Xbox's New XP Division Wants Halo, Call of Duty and Minecraft on Every Screen You Own

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2026 — Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced a new Xbox division today, via a company-wide email published on Xbox Wire: XP, a dedicated organization for taking Xbox franchises — Halo, Call of Duty, Minecraft — beyond games and onto every screen you own. Film, television, consumer products, brand partnerships, live events, theme parks — the full transmedia stack. It's the single clearest statement yet that Microsoft's gaming business intends to be an entertainment company that happens to sell games, not the other way around.

This isn't a rebrand of some side team. It's a presidential-level division with one of the most successful franchise operators in the industry running it. And it's landing at the exact moment the evidence for the strategy has never been stronger.

What XP actually is

XP stands for Experience Points, because of course it does. The division formalizes four areas of investment that were previously scattered across different Xbox teams:

Xbox Pictures covers film, television, and other linear storytelling. Xbox Products covers licensing and merchandise — making things fans can actually buy that feel authentic to the fandom. Xbox Partnerships covers sponsors, brands, and creator collaborations. Xbox Places covers broadcasts, live events, theme parks, and other location-based experiences — yes, BlizzCon now falls under this umbrella.

One thing XP is not: a production studio. Xbox isn't going to start shooting films in-house. The model is a matchmaker — pairing franchises with established filmmakers and partners while the actual production stays with people who make movies and TV for a living. "Great games remain at the center of these franchises and at the heart of Xbox," Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball said in the announcement, "XP will partner with the best creative minds across our studios, along with trusted partners, to build on that foundation and create more ways for people to experience the worlds they love." The ambition, Ball said, is to become the "number one entertainment company in the world."

The Minecraft template

Why does anyone believe this works? Because of the woman now running it, and the movie she already made.

Kayleen Walters is the new president of XP, transitioning from president of Mojang. Her resume reads like the job description was written around her: 13 years at Lucasfilm working on Star Wars across films, products, and partnerships; eight years at Microsoft, all of them on Minecraft; and at Mojang she built the consumer products business into a multibillion-dollar operation with more than 250 licensees. She was also an executive producer on A Minecraft Movie — which grossed roughly $961 million worldwide, had the biggest opening weekend of any video game adaptation ever, and was the biggest film in the US last year. A sequel is already in production, and a Minecraft theme park attraction is set to open in the UK in 2027.

That is the blueprint XP exists to copy. Not the "video game movie" part — the "250 licensees and a theme park" part. The movie was the trailer. The business is everything around it.

What XP is inheriting

The division isn't starting from zero. It's consolidating a portfolio that's already moving:

Fallout on Prime Video has a third season confirmed, and hours played in the Fallout games on Game Pass went up fivefold during the show's first season — the textbook adaptation halo effect. Call of Duty has a movie in the works at Paramount. Diablo is getting an animated series at Netflix. Minecraft has its sequel, its licensees, and its theme park. The properties under XP's remit reportedly include Minecraft, Call of Duty, Fallout, Halo, Diablo, Warcraft, Gears of War, Forza, Candy Crush, and The Elder Scrolls.

And then there's the cautionary tale sitting in the portfolio: Halo on Paramount+, canceled after two seasons in 2024. Minecraft is the family-friendly, infinite-merchandise ideal case. Halo is the darker, lore-heavy property that proves the formula doesn't auto-work. XP's real test isn't Minecraft — it's whether the machine Walters built for a blocky phenomenon can be aimed at something like Gears or Diablo and produce the same gravity.

How this stacks up: the PlayStation and Nintendo playbooks

Xbox isn't inventing the game-company-as-studio-company play — it's catching up to rivals who've been running it longer. PlayStation Productions has been at this for years: The Last of Us on HBO, the Uncharted and Gran Turismo films, Twisted Metal on Peacock. Nintendo Pictures co-produced The Super Mario Bros. Movie with Illumination — a billion-dollar hit — and has a live-action Zelda film with Sony on the way.

What's different about XP is the breadth. Sony's play is mostly prestige screen adaptations. Nintendo's is careful, curated, and slow. XP is explicitly four businesses — film and TV, yes, but also merchandise, brand partnerships, and physical places: theme parks, live events, BlizzCon. Xbox isn't building a film studio. It's building a franchise holding company.

The personnel move, and the awkward timing

The leadership shuffle matters as much as the structure. Walters moves from running Minecraft — the single biggest gaming franchise on the planet by units sold, at 425 million — to running the division that's supposed to turn the rest of the portfolio into things that sell tickets and t-shirts. Replacing her at Mojang is Maria Angelidou-Smith, the former Reddit chief product officer who also ran Facebook Groups at Meta, effective October 19. Both report directly to Sharma.

The awkward part: XP's launch lands in the middle of a Microsoft gaming restructuring that includes roughly 3,200 job cuts. Expanding the franchise business while shrinking headcount is the classic tech-company two-step — cut where you're overextended, spend where the growth is. The message is clear about where Microsoft thinks the growth is: not in selling more boxes, but in making the box's franchises unavoidable everywhere else.