Xbox CEO Asha Sharma shared her vision for the future of Microsoft's gaming division, outlining one of the most ambitious goals in the brand's history. In a memo published this week, she stated that Xbox should become “one of the few companies that entertains over a billion people daily.”
According to Sharma, this goal is achievable thanks to the strength of Xbox gaming franchises and the massive development of the company's ecosystem. However, the announced figures sparked active discussion in the gaming community.
For comparison, Steam's record peak concurrent online users this year was about 42 million. To reach an audience of a billion people a day, Xbox needs to attract an audience approximately 24 times larger than this record value daily.
Even more telling is the comparison with Steam's most popular game — Counter-Strike. Its maximum concurrent online users reached about 1.8 million players. Theoretically, Xbox would need over 500 games with similar popularity simultaneously to approach the stated goal.
This is not the first time Sharma has voiced such large-scale plans. She previously stated her intention to make Xbox the largest entertainment company in the world by 2030. At the same time, the current statement came against the backdrop of management acknowledging problems with business profitability and the ongoing decline in the gaming console market.
Analysts note that achieving such an audience solely through console sales is almost impossible. The most likely direction for growth is the mobile market, especially after Microsoft acquired King and Mojang. In addition, Xbox has been actively expanding its ecosystem beyond its own devices in recent years, relying on Game Pass, releasing games on multiple platforms, and gradually moving away from a strict exclusivity policy.
Nevertheless, the prospects of reaching a billion daily users remain very vague for now. Despite the development of Game Pass, Xbox has not yet managed to grow its audience at the pace the company expected. Sharma herself previously admitted that the return on past investments was lower than anticipated.