Xbox Is Investing In Minecraft As The "World's Creator Platform"
Asha Sharma Has Laid Out Her Plans For Minecraft, And She Basically Wants It To Be Roblox
A leaked memo has revealed Asha Sharma’s plans for Xbox going forward. Part of these plans involve investing heavily in Minecraft - so much so that it becomes the “world’s creator platform”.
In other words, it sounds like Sharma wants Xbox to turn Minecraft into Roblox, or at least put more effort into rivalling it. Sharma clearly sees potential in Minecraft being an even more user-generated content-based economy, and is willing to invest in it to make that a reality.
Asha Sharma's Memo On The Xbox Reset Leaks
The memo, obtained by The Verge, outlines the following plan set out by Sharma:
- CORE: Strengthen our platform, led by console
- CONTENT: Grow great games into global franchises
- CREATION: Make Minecraft the world’s creator platform
- CONNECTION: Extend the worlds that fans love
It’s interesting to see that Minecraft was mentioned by name there. While we can safely assume that Sharma is referring to Halo, Fallout, etc when she brings up “global franchises”, she seems to put Minecraft in a category of its own. Less a game, perhaps, and more so a platform in and of itself.
It is easy to see why. Minecraft is a unique part of Xbox’s business, being a game that you pick up at a premium, and then sink hundreds (or thousands) of hours into without your typical live service incentives.
Minecraft is already full of user-generated content - including paid mods - but it seems that Sharma wants to go all-in on that. If that is the area of Minecraft that is being expanded, it will be interesting to see how that goes down with the community.
This would also suggest that Sharma sees Minecraft as having the same potential as Roblox, through becoming a platform that provides both games and social experiences. In that regard, we could possibly see Minecraft open to more collaborations, but that is solely speculation at this stage.
However, whatever Xbox’s plans are for Roblox, many of the workers across the various Xbox-owned studios will currently be bracing themselves for further layoffs. There were just 1,600 layoffs across the company, with a further 1,600 expected later this year. No date has been set for those additional layoffs just yet, and some from the last batch are still being dealt with through unions.