Microsoft has restructured its gaming division with a major leadership overhaul. Asha Sharma now leads Microsoft Gaming in what’s being framed internally as a mission to bring Xbox back from underperformance.
The shake-up marks the end of an era for Xbox. Phil Spencer is stepping down after years as the public face of the brand. Sarah Bond is also leaving. Both executives were closely tied to Xbox’s recent strategic direction.
Sharma comes from Microsoft’s CoreAI organization, though her role there covered broader platform development beyond just artificial intelligence work. Before Microsoft, she held leadership positions at Meta and Instacart. Her mandate centers on execution and clearer vision for what Xbox actually is.
The timing isn’t random. Microsoft’s “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign told customers they could play on phones, TVs, and PCs. The message apparently backfired. Instead of expanding the audience, it made people question why they’d buy an Xbox console at all.
Hardware sales have struggled. Game Pass growth has plateaued. The brand identity got muddled somewhere between being a console maker, a subscription service, and a multiplatform publisher. Bond in particular championed the device-agnostic push. Her exit signals Microsoft is reconsidering that approach.
The company spent billions acquiring Bethesda and Activision Blizzard to boost its content library. But bringing major franchises like Halo and Gears to PlayStation diluted what made Xbox special. Exclusives are the main reason people pick one console over another.
Sharma faces the job of defining what Xbox means in 2025. That likely means walking back some of the “play anywhere” messaging without abandoning the parts that work. Cross-buy between console and PC remains popular. Telling people they don’t need a console to play Xbox games was the problem.
