As most of us are still recovering from the whiplash received at the end of last week, when it was announced that Xbox CEO Sarah Bond and former boss Phil Spencer would be stepping down from their respective roles, it appears the immediate reactions are wary at best of the new leadership. Asha Sharma's lack of video games knowledge has been brought up countless times online, and while it might not be vital to have 1000 hours in a video game to run a successful company, some big names are taking this as a bad sign for Xbox.
Speaking with GamesBeat, original Xbox founder Seamus Blackley said he thinks this is the beginning of the end for Xbox, as Microsoft shuts down everything that doesn't blend with its CoreAI business. "Xbox, like a lot of businesses that aren't the core AI business, is being sunsetted," Blackley said. "They don't say that, but that's what's happening. I expect that the new CEO, Asha Sharma, her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night."
It's not the most hopeful outlook, but Blackley explains that this is most likely the reason why a non-gamer like Sharma was hired. "I imagine asking somebody if it made sense to put a major motion picture studio into the hands of somebody who didn't like movies, or a major record label into the hands of somebody who'd never seen a live show. Why would you do that? Well, you only do that if you're looking at the problem in a more abstract way," he explained. "The natural consequence of the focus on AI is that AI abstracts every problem from the minds of the executives who believe in it. We're abstracting the problem of games as well. There's a core belief, and you can see it in what Satya said, that AI will subsume games like it will subsume everything."
Blackley believes it's the job of all these new leaders to introduce AI into every aspect of the Microsoft business, whether consumers want it or not because it's what the executives believe in. If this is all true, it's an incredibly bleak look for Xbox, but Sharma has said she wants to revitalise the brand, so we'll see how that goes.