Xbox Creates XP Division to Export Franchises to Film and TV

What Projects Are Already in the Works?

By the time of XP's announcement, Xbox already had a concrete content pipeline in film and television. Two major projects are known:

• an animated Netflix series inspired by the gothic game series Diablo;
• a feature film based on the Call of Duty franchise.

The new division will focus on projects like these. At the same time, the company made it clear: XP will not be a production company. The model involves working with external studios and streaming platforms, with XP acting as the managing and coordinating link of the media strategy.

Context: Restructuring Instead of Headcount Expansion

XP's launch comes amid a large-scale optimization of Microsoft's gaming division's workforce. In the summer, it became known that Xbox plans to cut 3,200 employees — about 20% of its total headcount — by 2027.

Against this backdrop, creating XP looks like a redistribution of priorities: the company is cutting costs in core divisions while simultaneously investing in a new direction focused on monetizing intellectual property beyond games.

What Does This Mean for the Media Market?

For streaming platforms and film studios, the emergence of XP means another major rights holder ready to systematically bring gaming universes to series and film. Netflix's experience with adaptations of gaming franchises demonstrates sustained audience demand for such content, and Microsoft's portfolio — Diablo, Call of Duty, Minecraft, and other brands — gives XP extensive material for licensing and co-production.

The choice of Walters as leader is also telling. Her career is split almost evenly between the gaming industry and Hollywood's franchise machine at Lucasfilm, where franchise management was honed over decades. It is precisely this hybrid experience that Microsoft is putting at the head of the division tasked with translating gaming IP into the language of film and television.

At companies of this scale, launching a separate structure for transmedia projects traditionally signals long-term plans rather than one-off experiments. Further indicators of XP's momentum will be the release dates of the Diablo series and the Call of Duty film, as well as new project announcements, which will now go through the new division.