also know many players want to revisit previous Fallout experiences. While we're not announcing any dates today, we have been working on remasters for both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.

Fallout Shelter continues to be the most popular way to experience Fallout on the go, with more than 250 million players. There’s more ahead for Fallout Shelter, including new Seasons. An unscripted Fallout Shelter television project is also in the works with our partners at Amazon Studios and Kilter Films.

We'd like to congratulate Kilter Films and Amazon Studios on the 10 Emmy nominations for Fallout Season 2. Production on Season 3 is already underway.

And while we won't host a traditional Fallout Day broadcast this year, we're already planning something special for Fallout's 30th anniversary in 2027, when Fallout Day will be celebrated live in Washington, D.C.

STUDIO COLLABORATION

The wasteland continues to expand as we team up once again with our longtime friends at Obsidian Entertainment. We're happy to confirm they're working with us on a new Fallout project. We'll have more to share in the future.

We're also bringing our teams closer together across Bethesda. ZeniMax Online Studios will partner closely with Bethesda Game Studios on The Elder Scrolls franchise, while continuing to deliver incredible new experiences for The Elder Scrolls Online. Season One: Return of the Thieves Guild recently launched, and the team has more planned for the future. By aligning more directly across the franchise, we can create even better experiences for players.

Bringing our teams closer together is helping us build a stronger foundation for everything we create next.

THE ELDER SCROLLS AND BEYOND

That foundation extends beyond our teams to the technology, tools, and systems that will power the next generation of Bethesda RPGs.

Our teams are now developing The Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout 5 on Creation Engine 3, a shared technology platform we've been building since Starfield's launch. It allows our teams to support multiple projects simultaneously with new tools, rendering, and systems that define our games.

Fallout 5 is currently in preproduction. The Elder Scrolls VI is our primary development focus today, with the majority of our team currently working on the next chapter of the franchise. With over 65 million copies sold, players are still exploring Skyrim 15 years later, but we know it’s been a very long wait for the sequel.
The next chapter is on the way. We’re where we planned to be, loving how it looks, and playing it every day.

THE ROAD AHEAD

Across Bethesda Game Studios, we're building for the future of Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and Starfield. We're investing in our technology, bringing teams closer together, supporting our live games, expanding into new forms of entertainment, and developing the next generation of Bethesda RPGs.

We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead and wanted to share as much as we could today. We can’t thank you enough for all you’ve given to us and these worlds. And we can’t wait to continue them together.

–Bethesda Game Studios

[ASHA @asha_shar]

This is an important email I sent today to all employees at XBOX:

Team,

We are beginning the most significant restructure in XBOX history. After careful consideration, I've made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 throughout FY27. This will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today, and in addition, four studios will leave XBOX to new management. I recognize that a year-long restructuring creates additional challenges. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make all the necessary changes in a single day, and I wanted to be direct about the scale.

I know this is painful. These changes will directly affect people who have poured their creativity into building XBOX. Many joined us through acquisitions, while others were recruited here, or sought us out because they loved this industry and loved XBOX. Today's decisions do not reflect their talent or dedication.

Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3–10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset XBOX.

First, we will reset our content portfolio.

Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined. We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset XBOX, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision.

Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will return to management and transition to independent studios with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3. In France, Arkane’s management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options.

We are also making reductions across other units, and in some cases, shifting investment to focus on higher priority projects. These changes vary in size across Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and XBOX Game Studios. None of our first party publicly announced games or projects are being cancelled as part of these reductions.

In addition, Mojang and King will now report directly to me. These two studios have increasingly become platforms and are our largest by monthly active players. They bring critical geographic, demographic, and differentiation to XBOX.

Second, we will reset our platform.

We know that great technology gets better when it gets simpler, not bigger. Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. Our platform teams are 40% larger than they were at the start of this generation, even as our player base and playtime have declined. That complexity has slowed decisions, blurred accountability, and made it harder to deliver for players. As we reset XBOX, we will simplify.

We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. And we will streamline how we work across our tools, with a cleaner code base, shared services, and 50% reduced vendor spend.

Third, we are resetting how we operate.

As XBOX grew our headcount, we became more fragmented. Teams, studios, and functions often operate independently, and it became harder to work towards a shared goal, make the right tradeoffs, and get things done.

For the first time, we are establishing a Chief Operating Officer with end-to-end P&L responsibility across content, hardware, platform, and services. Helen Chiang has been promoted to this role and will report directly to me. Over nearly two decades at XBOX, Helen has helped build some of our most important businesses, from XBOX Live to leading Mojang and the Minecraft franchise. She will bring our businesses together under one operating model, making sure we make clear investment decisions, learn from our successes and failures, and hold ourselves accountable for results.

Thank you, Dave McCarthy, who is retiring after 17 years with XBOX. Dave has played a defining role in building the platform that millions of players rely on every day and has been a trusted partner through many of the biggest moments in XBOX's history. We wish him all the best.

These changes are about a bigger future for XBOX, not a smaller one. The next decade of gaming will be larger, more global, and more creative than anything we've seen before. This year, we'll invest as much in XBOX as we ever have, but we'll invest with greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity, all in service of making XBOX where the world plays and creates.

I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect. I know we can achieve this goal. XBOX has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history, talented studios around the world, and we will return to growth in 2027.

History is full of companies that mistake longevity for inevitability. We will not be one of them.

Asha

[XBOX @XBOX]

Pre-Order Grand Theft Auto VI now and get one month of GTA+. Coming to XBOX Series X|S November 19, 2026: https://t.co/cL6a0cFHsT

[ASHA @asha_shar]

We just shared with our team the realities we need to navigate as we work to reset the XBOX business. We won't succeed by hiding hard truths, nor will we succeed by doing the same thing and expecting different results. See the note here: https://t.co/IahtBNzwnR

[ASHA @asha_shar]

It was a pleasure chatting with @emilychangtv about my first 100 days at XBOX

[Kinda Funny @KindaFunnyVids]

The new XBOX 25th Anniversary Console is looking 🔥!

@asha_shar @XBOX

[ASHA @asha_shar]

Day 107

[ASHA @asha_shar]

The heart of XBOX is great games.💚

[ASHA @asha_shar]

Thank you to every partner and studio team who shared their work with us at XBOX Games Showcase today. We are grateful to build this alongside all of you.

[ASHA @asha_shar]

We want people to choose XBOX because of great games and experiences. That also means giving you something that was made for XBOX.

Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be XBOX console exclusives!

[ASHA @asha_shar]

Minecraft is one of the biggest entertainment franchises in the world. 25 million players have played Dungeons since it was introduced and now @Mojang is back with Dungeons 2.

[ASHA @asha_shar]

Now this is an XBOX!

[ASHA @asha_shar]

As we return to XBOX, we return to Gears as an XBOX CONSOLE EXCLUSIVE!

[ASHA @asha_shar]

Tomorrow

[ASHA @asha_shar]

@klobrille Seeing the feedback on logos. It was a miss, and I own it. We are talking about how we adjust for future XBOX shows.

[ASHA @asha_shar]

#MW4 reveal today! The @CallofDuty teams worked hard to create something impossible to ignore. This is a new chapter for Modern Warfare.

[ASHA @asha_shar]

Countdown to XBOX Games Showcase

[ASHA @asha_shar]

GTA VI wishlist on XBOX 💚🔥

[XBOX @XBOX]

November 19th

Wishlist Now: https://t.co/O1RVROCl2Z