Xbox is going Hollywood in a big way. Today, the company announced XP, a brand-new entertainment division whose entire job is to take Xbox franchises beyond games and into movies, TV shows, merchandise, and live events. The name is a nod to “experience points,” the familiar stat every gamer knows.
The announcement, shared on Oct. 8, puts all of Xbox’s non-gaming entertainment efforts — film and TV adaptations, consumer products, brand partnerships, and live experiences — under one roof. Leading the new group as president is Kayleen Walters, who is leaving her role as president of Mojang to take the job. Walters spent 13 years at Lucasfilm working on Star Wars, served as an executive producer on A Minecraft Movie, and previously held the chief expansion officer title at Epic Games. With her departure, Xbox named former Reddit chief product officer Maria Angelidou-Smith as the new CEO of Mojang, effective Oct. 19.
XP is organized into four areas: Xbox Pictures handles film, TV, and other linear storytelling; Xbox Products covers merchandise and licensing; Xbox Places takes care of live events, broadcasts, theme parks, and location-based experiences — including BlizzCon, which drew 35,000 on-site attendees and 12.5 million at-home viewers this year; and Xbox Partnerships manages brand and creator deals.
Importantly, XP is not a production studio. Xbox will keep making its adaptations with outside partners, the same approach behind its recent wins. A Minecraft Movie grossed more than $960 million worldwide and scored the biggest opening weekend ever for a video game adaptation, with a sequel now in production. Amazon’s Fallout series has a third season confirmed after its debut drove a fivefold increase in Fallout playtime on Game Pass. Netflix is developing an animated Diablo series, Paramount is working on a Call of Duty movie, and a Minecraft theme park attraction is set to open in the UK in 2027. Xbox also already has a furniture partnership with IKEA.
Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball told reporters the company’s ambition is to become the “number one entertainment company in the world.” Even so, he stressed that game development stays central — “games will always be at the heart” of Xbox’s franchises, as he put it.
XP consolidates work that had been scattered across the company ever since the closure of Xbox Entertainment Studios back in 2014. If the division can repeat the Minecraft playbook with Halo, Gears of War, and Call of Duty, the next era of Xbox might be measured in box office numbers as much as Game Pass subscribers.
Sources:
https://dotesports.com/general/news/xbox-xp-division-movies-tv-merchandise
https://gagadget.com/en/729280-xbox-starts-xp-a-unit-to-take-its-games-to-film-toys-and-theme-parks/
