Xbox XP Brings Franchise Expansion Under One Division

Xbox created a new division called XP on October 8 to take its game franchises further into film, television, merchandise, partnerships and live experiences. Kayleen Walters, previously president of Minecraft developer Mojang, will lead it. The name plays on “experience points,” but the organizational move is more prosaic: Xbox has put work previously spread across teams under one division.

In its XP announcement, Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball said the aim is to turn games into enduring franchises that reach people beyond the games themselves. He also said great games remain at their center. A franchise can reach new audiences through a film or a theme park; somebody still has to make the game that gave those audiences a reason to care.

XP has four named areas. Xbox Pictures covers film, television and other linear storytelling. Xbox Products covers goods fans can buy and use to express their attachment to a franchise. Xbox Places covers events, broadcasts, attractions and destinations. Xbox Partnerships covers work with creators, brands and communities, including sponsorships. Together they describe a business function with a much wider brief than an adaptations team. A film may bring in viewers; merchandise gives existing fans something to own; an event gives them somewhere to gather. Each relies on the same underlying worlds, characters and communities.

Walters worked at Lucasfilm before leading Mojang and was an executive producer on A Minecraft Movie. That background makes the choice of leader understandable. It cannot tell us how a future adaptation will be made or received.

What XP is Being Asked to Coordinate

Ball says XP brings together capabilities that already existed across Xbox teams. That phrasing makes the announcement an organizational change as well as an expansion pitch. It gives film, products, places and partnerships a shared division and president; it does not itself announce a slate of newly commissioned shows or a new game. For readers trying to parse the word “new,” the division is new, while the work it groups has precedents inside Xbox.

Its announced approach also points outward. Ball says XP will work with creative people across Xbox studios and with trusted partners. Xbox Products covers licensing and merchandise, a description in a company memo quoted by IGN. “Partnerships” is one of the four areas in its own right. The public remit therefore gives Xbox a way to extend franchises through other companies’ film, product and event work. XP is a partner-seeking division rather than a production company. The terms of individual arrangements, including who pays and who makes creative decisions, remain open.

There are already examples of why Xbox would want a common home for this activity. A Minecraft Movie preceded XP, and Xbox had film and television projects and consumer tie-ins underway before the division was announced. A Minecraft-themed attraction is planned at Chessington World of Adventures near London. XP’s arrival should not be credited with creating work that came before it. The question is whether putting those activities under one leader helps Xbox connect them to the franchises and to the people making the games.

That coordination has more than one possible beneficiary. A film, product or attraction could introduce somebody to a game. It could also give an existing player another way to spend time with a world they already know. Those are plausible reasons to group the work, rather than results XP can claim from its launch. The structure tells us who is meant to coordinate these opportunities; it gives developers no comparable detail about how their time or input will figure in those plans.

Xbox Has Built an Entertainment Arm Before

Microsoft made an earlier attempt to organize entertainment around Xbox. It founded Xbox Entertainment Studios in early 2013 to develop programming for its Xbox division. Under Nancy Tellem, the internal studio pursued scripted, reality and interactive shows. Its planned Xbox Originals included Halo: The Television Series, the Signal to Noise documentaries and Humans. Programming reached viewers, too: the reality series Every Street United debuted in 2014. The aim was to strengthen the Xbox One’s pitch as an all-in-one living-room entertainment system with programming intended exclusively for Xbox Live.

The comparison rests on stated remit. Xbox Entertainment Studios was an internal studio developing original programming for an Xbox distribution pitch. XP encompasses television alongside merchandise, brand relationships and physical experiences, and Xbox describes working with external partners. The earlier studio collaborated with other producers, too; the contrast is in what each organization was publicly built to do, rather than how every production job was assigned.

Microsoft confirmed plans to close Xbox Entertainment Studios in July 2014. Phil Spencer, then Xbox head, described the move as part of an effort to “streamline” portfolio and engineering work during a wider restructuring; he said some programming already in development would continue. Microsoft changed the structure around its entertainment ambitions while leaving some projects in motion. That precedent makes XP’s organization worth examining separately from the fate of any individual adaptation.

XP arrives during another period of change for Xbox’s game workers. In a September 22 restructuring announcement, Xbox announced the elimination of 268 roles across Halo Studios, other first-party studios, management and central functions. Activision was assigned control of the Halo franchise, with a new team planned there, while Obsidian was moved into Bethesda. Those changes affect the organizations responsible for making and maintaining games. They preceded XP’s announcement; their timing alone does not establish that the cuts caused the new division to be created.

The strongest case for XP is straightforward. Xbox already has franchises that people watch, wear and visit as well as play. Bringing the teams handling those opportunities together could make it easier to plan across media, while outside partners handle production. The labor question sits next to that opportunity: how will a division built to extend game worlds work with the studios whose people sustain those worlds, especially as those studios change hands or lose jobs? Xbox says games remain central. For developers and players, the test of that promise will be what happens to the games while the franchises expand around them.