Xbox has announced a new TV, movies, and entertainment division called XP. It will be headed up by Kayleen Walters, a Lucasfilm veteran who moves over from her most recent post as president of Minecraft maker Mojang, where she also served as an executive producer on last year’s A Minecraft Movie.
XP brings together four “areas of investment”: Xbox Pictures; Xbox Products; Xbox Partnerships; and Xbox Places. Microsoft said XP was set up to help Xbox become the number one entertainment and gaming company in the world, which requires broadening its big franchises beyond video games themselves. But it is not a production company. Rather, Microsoft wants to find the right partners to work across film, TV, physical experiences, and consumer products.
Microsoft has already seen significant success in the movie and TV space, with Warner Bros.’ A Minecraft Movie breaking box office records, and Amazon’s Fallout TV show setting records for Prime Video. Upcoming Xbox adaptations include movie sequel Minecraft Squared, Fallout Season 3, a Call of Duty movie with Peter Berg and Taylor Sheridan, and a Diablo animated series with Netflix. Microsoft’s deal for Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid spiritual successor Physint includes film and TV rights, so expect an adaptation of that eventually.
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XP is also about live events, and again, Xbox already has success there. Blizzard’s BlizzCon saw a number of significant announcements, with 35,000 people at the physical event in Anaheim, California, and 12.5 million watching at home. The most recent Minecraft Live, which saw the announcement of the first new dimension for Minecraft in 14 years, reached more than 144 million people.
Meanwhile, Microsoft cited partnerships such as Gears of War’s takeover with WWE, and Xbox’s range of Ikea furniture. A Minecraft theme park is set to open its gates next year.
“XP was created from a simple but powerful belief: the world’s most beloved gaming franchises have an opportunity to reach people far beyond the boundaries of the game itself,” Walters said. “Fans don’t just play our franchises. They watch them, wear them, attend them, celebrate them, and connect with them in countless ways. XP brings together the teams responsible for helping Xbox franchises show up in the world in bigger, more meaningful ways.”
“XP is a play on ‘Experience Points’ and formalizes four investment areas for us: Xbox Pictures for film and television adaptations; Xbox Products for licensing and merchandise; Xbox Partnerships for sponsors and brand partners; and Xbox Places for our marquee broadcast and in-person events, theme parks, and other location-based experiences,” Xbox CEO Asha Sharma wrote in a company-wide memo also posted to Xbox Wire.
“Our franchises can mean more to people than the time they spend playing them, and Kayleen knows how to build those experiences with the industry without losing what made people care about the franchise in the first place.”
Microsoft noted the uplift its video games can get when movies and shows do well. For example, Fallout games on Game Pass saw a 5x increase in hours played during Fallout Season 1. Minecraft, meanwhile, saw over a 75% increase in weekly active users year-over-year since the movie released (as of April 30, 2026).
If this sounds a bit familiar, it’s because Microsoft has tried this before. In 2012 (back in the Xbox 360 era!), Microsoft announced Xbox Entertainment Studios with an aim to produce TV shows that would air directly on Xbox consoles. XES revealed plans to create shows based on Gears of War, Fable, Forza, and State of Decay — not to mention, of course, the original version of the Halo TV show announced at E3 by Stephen Spielberg, who was set to executive produce. They even planned to make an unscripted street-soccer drama called Every Street United. The entire XES effort lasted just two years before getting shut down as the Xbox One’s “all in one” message failed to resonate with gamers following its reveal in 2013.
As part of the changes, Mojang has a new boss. Maria Angelidou-Smith, who joins Xbox as CEO of Mojang, spent nearly a decade at Meta working on Facebook Groups before stints at Personio and Reddit, where she was Chief Product Officer. “She has built products used by billions of people and led product and engineering organizations through significant growth and change,” Sharma said.
“She will bring that experience to Mojang while learning from the people who know Minecraft best. Her first order of business is for her to learn from the teams and communities that make Minecraft so special.”
Minecraft is, of course, one of the big Xbox franchises the company is doubling down on amid Sharma’s ongoing “Reset,” which has seen nearly 2,000 staff cut from the gaming business so far this financial year. Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time, having shifted over 425 million copies. Its significant merchandising business became one of the top 20 globally.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of IGN’s weekly Xbox show,Podcast Unlocked, and a co-host ofNext-Gen Console Watch. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at@DMC_Ryan.
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