Xbox Boss Says Microsoft Store Is China's Biggest PC Gaming Platform

Did you know the biggest PC gaming storefront in China might not be Steam? According to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, it's the Microsoft Store.

Sharma dropped that claim during a recent internal town hall, according to a transcript obtained by Windows Central and confirmed by trusted sources. Talking about Xbox's PC business, she said the company keeps hunting for growth across different markets and platforms, and China is one of them. Her exact words: Xbox PC is already the number one PC gaming storefront in China.

One important catch: she's talking about the Windows Store, now called the Microsoft Store, which isn't technically the same thing as the separate Xbox PC Store. The Microsoft Store comes preinstalled on Windows 10 and Windows 11 machines, and beyond Xbox's own content it carries big titles that never hit Steam, like Fortnite and Roblox. There's also a real limitation to that "number one in China" claim, since there's no way to confirm whether Sharma's stats count Chinese players using VPNs to reach Steam. In other words, Steam's real user base in China could be underestimated, and this one still needs clearing up.

Even so, her comments underline how central the Windows ecosystem is to Xbox's overall strategy. She said Xbox won't bet on a single platform and will keep investing in other PC apps with clear player bases, Steam included, which lines up with the company's recent restructuring.

Away from China, Sharma addressed Xbox's business shifts this year. The company started 2026 dealing with declines in playtime, players and revenue at the same time, but playtime has now stabilized, and after consecutive year-over-year drops, first-party games are back in growth. She described the old Xbox Game Pass strategy as sending Xbox's balance sheet into a "freefall," though the company has started reinvesting. "We're making the right decisions, reinvesting in this business. After hitting historic lows, we've started returning to growth, and the growth is more than 2 to 3 times what it was before, and we expect that to continue," she said. That growth refers specifically to Xbox's owned and published first-party games, not an overall Xbox revenue growth rate. She name-checked strong openings for Gears of War: E-Day, Minecraft Dungeons 2 and World of Warcraft: Eternal, and said positive brand sentiment for Xbox rose 30 percent over the past year.

After a year of major restructuring, layoffs and studio changes at Microsoft, Xbox is reinforcing its console and core players while expanding gaming across PC and other devices. Sharma summed up the future strategy as four Cs: Core, Content, Creation and Connection, stressing that Xbox has to strengthen its existing players and console market while widening its reach on PC and beyond.

She also revisited the 10th-generation Xbox, codenamed Helix, saying the next-gen console isn't just a single piece of hardware but a "family of devices," including a core console plus other devices players can take on the go. "We're heading toward a 10th-generation family of devices. No single device can satisfy everyone. Of course we'll launch a great console first, but we also know a lot of players game when they're out," she said. Microsoft will build some of the hardware it's best at itself and launch other products with partners, and development on the related operating system is gradually taking shape.

So, does the Microsoft Store really beat Steam in China, or is there a VPN-shaped hole in that stat? And are you sold on the idea of a whole Xbox device family instead of one console? Let us know what you think.