When Asha Sharma was named Xbox CEO, some on the web screamed about the fact that she was not a gamer. But the first few months of her tenure have shown why sometimes it's best to have a person who understands business in charge of a multi-billion-dollar gaming empire.
Here are some lessons that Xbox has had to learn or relearn this year under Sharma: Exclusives matter, Xbox starts with console, and it's not realistic to expect Xbox Game Pass to have 77 million subscribers when there are only an estimated 30 million Xbox consoles around.
Back in 2024, then Xbox CEO Phil Spencer said he wanted a "Future Where Every Screen Is An Xbox." It's been over two years since that memo was sent to Microsoft employees and leaked. In that time, we've seen Microsoft ship exclusives to PlayStation, reverse course, and straddle the barrier between consoles and PCs.
This is a future where Xbox is everywhere—consistent with our promise to empower players to “play the games you want, with the people you want, anywhere you want.
Phil Spencer (2024)
Spencer's vision was flawed. Taking the box out of Xbox never made sense. While cloud gaming extends the Xbox experience, the best experience requires dedicated hardware.
Sharma emphasized that fact in her exclusive interview with us earlier this year:
"I am committed to 'returning to Xbox,' and that starts with console, that starts with hardware. You will hear more about that soon."
But worse than taking the box out of Xbox was the idea that you could take the Xbox out of Xbox. Microsoft needs its console to stand out, and making everything under the sun an Xbox goes directly against that.
Microsoft put Halo on PlayStation 5 in a move our Jez Corden called "brand suicide." In February 2027, we'll see Fable launch and then God of War: Laufey launch the next day.
In just two days, PlayStation 5 owners will gain two massive games, but Xbox owners will get just one.
Hardware needs a reason to exist
Spencer's vision was flawed in terms of practicality, but I understand why people would wish it could work. In a perfect world, we'd all be able to play all our favorite games on any device.
But the reality is that exclusive content is at the core of platforms in 2026, and that's even more true when it comes to gaming. How many people would buy a Nintendo Switch 2 if all of its best games were available on the Xbox Ally X? Why would anyone buy an Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S if the PlayStation 5 had all of Xbox's games plus a bunch of Sony exclusives?
God of War Laufey launches 1 day before Fable early access on PS5.It's a sad reminder of how dumb Xbox's multiplat strategy was long term. Xbox is inadvertently advertising that PS5 has more content, and that Xbox customers are not important to MSFT.https://t.co/RukYP4IOYUJuly 27, 2026
Perhaps in another timeline in some parallel universe where PlayStation is actually for the players, we'd see Xbox and PlayStation games appear on both platforms. But we don't live in that world.
Sony reportedly has plans to pull back from PC gaming and not release single-player games on Windows PCs or Steam. That move was likely made because the next Xbox console is a PC at its core.
That means that Sony would rather lose out on all PC sales for its upcoming single-player games than have those same games be playable on the next Xbox console.
With Sony making moves like that, Microsoft can't afford to put its exclusive games on PlayStation.
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