Yesterday, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma was featured in a live interview on Bloomberg Tech, where she discussed her first 100 days as the new head of Xbox (replacing Phil Spencer back in February) and what comes next.
Arguably, the most interesting tidbit of the talk was Sharma's response to one of the hottest topics on Xbox fans' minds: exclusivity. Microsoft famously walked away from it (both the upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved and Fable reboot will land day one on PlayStation 5, for example), but there's been rumors that Sharma might be willing to reconsider.
Officially, she outlined the tension between two polar opposites: Xbox is the second-largest publisher, which means targeting wide audiences, but it's also a platform that needs exclusives.
I think it's a tough topic. Look, we're the number two publisher in the world, and in order to be a great publisher, you must have your games reach large audiences to play. At the same time, were increasingly becoming a platform. In order to be a platform, you must have exclusive content and services. And so were looking at that very closely. I think that we have to be very thoughtful about each title on how we want to think about it and learn from similar cases in the industry, and that's what we're doing.
It won't be easy for the new Xbox CEO to navigate this situation. Perhaps the best compromise would be to publish the biggest games on all platforms and keep the smaller ones exclusive, though even that wouldn't satisfy everyone. Regarding her initial 100 days at Xbox and what comes next, Sharma said:
We've done so much to start to revive Xbox. We've shipped more in the last 100 days than we have in the last year. We've been able to reset Game Pass after an eight-month decline — it's now returned to growth and expanding revenue retention. And most importantly, we're starting to get back to being closer to our players and our community. I think the next 100 days, we have to reset the business. We need to look at how we're investing, how we're prioritizing, and change how we operate in order to return to growth, in order to be where the world plays. I'd love to see us be the number one gaming and entertainment company.
Sharma came from Microsoft's CoreAI division, which initially worried fans that she would go all-in on AI; however, she quickly shut down the Gaming Copilot program. In the Bloomberg Tech interview, Sharma provided an overview of her AI plans for Xbox:
The biggest thing that I'm thinking about is how to just make sure it's solving problems on the game development side. I've gone to a lot of our studios, big and small, and I'm blown away with how they're using AI in the production pipelines, how they're using it for iteration and prototyping. Look, that's not production-ready. There's still work. And 30% of game development is software, so there's the traditional applications that we see in enterprise. At the same time, I do not think AI will replace AAA games. I think it's entirely possible, though, that AI represents a new category of games and a new type of development, and it enables more people to create and participate.
Sharma may make an appearance at the Xbox Games Showcase 2026 on Sunday.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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