Jon Kimmich's 16 years at Microsoft included the conceptual years for the Xbox brand, so he speaks with some experience when he says Xbox can't be two things at once.

In a lengthy analysis on GamesBeat, Kimmich distinguishes between Microsoft Gaming as a business and Xbox as a platform. Loosely echoing former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden, he frames a choice for Microsoft: does it want to invest in a platform and give people reasons to buy Xbox consoles, or does it want to maximize its efficiency as a publisher? Recently, its actions skew toward the latter.

"The Xbox platform is the relationship with players and developers: the console, Xbox Mode, commerce, identity, ownership, community, tools, and third-party support," he clarifies, adding, "Microsoft Gaming may grow while the Xbox platform withers."

The console as the centerpiece of Xbox – something new CEO Asha Sharma has committed to – is a sticking point. Revisiting a notorious Xbox slogan that's since died out, Kimmich says, "'This is an Xbox' was a campaign worth aiming for," but it got lost, like so much at Microsoft, in "timing and execution." It didn't serve "the promise you're making" or "the experience" itself, so the multiplatform campaign "became the punchline to a joke Microsoft told on itself."

Much of this, Kimmich reasons, stems from the fence-sitting approach that Xbox took for many years.

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