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Xbox has announced a massive shake-up in its leadership following CEO Phil Spencer resigning after 38 years at Microsoft and 2 years leading gaming.
As part of this change, Xbox President Sarah Bond has also left the company, and the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming is Asha Sharma who has been at Microsoft for two years and served as the Head of CoreAI. Matt Booty has also been promoted to Executive VP and Chief Content Officer of Xbox and will report directly to Asha.
All three involved parties have now made their own individual statements outside of the announcement. Posting on Twitter, Spencer said: “It’s rare in life to know when a chapter is closing, but after 38 years at Microsoft, that moment has arrived for me. I’ve made the decision to retire and begin the next chapter of my life. It’s a milestone that’s given me a chance to reflect on the incredible journey I’ve been fortunate enough to share with so many of you.”
Sharma’s statement spoke specifically to her AI past, which is no doubt causing concern for a lot of gamers. She said: “AI has long been part of gaming and will continue to be… but great stories are created by humans. As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop,” she said. “Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us.”
The last to post was Bond who has left the company for undisclosed reasons. She said: “I know there’s a lot of news to take in today,” Bond said. “I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve built together over the past eight-plus years. PC and cloud gaming are growing faster than ever, our next console is well underway, and together we’ve helped lay the foundation for a more open gaming platform that spans devices and reaches players around the world”.
It’ll be interesting to see what kind of impact this has on the Xbox gaming division in the years to come.
