The New Face of Xbox

Xbox is in its 25th year, and a new boss is in charge. In 2026, Phil Spencer retired after 38 years at Microsoft and was succeeded by Asha Sharma, now CEO of Xbox. Sharma previously served as COO of Instacart and a vice president at Meta before returning to Microsoft, where she led CoreAI Product. As part of the transition, Sarah Bond left Microsoft and Matt Booty became EVP and Chief Content Officer. It is a significant reset for the business.

Sharma doesn’t have the same background in gaming that Spencer had. He was a company man who was willing to eat the company’s own dog food. But being an avid fan may also have been a weakness, one Sharma doesn’t appear to share. Xbox has been losing ground to Sony for much of the past decade, and the studio-buying spree under Spencer has yet to deliver the turnaround many expected. Its “Netflix for games” service, Game Pass, also failed to hit some of its user targets. Sharma has been left with the task of tearing the plaster off. Let’s see how it goes.