Microsoft Gaming’s new CEO, Asha Sharma, is “willing to question everything,” according to Xbox vice president Jason Ronald.
He told The Information that Sharma’s ambition as the new CEO is to “retain what makes Xbox great” while simultaneously questioning Microsoft’s previous strategies.
Sharma comes from an AI background and has been transparent about her status as a newcomer to the world of games. It’s this newness that could serve her well, Ronald said.
“If you’ve been in the industry or in a certain role for a really long time, sometimes you build blinders where it’s like, ‘Oh, well, the industry just works that way.’ She doesn’t come in with those biases,” Ronald said.
One of Sharma’s first steps as Microsoft Gaming CEO was to kill off the controversial “This Is An Xbox” marketing campaign, according to the report.
Also in the piece, Xbox general manager Chris Charla said Sharma’s town hall speech with Xbox staff after she took over helped employees get on board with her vision for Xbox. She reportedly said she wanted Xbox be a “reference console” for the industry overall, or a console that sets a gold standard.
“That resonated super well. I think that people went from being pretty nervous–like, ‘What’s going on–what’s happening?’ to by the end of that day it was, like, seeing people had exhaled,” Charla said.
The story also said Sharma remains committed to launching new Xbox hardware with Project Helix, while also making investments toward a future where people play games hosted in the cloud and beamed to any number of different devices.
Project Helix doesn’t have a release date yet, but alpha versions of the console will begin shipping to developers in 2027.