Xbox CEO Asha Sharma Outlines Big Plans for PC Gaming and Battle.net

Xbox’s PC gaming strategy is getting a bigger focus as Microsoft looks to expand Battle.net, attract more third-party games, and make publishing easier for developers.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma outlined the plans during an internal Microsoft Town Hall meeting, according to Windows Central.

Microsoft wants to grow Battle.net beyond Blizzard

Sharma said Battle.net has user retention rates nearly as high as Steam despite Microsoft making relatively little investment in the platform.

Microsoft now plans to put more resources into Battle.net and expand it beyond Blizzard and Xbox releases. Selected third-party games will also come to the platform, with The Witcher 3 becoming the first third-party title added under the new approach.

That does not mean Xbox plans to move away from Steam. Sharma said Microsoft will continue supporting Steam and other PC platforms when they reach distinct audiences.

Microsoft sees a much larger opportunity across the roughly one billion Windows PCs in use worldwide.

Xbox is expanding Windows and OEM partnerships

Xbox also plans to increase promotional offers and partnerships with PC manufacturers this fall.

Sharma referenced an initiative involving 14 million OEMs, although the exact scope of the program remains unclear.

Microsoft is also exploring preinstalling World of Warcraft-related software on Windows devices. Sharma said early conversion figures from the initiative have been encouraging.

She also claimed that the Microsoft Store is the leading store in China, although she did not specify which metric Microsoft used for that comparison.

Microsoft wants to make publishing Xbox games easier

Microsoft also wants to reduce the amount of work developers face when publishing games through Xbox.

Sharma acknowledged that working with Xbox remains too complicated, something the company has already promised to address by simplifying its game publishing process.

Xbox plans to simplify development targets, introduce a headless Partner Center, and make its APIs machine-readable.

Microsoft also wants to reduce manual intervention and certification bottlenecks while giving developers better performance data and tools for growing their games.

Xbox restructuring is nearing completion

The broader changes come as Xbox continues reorganizing its gaming business.

Sharma said the restructuring is about 75% complete following major layoffs and studio reorganizations.

Microsoft has been cutting costs and shifting more gaming operations under publishers such as Activision and Bethesda.

The changes follow a difficult period for the business, although Sharma recently said Xbox is back to growth after hitting an “all-time low”.

Microsoft is not abandoning consoles as it expands on PC. Xbox continues to prioritize Xbox Series X|S players while preparing the upcoming Xbox Helix family of devices.

In other Xbox news, Xbox Game Pass October Wave 1 was released, while nine games are leaving Xbox Game Pass in mid-October 2026.