Xbox launches Xbox Labs to give old games new life and turn players into creators
A small new team of game makers, engineers and scientists will build in the open — and Xbox admits it may challenge its own business models.
On October 13, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced Xbox Labs, which Xbox describes as "a small group of game makers, engineers and scientists". Its job is to turn emerging ideas into things players and developers can actually try.
Three goals
Xbox Labs will focus on making great games easier to access, giving older games new life and helping more players become creators. Xbox says it will build in the open and measure success by whether more people are playing and creating.
Inspired by the community
Sharma pointed to recent fan projects that decompiled and rebuilt games for hardware they were never meant to run on — from Apple Silicon Macs to the web browser. Those experiments, she said, challenge long-held assumptions about how games and hardware fit together. She also acknowledged the ideas could challenge Xbox's existing business models.
What's next
There are no products yet. Xbox says more details will follow at labs.xbox.com in the coming months.