Since Asha Sharma took over as Xbox CEO earlier in 2026, she has been gunning hard to grow the Xbox audience, and part of that strategy has been a return to Xbox-exclusive games. Although it was assumed these exclusives would be relatively limited, a new report by Windows Central suggests otherwise. A recent Xbox Research user survey asked gamers how their habits would change if all future games from Xbox-owned studios, excluding Call of Duty, became console-exclusive to Xbox.
The survey imagined a scenario where all future title releases from every Xbox-developed gaming franchise except Call of Duty would be console-exclusive to Xbox. For Minecraft specifically, existing titles would no longer be available for purchase on PlayStation or Nintendo consoles and would not receive new content updates. However, there would be no impact on existing titles or content already owned by users, and nothing would change on PC.
The report indicates that while this has implications for cross-platform gamers, PC games would seemingly remain unchanged, continuing to launch on both PC and Xbox console when Xbox Helix launches. The survey suggests Xbox may not return to publishing only exclusives, but it reflects internal discussions and what current leadership sees as viable. If such conversations are already in public surveys, there has likely been extensive internal discussion about the strategy’s viability at Xbox and Microsoft.
Source: TechPowerUp News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing