One of the news stories that made rounds last week was that Xbox was moving away from Steam and would stop releasing first-party titles on the store. However, new details suggest that the rumor emerged from a misinterpretation of a podcast quote.
“Something I said on our Xbox Two Podcast this weekend was taken a little bit out of context by some news aggregates, and it led to rumors that Microsoft was exploring quitting Steam,” said Windows Central’s Jez Corden in a post published a few hours ago.
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“They are absolutely not exploring that (right now), but there is good reason to think Microsoft is evaluating how it engages with Windows gaming all up.”
A lot has happened at Xbox in the last 12 months that any announcement—official or unofficial—is almost expected at this time. From executive reshuffles to Xbox logo and Game Pass price reviews, Asha Sharma has had her hands full since taking over as the new boss from Phil Spencer.
For now (with a big emphasis on “now”), Xbox has no incentive to stop launching games on the Steam storefront. If you recall, the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X launched on October 16, 2025, with Steam installed out of the box. It was designed such that players can launch Steam games natively from the Xbox dashboard.
Instead, Corden explained that PC is an important part of Xbox’s future. Although Sharma has hinted at the return of platform exclusives, starting with Gears of War: E-Day, the game will still launch on Steam and Xbox PC. The next generation of console, dubbed Project Helix, is expected to be a gaming PC of some sort.
“So, given that Microsoft literally owns Windows, how are they hoping to corner a bigger piece of the lucrative PC gaming market, even if it doesn’t mean undermining Steam directly?”
In the post, Corden said, “I’ve received information from multiple trusted sources that Microsoft and Blizzard have been planning to open Battle.net up to third-party developers. It’s unclear if that’s still the plan under new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, but so far, I’m not yet seeing evidence that the plans here were canceled.”
Hopefully, this should ease the minds of gamers who may be worried that they will be unable to purchase Xbox’s first-party titles on Steam in the future.
