Well this is the new Xbox boss, Aska Sharma trying to course correct her own actions after pushing out Phil Spencer (and team). Phil had a deep understanding of the game world about profit margins and how the Xbox is essentially a stake in keeping Microsoft in the minds of consumers, a place in the home. Aska has a shallow understanding and sees only the financials and wanted to increase profits. Now she is burning it all down to try and “reset” and replace people with LLMs to increase profit margins. I imagine she will be pushed out herself end of year or next Spring (2027) once her naïve plan back fires.

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draculero an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Just out of curiosity, I checked her Wikipedia page and this caught my eye:

> Sharma posted in 2026 that she had recently begun playing video games under the gamertag AMRAHSAHSA to "learn and understand" the games industry

Imagine running the Xbox division and only just now picking up a controller.

	▲	PaulHoule 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		There's this little concept of "cultural sensitivity". Given the size of the King thing it would even be fair to have somebody who had a serious Candy Crush habit. At least they didn't create a fake profile for her the way Elon Musk made one. I think the "glass cliff" is going to choose another victim.

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tapoxi 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Are you conflating Asha Sharma with Satya Nadella? Asha just joined Xbox, she had no role in any prior decision making.

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righthand an hour ago | parent [-]

Asha came from the AI division of Microsoft, she didn’t pop out of nowhere. She is strongly tied to the Microsoft LLM plays.

IMO Phil was very clearly pushed out by “AI will cut costs talk”. No one makes huge investments into acquiring companies and then suddenly retires (after running the division successfully for decades) and none of his underlings were promoted into the role, they all left when he did.

	▲	Jare an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think Phil was pushed out by the complete failure of his strategic vision when confronted with reality. He had a vision of growth and prestige, and money would follow. I loved his vision in its grandiose and lofty goals, but he completely failed to capture any of the "how to make it happen". It stays a fantasy.

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dwroberts 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Don’t know why this is being downvoted because it’s absolutely on the money. She’s a very green exec that is doing the classic “change everything to make it look like I’m doing something” while also not really achieving anything.

The rebrand to ‘XBOX’ is a good example of how they’re already out of ideas