Back in October, we heard that Microsoft had been pushing its Xbox teams to aim for increased profit margins in recent years - and although the Xbox owner responded by saying that the quoted 30% margin was incorrect, it was still believed that increased pressures had been put on Microsoft's studios as of late. Well, apparently that's now been relaxed a little bit following recent leadership changes at Xbox HQ.
Xbox reporter Jez Corden has taken to social media to promote a recent 'XB2 News' post, which gathers up some big Xbox news from April 2026. Although the post is paywalled for now, Corden does tease some of its contents, including information that "Xbox has reduced margin pressure from the top down" recently.
Here's that teaser and the social media post it stems from:
"One thing I've heard recently is that Xbox has reduced margin pressure from the top down. This has given Xbox extra breathing room to work on features and systems that aren't directly tied to profitability."
We wonder if this goes some way to explaining the increased focus on Xbox Series X|S console updates as of late? For months, we didn't see any substantial updates for Microsoft's current-gen systems, before the team became newly-energised to develop some recent Series X|S features. We don't know if this is directly connected to the reported information above, but Corden does suggest that this has allowed for increased work on features and such.
For now, Xbox hasn't commented on this info - and we don't expect them to, to be honest. We hope it's true either way, and that it potentially leads to even more cool work from Team Green in the coming months. They're on the right track anyway!