Xbox is launching a film and television division called XP with Mojang Studios chief Kayleen Walters as president, the gaming company announced on Thursday.
Following her promotion, she will be replaced by Maria Angelidou-Smith as CEO of Minecraft and Swedish game developer Mojang on Oct. 19. Both will report to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.
“XP is a play on ‘Experience Points’ and formalizes four investment areas for us: Xbox Pictures for film and television adaptations; Xbox Products for licensing and merchandise; Xbox Partnerships for sponsors and brand partners; and Xbox Places for our marquee broadcast and in-person events, theme parks and other location-based experiences,” Sharma shared in a Thursday staff memo.
“Our franchises can mean more to people than the time they spend playing them, and Kayleen knows how to build those experiences with the industry without losing what made people care about the franchise in the first place,” she continued.
As the head of Mojang, Walters was also an executive producer on 2025’s “A Minecraft Movie” and will be a producer on its sequel. She also spent 13 years at Lucasfilm working on “Star Wars” films, products and partnerships.
Angelidou-Smith, meanwhile, served as Head of Community Products for Facebook and led Facebook Groups after nearly a decade at Meta. She also held major roles at Personio and Reddit.
“Minecraft is one of the largest communities in entertainment. Hundreds of millions of people play, build, create, teach, watch, mod, run servers, and build businesses around Minecraft. The community doesn’t just consume the product. It helps shape what the product becomes,” Sharma added. “Mojang already has an exceptional game development team that knows Minecraft and its players deeply. We wanted someone who has built products for communities at enormous scale, who is deeply technical, and who understands how creators, product, technology, and monetization come together.”
The update comes just over a month after Xbox laid off another 268 employees in its latest round of cuts, moving the next Halo game to Activision in the process.
