Former Xbox/SEGA/EA Executive: “All Studios Are Going to Use AI” — Sharma Must Be the One to Explain It to Gamers

Peter Moore, former executive of SEGA, Xbox, and Electronic Arts (among others), shared his opinion on the recent appointment of Asha Sharma as the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming and the widespread fears that she'll push heavily on AI (despite her reassurances to the contrary).

Speaking to GamesBeat, Moore acknowledged that most hardcore gamers have an anti-AI sentiment right now, but also added that she's in a unique position to explain to gamers how it can be a positive change, as long as it serves the player rather than a spreadsheet. He also mused that every game developer will use AI in some capacity anyway.

AI is despised by gamers right now, who see it as a false way of creating games, a lazy way, a conveyor belt way. She’s gotta expect that. But we, as an industry, in game development, have been using forms of artificial intelligence forever. It’s just something that ultimately Microsoft needs to figure out exactly your question. Is she there because she’s AI? Or is she there, which is my hope, because she’s proven herself within the Borg at Microsoft and been a very capable executive leader, and this is a great challenge for her, and they wanted to do something different?

I think her mantra has to be–it’s good for gaming if AI serves the player, not the spreadsheet. She has to be able to explain that. The studios are all going to use artificial intelligence in one form or another. I don’t think the gamer really understands what it all means and how things come together in that way. But I think she has that great opportunity to bridge both worlds and serve growth and deeper immersive experiences. Games that are fundamentally less expensive. Maybe we get games that are better, faster, cheaper, because the cost of game development for triple-A games has become immense. Over the decades I’ve been involved it’s become this massive manual labor thing, hundreds if not thousands of people working on a game. That’s the key. She has that. If I’m her, I have this unique perspective. I just have to turn it into a positive in the eyes of the gamer.

Over the past two years, Sharma served as President of Microsoft's CoreAI division, leading the company's product portfolio of AI models, apps, agents, responsible AI, and developer tools. Because of that, she might be the perfect person to do what Moore has suggested, although convincing gamers of the benefits of generative AI will probably be quite the effort. The recent anti-Larian campaign following the reveal that the studio was using generative AI to write placeholder text, quickly develop concept art, and create internal PowerPoint presentations shows that there's a long way to go in that regard.

The developer of Baldur's Gate 3, now focused on Divinity, would later concede that GenAI tools won't be used to create placeholder concept art. However, it still plans to use the technology to speed up development in other areas. As Moore pointed out, it's likely to be too much of a boon to the industry's most pressing game development issues that most developers won't be able to ignore it.

Other former Xbox executives aren't nearly so optimistic, by the way. Founder Seamus Blackley, who was instrumental in the making of the original Xbox console, believes Sharma's role will be akin to a palliative care doctor nudging its patient (the brand) to its eventual death. Meanwhile, analyst Rhys Elliott from Alinea thinks the division should really be split from Microsoft and become independent.

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