It started with a simple poll. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma asked her followers on X this week: “Xbox” or “XBOX”? Out of 19,176 votes, the all-caps version won decisively with 64.8% of the total. Microsoft has now renamed the brand’s official account on X to XBOX, confirming the change. The Bluesky and Threads accounts are yet to follow.
It is a small move in isolation. In context, it is the latest signal of how Sharma intends to run one of gaming’s most scrutinised turnarounds: ask the players, then act.
XBOX: a name that goes back to 2001
The original Xbox console launched in 2001 with its name in all caps. Subsequent console logos carried the same convention, but Microsoft gradually shifted to mixed-case “Xbox” in its marketing and corporate communications. The return to all caps is less a reinvention than a homecoming, and it fits neatly into the broader story Sharma has been telling since she took over from the retiring Phil Spencer in February 2026.
Xbox goes all caps to XBOX
The fan poll and the account rename are the latest chapter in a reset that formally began on April 23, when Sharma and chief content officer Matt Booty published a memo to the global Xbox team that was made public the same day. Titled “We Are Xbox,” it retired the Microsoft Gaming name that had been in use since 2022 and replaced it with a return to the brand’s original identity, complete with a new glossy green logo.
The memo was candid about the scale of the problem. “Players are frustrated,” it read. “New feature drops on console have been less frequent. Our presence on PC isn’t strong enough. Pricing is getting harder for people to keep up with.” It named daily active players as the new north star and outlined four strategic priorities: hardware, content, experience, and services. Game Pass Ultimate was cut from $29.99 to $22.99 a month, and PC Game Pass from $16.49 to $13.99.
The memo also flagged that the company would “reevaluate our approach to exclusivity, windowing, and AI,” a significant signal given that Xbox spent much of the previous era releasing first-party titles on rival platforms.
“Xbox will be built to be affordable, personal, and open. We will offer flexible pricing so it’s easy to get started and keep playing. The experience will adapt to you, letting you customize how you play, helping you find what you’ll love, and connecting you with the right people. And we will be open to all creators, from individuals to the largest studios, giving anyone the tools to reach a global audience and keep their games growing over time. Our new north star will be daily active players. We will execute this through four priorities: hardware, content, experience, and services,” said Asha Sharma in the memo sent out to the Xbox team.
The CEO and the community
Sharma, who is of Indian origin and grew up in Racine, Wisconsin, came to the Xbox job from Microsoft’s CoreAI division with no prior gaming industry experience. She also killed off the widely disliked “This is an Xbox” campaign shortly after taking charge.
What she has been consistent about is the direction of travel. Whether it is cutting subscription prices, publishing an unusually self-critical internal memo, or running a branding poll on social media and then acting on the result, the pattern is the same: involve the community, move quickly, and make the change visible.
The harder tests lie ahead. Project Helix, the next-generation Xbox console, is still years away. The economics of Game Pass are still being worked out. Call of Duty games are being pulled from day-one Game Pass access. And the multiplatform question, which animated Xbox’s fanbase when Sharma took over, has no clean answer given the revenue some of those titles have generated on PlayStation 5.
For now, though, XBOX is back in all caps on its biggest social platform, and that was the fans’ call to make.
