100 Days of Asha Sharma: Grading the New Xbox CEO

May 31 marks the first 100 days of Asha Sharma’s tenure as the CEO of Xbox, succeeding the long-standing reign of Phil Spencer, which went into effect on February 20. Of course, Spencer was not perfect and had many missteps in his leadership over Xbox, but one thing cannot be denied: he loved Xbox, he loved video games, and he loved this industry. His retirement may or may not be as sudden as it seems to the average Xbox player, but his absence creates big shoes for Sharma to fill, regardless.

Although it may be an arbitrary milestone, 100 days in any new leadership position is important, and it’s worth looking back on Sharma’s first 100 days. Of course, there’s a major caveat to consider here. There is no world where Sharma came into Xbox, turned it around, and made Xbox the dominant console and gaming company in the world within 100 days. Beyond that, there are a lot of things that are still outside her control; canceled games and games in development, for that matter. Plus, it’s no secret that The Narrative™ that Xbox is bad has been around so long it’ll take more than 100 days to shake. But, as most would presume, her first 100 days appear to be a lot of steering decisions, some major ones, and a few learning slips.

The Big Win: A+ for Xbox Game Pass

A Massive Bump

Image via Xbox

The biggest win of Sharma’s first 100 days is Xbox Game Pass. The subscription cost of Xbox Game Pass has gone down, and even though that means Call of Duty games do not land day one, a cheaper subscription is certainly welcomed. By Xbox’s own accounts, the price hike stalled the service, and bringing down the subscription cost brought Xbox folks back. Xbox Game Pass is a key aspect of the Xbox ecosystem, so anything that hurts it hurts Xbox as a whole in turn.

Not to mention, gamers are indubitably impacted by ongoing economic issues in the industry, in the United States, and worldwide. Lowering Xbox Game Pass positions Xbox as more of a consumer-friendly company, however slightly. Steam Deck, PlayStation, PC parts—all of these are indeed going up and Xbox Game Pass came down, but there’s no forgetting that Xbox consoles are also more expensive now. That’s likely out of her hands, granted, but a CEO can still be judged by the economy they work in.

Leadership Shuffle

Eh?

Image via Microsoft

Sharma’s “restructuring” of Xbox leadership was to be expected, although it’s not clear to the lay consumer who most of these folks are, nor is it clear what/who was negatively impacted by this. Identity is one area where Phil Spencer excelled; most lay gamers knew his name. Sure, Matt Booty and Sarah Bond were less known, but the stock in the WHO behind Xbox does feel to lag with the restructuring. Hopefully, this is something that will be corrected moving forward.

Being open to trusting Sharma is important in this case specifically, because the layperson does not know who industry analyst Matthew Ball is, who Scott Van Vliet is, or who the various people she brought in from Microsoft’s coreAI or other wider industry tech roles are. She has to prove they’re the right people, and of course, they have to as well. For some folks, knowing that these are Generative AI folks is already a step backward, but more or less, this is a “wait and see” decision more than anything.

She’s Listening, But….

Leadership needs to listen, but it’s more important for leadership to understand and interpret than accept raw feedback. She recognized, almost immediately, how diehard many fans were that Xbox make games exclusive again, but she also has to offset the costs and risks of limiting their upcoming games to one platform. A solid strategy has not been announced, but she seems to understand the financial side of the argument, as well as the fan side here.

Where she, supposedly, dropped the ball is with the upcoming Xbox Games Showcase where it was confirmed that PS5 and competitor logos would be shown for multiplatform games. I have no problem with that because it feels like a respectful act and something all showcases should do, but many online fans did not. They were upset about it, she responded to the PS5 logo backlash, and her comments also triggered the other side of the fanbase. I want to be clear on this series of events:

• She confirmed that other logos would be shown
• A vocal minority of Xbox fans were upset about this and made a lot of noise, with the suggestion or takeaway being that Xbox should play dirty and not show PS5 logos
• Asha Sharma responded to the backlash and called the decision a “miss”
• Her response then causes another vocal minority of Xbox fans to suggest she should not cater…to a different vocal minority.

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At the end of the day, this feels like one of those weird PR problems that ought not be made a problem. As an Xbox fan, I want good games, I want good hardware, I want it all affordable, and I want the best the company can give. Whether or not a logo at a showcase is involved matters very little to me. Maybe the reading should be that fans want only exclusive games at an Xbox Games Showcase, but that’s a different can of worms.

I want to be clear on how this is considered: No, I am not “docking” points for basically any of this. It’s just a noteworthy moment as her first real backlash as CEO. It was just weird where two different vocal minorities were upset over something that would not bring back Xbox’s prestige, one way or another. It is not a hill to die on.

Smoothing Over Tactics Are Not Winning Tactics

The new Xbox start-up is cool, and it’s arguably a great way to establish her era of Xbox. It’s also arguably nothing that serious. Stylizing it “XBOX” is fine, but I ain’t writing it XBOX ever unless I have to emphasize that Xbox is just fine. These are okay. They are little PR wins for the new CEO, and those are likely needed. But you can’t really earn points for this, it’s like showing up to class almost.

Is She Speaking Too Soon?

Okay

Image via Xbox

Xbox Helix is important for the company’s future, especially because the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S generations will go down in memory as some of the most disappointing years in gaming—through mostly no fault of either PlayStation or Xbox. Yes, both made serious missteps and mistakes, with the PlayStation live-service push hurting more games than it yielded as an example. But they also launched during a pandemic and now find themselves struggling for hardware dominated by AI data centers and the like. But while getting ahead and bringing up Xbox Helix even a little is probably beneficial, doing so while current hardware is expensive and the affordability crisis only steepens and worsens is, perhaps, a little tone deaf.

Minor Details

Other notable key changes at Xbox include:

• “This is an Xbox” campaign is dead. That’s good.
• Internally, Microsoft Gaming is just Xbox again. That’s fine.
• Gaming AI copilot shut down. Good.
• The launch of the Xbox Player Voice. Cool, remains to be seen effectively.
• Internal memos suggest she wants Xbox to ship faster, focus more on community, and reduce internal complexity. Sure, yeah, that’s fine. How you achieve that without sacrificing quality, at least in terms of shipping faster, is the biggest question here.

The Final Grade: C+

Image via Microsoft

Overall, Asha Sharma earns a C+ for her first 100 days. An A+ would have meant major moves that were well-received and signaled a real course correction, while an F would indicate that she had done nothing or worse than nothing, like raising the Xbox Game Pass price again or something. C+ feels fair because it’s not yet her game, it can’t be. She’s still changing the rules of Phil Spencer’s game, she’s picking up a few small wins along the way, and she’s encountering just minor “okay, we’ll see” or “bad” things at the moment. As of right now, she’s picking up little public-facing victories, but talk only goes so far. Action is where we have yet to see Sharma in full force, and that’s likely what’s going to set her up or down a letter grade.

After all, the Xbox Games Showcase was no doubt in the works and being discussed before she showed up. It’s not fully her Showcase. The launch of games this year is not fully hers. Next year? Maybe. But at some point, gamers will decide she’s no longer “new” and the full weight of their judgment will come down. It’s not 100 days, but at some point, she will no longer be the new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma—She WILL be the CEO of Xbox. And fans want to see her elevate it, that much is abundantly clear. How can she earn that trust? That’s hard, but that’s just part of her job to figure out. Maybe within 365 days, this C+ goes up, maybe it goes down, maybe it stays the same. Only time will tell, but fingers are crossed in hope of Xbox’s future.