Xbox Live is officially changing to Xbox network

Rumours started circulating a few weeks ago around Microsoft’s intentions to rebrand Xbox Live to Xbox network. 

Those rumours then seemed to be slowly turning into a reality. Numerous beta users reported seeing the Xbox network branding throughout the Xbox UI.

In a statement to the media outlet, The Verge, a spokesperson for Microsoft confirmed the name change: “The update from ‘Xbox Live’ to ‘Xbox network’ is intended to distinguish the underlying service from Xbox Live Gold memberships.”

In the 18 years that the service has been running, it has operated across four different console generations and has amassed up to 90 million active subscribers per month. 

Leaks

Microsoft has now officially announced the change of branding. Although, evidence in recent weeks had all but confirmed the change, anyway. 

In a report originally written by The Verge, Editor Tom Warren reported finding a reference to the Xbox network. As did Twitter user EvilBoris, who spotted another reference to the Xbox network.

Interestingly, Xbox Director of Programming, Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb also recently changed his moniker. Known by Xbox Live’s Major Nelson for the better part of almost two decades, Larry is now instead going by Xbox’s Major Nelson. 

Xbox Series S and X

The news of the rebranding comes amidst a busy period for Microsoft. In the past few weeks alone, there have been a number of key announcements.

Leading the announcements was the recent acquisition of Bethesda. This brought with it the news that Microsoft would make some future titles exclusive to platforms with Game Pass on them. Microsoft also released a number of Bethesda titles on its Game Pass service. 

Dolby Vision was also confirmed as rolling out to a number of beta testers on the Xbox Series S and X. The impressive HDR technology is currently limited to four games in beta testing, but we can likely expect a number of leading titles to have the feature when it launches.

Read More: Xbox survey asks owners about Bitcoin payment methods