Freshly minted Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma has kicked off the newest era of Xbox leadership with an open thread on Elon Musk’s social media platform. Coming from Microsoft’s AI division, the former marketer with little experience in gaming faces a wave of skepticism from fans at the exact moment when trust in the Xbox brand has never been more challenged following waves of developer layoffs, game cancellations, and studio closures.
She began with a simple question to her influx of new gaming followers. “Top 3 greatest games ever? Why? GO” reads her second post on X since replacing outgoing 38-year Microsoft veteran Phil Spencer. “For me it’s Halo, Valheim, Goldeneye,” she told one user. Others asked which Halo. An Xbox Gamertag Sharma shared with another user included playtime in both Halo Infinite and Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
New #Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has now publicly shared her Gamertag. She has a 10,860 gamerscore and seemingly only started playing on Xbox or this GT one month ago.
She (or whomever runs the account) has played 29 games in the span of that month. pic.twitter.com/3EMvDVLNo3
— NIB (@nib95_) February 21, 2026
The account has a shocking number of achievements in Ball x Pit, one of 2025’s breakout indie games that debuted on Game Pass. One user recommended Borderlands 2 which Sharma said she would try. A short time later, it appeared on her recent activity list. For some it’s a sign that the executive from Meta and Instacart is engaged, accessible, and no stranger to games. Others are skeptical that it’s not all just part of some carefully and artificially curated PR rollout.
Amid the more than one thousand responses, Sharma was asked the obvious question on most Xbox players’ minds: what about exclusives? Microsoft’s shift from fierce console war competition with Sony to actively porting its biggest franchises to PlayStation 5 has read to many long-time fans as a betrayal and, perhaps even worse, a sign that the tech giant has given up on Xbox as a viable contender in the console gaming space.
Hear you
— Asha (@asha_shar) February 21, 2026
“Hi Asha Sharma, as the new Xbox CEO I hope that you understand how important exclusive games are and how games like Halo, Forza, Gears. Fable… Created an identity for Xbox and its players becoming a key point for Xbox’s success,” wrote one player with a Gamerscore over 200,000. “Xbox games must be only on Xbox.”
“Hear you,” she wrote back.
The sentiment, vague and noncommittal as it was, instantly gave some hope to the diehard Xbox fans in Sharma’s mentions. Others think it’s just a cheap way to buy a little good will before Microsoft accelerates Xbox’s pivot to being just a third-party publisher or moves forward with more cuts and closures as the tech giant continues shifting all of its resources and energy into the AI race.
Elsewhere in the informal Q&A, some users on X accused Sharma’s answers of being written by a chatbot. “I don’t believe you,” wrote one person. “In fact, I think your account is an AI.” The new CEO of Xbox responded: “Beep Boop Beep Boop.”
