Xbox is Dead. Long Live Xbox

I remember all of the times Xbox ‘died’. It died in February 2008 when Microsoft officially acknowledged the ‘Red Ring of Death’ issues plaguing Xbox 360 hardware. It died again in 2013 with the Xbox One and its disastrous reveal. And then, it has gone and snuffed it pretty regularly since that timeframe, with every misstep and mistake framed as the literal death of the platform.

In 2025, saying “Xbox is dead” with any sort of earnest seriousness sounds like a statement designed to farm precious engagement rather than any sort of meaningful discussion, or perhaps even worse, is uttered from a position of pure ignorance. “Xbox is dead” is a phrase that at this point, has honestly lost all meaning. If Xbox as a brand were to truly ‘die’, I do wonder just what this industry would be left to talk about all the time.

As a platform, Xbox (and its parent company, Microsoft) is richer than ever, Game Pass has tens of millions of subscribers and they are now one of the largest publishers in the industry. I don’t know how you define ‘dead’, but nothing about those facts look like abject failure to me. (and look – I could dedicate paragraphs to how awful Microsoft is as a company – forcing unwanted AI into their offerings, the horrific job losses, the studio closures – but that’s not really the point of the article, so you’ll just have to roll with me here)

I must concede, however – something has died (outside of like, critical thinking). Something that was fundamental about Xbox has truly ended, without pomp or ceremony. The box and the weird sort of loyalty that console fans seem to enjoy and thrive on no longer exists in any sort of meaningful sense. Xbox has transformed – and the new Xbox is less sentimental, far broader, and so far – very successful – even if you’re constantly bombarded with statements to the contrary.

Ex-Box

“Every screen is an Xbox.“

Microsoft’s internal mantra defined the platform in 2025, and Xbox fully embraced this new direction. You no longer had to buy an Xbox to play Xbox games. Xbox have put down their weapons and walked away from the ‘Console Wars’. While the console – the box under the TV – as an entry point remains important, it’s no longer the focal point.

For decades, gaming has been defined by home consoles. A physical box, earning pride of place in your living room. It evolved through the generations via technological advances in power and performance. Platform holders would duke it out with exclusive software – with the primary aim being to sell you their bespoke hardware.

Xbox consoles still exist of course, and Microsoft have reiterated again and again that they will continue to do so – but they are no longer the only way to play. The hardware has faded into the background in 2025 – and it’s not an accident.

Microsoft have looked at the video game industry, itself going through many turbulent changes, and seen a market defined by razor-thin margins, ever-increasing development costs and diminishing returns on the oft-lauded ‘exclusivity’ of games.

It’s this philosophical pivot that sits at the heart of Xbox’s transformation. Many of us, brought up in an industry that constantly compares and contrasts platforms and individual games, have struggled with the change, but that mantra – ‘Every Screen is an Xbox‘ perfectly defines what Xbox now is. I can play ‘Xbox’ on a handheld, a smart TV, my phone, my laptop. It’s my games, my stuff, and it all travels with me – seamlessly. Sony sells you on the dream of a destination.. Nintendo sells you on the magic of the medium. Xbox – as unromantic as it sounds – is selling you something far more useful – accessibility.

We’ve all seen the outrage, the reactions – Halo on PlayStation?! It’s a betrayal! We’ve also seen the arguments and discussion that followed each multiplatform announcement. If Xbox games are available everywhere, why own an Xbox?

I’d argue Xbox hasn’t abandoned the brand, or its players. The biggest games are everywhere, and the only thing Xbox has abandoned is the illusion that exclusivity – withholding content – creates ‘value’.

2025 was the Year Xbox Finally Delivered

For the longest time, Xbox’s biggest weakness has been a lack of execution. Games were announced too early. ‘Wait until next year!’ became a go-to fan punchline. It’s not Xbox that’s been buried this year, but that narrative. It surely must, because we’ve never had so much to play.

And it’s not necessarily that Xbox have released some genre-defining masterpiece, but instead the platform has just released a ton of genuinely great games, both from their own teams in addition to curated releases via Game Pass. And the important part here is they’ve done this consistently, throughout the year.

We’ve seen big releases across single player categories like Doom: The Dark Ages, Avowed, Ninja Gaiden 4, The Outer Worlds 2 and Oblivion Remastered. We’ve seen smaller, experimental titles like Keeper and South of Midnight. Massive live-service like releases with the annual Call of Duty or new early access multiplayer titles like Grounded 2. And I’m not even going into any real detail across all the DLC, expansions and updates to their ongoing games across Blizzard, Activision, Bethesda and Xbox.

Add on to that the excellent curation across Game Pass that saw a ton of amazing games like Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Atomfall…I could go on. The sheer breadth of genre and scale across the service is unmatched. One Xbox employee I spoke to earlier in the year remarked with an almost childlike glee about how much they had coming before the end of 2025, and as we approach the final few days of the year – they’re weren’t wrong!

Nobody Plays on Xbox – But We Do

One of the strangest things about Xbox, particularly in 2025 is not about how it’s performed, but how it’s discussed. There’s a very dominant narrative that exists around Xbox, and I dismiss a lot of it, because it’s written largely by folks that simply don’t meaningfully play there.

To many of them, Xbox is an anomaly. A discussion point, a click-bait generator, and a cautionary tale about how a brand can go ‘oh so wrong’. The brand is dissected not in terms that I’d argue actually matter, but in ‘market share’, in ‘hardware sales’, in ‘how could it get so bad’ and purely hypothetical futures. In most mainstream discourse, Xbox is predominantly spoken about in terms of what it isn’t.

Yes, we know. It’s not winning the console war. It’s not gunning for Apple-like devotion and ‘prestige’ like PlayStation. It isn’t ‘magical’ like Nintendo. No, nowadays commentary around Xbox is caveated. Every decision the brand makes is analysed and mulled over. Multiplatform publishing is ‘giving up’. Game Pass is ‘unsustainable’. They can’t even release a fun Game Pass advert without an op-ed sprouting up asking ‘Who is this for?!’

And so, ‘Xbox is dead’ lives on. One of the most persistent and patently absurd refrains across this industry is driven by people who just never play there. To them, Xbox is an empty, lifeless platform, devoid of relevance and lacking in players. Yet we know – the community that plays there knows – that this just isn’t true.

Gamers on Xbox have been showered with games to play, large and small, consistently throughout the year. Xbox have proved in 2025 that they finally have the scale and cadence they’ve been chasing, and they support more variety and more genres that any other platform holder or publisher.

The old Xbox was defined like most of the other platforms in the industry – that single prestige ‘Halo’ launch, that powerful new hardware reveal or a bought and paid for ‘exclusive’ release. Those days are done. Instead, the Xbox of 2025 – and beyond – is drowning its players in quality releases, consistently. And Xbox’s 2026 looks even better.

Xbox is Dead. Long Live Xbox.