Microsoft has reportedly made a drastic move to put something else at the forefront of its strategy when it comes to Xbox console sales.

Microsoft could reportedly stop selling Xbox consoles in the EMEA region. This includes Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The Redmond-based company could instead push Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, controllers and cloud functionality. This is being considered by the tech company as the price of Game Pass has been raised again (we’ve already written about how much more we have to play), which has caused a major public uproar.

Part of Microsoft’s strategy now is that you don’t need an Xbox to play on Xbox (this ad hit the news yesterday), as many exclusives are available for PC. The new Game Pass subscribers are now getting various offers, such as the Discord Nitro gifts. All of these changes come as Microsoft’s fiscal year started on July 1, so there are a lot of changes coming (and of course layoffs).

Recently, The Verge editor Tom Warren wrote that Microsoft is shifting its marketing strategy to consoles in the new fiscal year, but this has not been confirmed, so his information may be wrong. Xbox Series sales in the EMEA region have been slumping lately, with gamers in the region opting for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and possibly PC. If there’s a price hike, scalpers will come into the picture, making it much more expensive to buy the console dui, but there’s also talk of only stopping sales in certain regions.

This could mean that sales could be stopped in countries with less purchasing power, so those who don’t live in a financially wealthy country could be out of luck. Hopefully Microsoft will inform the affected countries in time so that we can prepare for the goodbye, because even an Xbox Series S is not a cheap product.

Source: WCCFTech, The Verge