For a couple of days, uncontrolled news has been circulating about the name change - some even talk about "rebranding", i.e. a change of brand - for Xbox Live,which according to these reports would be renamed by Microsoft to "Xbox Network". That is not the case: let us be clear about this.

A couple of days ago, some users and journalists enrolled in the Xbox Preview program noticed that in the interface of their consoles, at the upload and display messages of clips and screenshots, thephrases" Upload to Xbox Live " and "On Xbox Live" were replaced with "Upload to the Xbox network" and "On the Xbox network":

Xbox network 🤔 https://t.co/E49QQzQFad pic.twitter.com/OQS1cRsrZ2

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) March 21, 2021

Some then began to speculate that Microsoft was renaming the Xbox online service to "Xbox Network", or that they were even abandoning the Xbox Live service. In fact, already in these messages there is a detail that should have made you think: "Upload to Xbox Live" has not been converted to " Upload to XboxNetwork", with a capital N as if it were a brand, but in " Upload to the Xbox network " with the "the" and the lowercase "network" that make it clear that you are referringto a more generic "the Xbox network". So much so that, most likely, in Italian we will find this message translated into "Upload to xbox network".

This approach was confirmed by an Xbox spokesperson to The Verge website, who, however, completely misunderstood the meaning of what was said, titled an article "Microsoft renames Xbox Live to Xbox Network". Needless to say, the international press has gone after him, without asking questions about the inconsistency with what Microsoft has said.

This was until Microsoft wanted to clarify further with Eurogamer,explaining:

"Xbox Live is not disappearing. We're making changes to create a simpler, more descriptive messaging system for Xbox in different areas. None of these experiences or features will change as part of these updates."

What is happening is therefore quite clear: Xbox Live does not disappear as the name of Microsoft's online service, but given the many devices that Microsoft is turning to and will turn to in the future, for more generic activities such as uploading content and probably even savings to the cloud, instead of referring to Xbox Live we will refer more generically to the " Xboxnetwork". It is also likely that, when the Live Gold obligation for free-to-play titles is removed, the officialcommunication will be that these will be playable for free on the Xbox network,rather than on Xbox Live, thus keeping the latter term more related to paid multiplayer services, purchased via Gold or Game Pass Ultimate.

Ultimately, what changes for us users? Practically nothing: in some writings of the console where today appears for example "upload to Xbox Live" we will read a more generic " charge on the Xboxnetwork", but otherwise everything will remain unchanged.