Opinion - The Power of X is Back... Maybe?
A New Era?
A couple of months ago, a shocker hit the Xbox community as Phil Spencer not only resigned as CEO of Microsoft Gaming but also President of Xbox, Sarah Bond, widely believed to be the future CEO, left abruptly. Since then, new CEO Asha Sharma has stepped in, and there have been many concerns given her recent background at Microsoft AI and her lack of video game experience, even in her personal life. However, I feel a sense of excitement in the air as she has implemented many new policies and ideas that Xbox fans are happy about. So is it all hype, and we need to calm down? Is it warranted, and should we enjoy what’s coming? Or maybe it’s a little of both. Let’s talk about it.
It’s no secret that I write a lot about Xbox. I’ve been open that out of the “big three,” I’m a Nintendo guy first, and Xbox second. That’s not a knock towards PlayStation, especially because they come closer to Nintendo when it comes to nostalgia, and they’ve produced many great gaming memories for me… I just have a longer history with the red and green brand, and I’ve been playing on Xbox since the original console came to me on Christmas 2004. I’ve defended Xbox’s policies for the last decade, which means defending Game Pass and multiplatform releases for its studios. It’s not out of a fanboy belife, I just believe the true future of gaming is a platform agnostic one, but I’m willing to admit that I thought it was going to get here quicker than it seems it will and like Xbox, I made a bad bet and we probably aren’t close to that model anytime soon - although I still stand that it will happen to gaming eventually.
The one thing I do agree with many of the Xbox naysayers of the last decade on is that Xbox has had an identity problem. Now, looking back as the Phil era ends, I can say that Phil’s greatest mistake was never giving Xbox a personality or identity to attach itself to. Yes, we do have Game Pass, and whether you like it or not, that is very much a core part of the brand now, but it’s been stumbling with its biggest franchises, characters, and even hardware. Nintendo knows it’s the Disney of video games, even if it has to do it with weaker systems. Sony knows it's the cinematic AAA single-player brand, but lately, they’re flirting with losing their personality as they chase the live-service train. For Xbox, the last decade was all about acquisitions, Phil calming down fans after bad moments, fighting regulators, and transforming the brand into Microsoft Gaming rather than Xbox. It never really found itself, almost like a teenager that had problems understanding who they truly are, but you could see that potential underneath it all.
So, we got a new leader in charge, and I have to say, I think Asha is doing a great job. Asha is apparently working hard behind the scenes to learn about the industry and is even leaning into playing some games during her downtime, though how much she’s playing has been disputed; that’s not the point. She has been working on listening to fans and commentators and even signaled a willingness to talk to people like Shawn Layden, who is probably Game Pass’s biggest critic. Recently, she released a memo with some of the clearest messaging Xbox has made in years, and did it after hosting a town hall to excite employees about the new mission statement. She dropped the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. She also changed Microsoft Gaming back to Xbox, a move of her “return to Xbox” internal campaign. Her memo also hinted at some type of exclusivity returning, awareness of the high cost of Xbox services and hardware, and promises to address several weaknesses in the brand. While I know people love to be pessimistic, we should give her at least a bit of a hand clap for starting things on the right note.
Asha’s background has focused on increasing the user base of the various platforms she has worked with, and she has been very successful. It’s why Satya wanted her in AI before pivoting her to save the Xbox user count, which has been losing users and isn’t growing. Do I think she will eventually make questionable decisions? Absolutely. But I think she’s sincere, wants to make Xbox a stronger platform, and is going to do what she can to achieve that. We shouldn’t jump up and say it’s over, or that Xbox is back; give her space and time to see what else happens. Let’s also not forget she still answers to her boss, who is way too obsessed with AI. As the old saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. If she begins to screw up and these two months were a mirage, I’ll be the first to say it, but for now I’m excited, with a bit of caution. It does beg a question, however, as we see all these changes and Asha openly saying the old model wasn’t working… what happened?!
Unfortunately, we are not going to learn the exact details of what led to Phil’s sudden resignation and Sarah's leaving until someone like Jason Schreier releases a major tell-all or Phil has a no-holds-barred interview. What I can do, as one would do on the internet, is speculate and estimate what most likely happened. This has actually been my theory since the news hit, and the more time passes, the more I think it’s closer to the truth, until we get more confirmation. So here we go.
I think some, not all, but some of the articles that blamed Sarah were spot on. I don’t think it’s ok to use her as a scapegoat because in the end it was Phil approving everything, but I would point to a moment when it seemed Phil or Sarah had quietly given up on the brand… Redfall. The interview Phil gave to Kinda Funny after the game's bad launch seemed like a turning point. It seemed like Phil and Sarah decided they would transform Xbox more into Microsoft Gaming, and Satya, who wanted to see a big return on his Activision-Blizzard investment, was all for it. Some of these were things I liked and defended, but, as I said earlier, looking back, I admit they were done before the industry was ready. If you look at Xbox Series console sales before that interview, they were actually doing pretty well and on pace to match or even surpass Xbox One sales. However, after that interview, it felt like the brass at Xbox had given up on the consoles, and you saw a downturn in sales for two straight years in 2023 and 2024.
Now, to them, everything was an Xbox. They moved to make Xbox the Netflix of video games. Now, not backing away from the earlier articles I wrote, I defended this because I understood what they were going for. However, it apparently killed Xbox employees' morale, and it seemed to be the point at which Sarah and Phil lost their employees' confidence. It’s like a coach losing the player’s confidence; it’s not a good thing. Now, in 2025, add in massive price hikes to the systems, the weakest year ever for Xbox hardware growth, and embarrassingly losing to an unknown novelty gaming-focused toy in the holiday rush, thousands of layoffs and cancellations, and you had the worst PR year for Xbox since 2013. We all began writing the Xbox’s obituary; we knew Satya wasn’t going to change his mind, and we now had Microsoft Gaming, not Xbox. So… what made Satya and Microsoft change their mind?
I think Satya was more aware of the bad press in 2025 than people believe. I’m not going to defend Satya here as he’s part of the annoying string of modern big tech CEOs that need to be humbled, but he’s still a competitive guy, and things in a lot of Microsoft’s spaces are looking tough. Windows gaming is losing out to Steam, Xbox is losing console sales, Windows laptops are being challenged by the first student-affordable MacBook, and Google plans to release Android PC laptops as an evolution of ChromeOS. Microsoft is losing users, and they’re scared of losing more. I believe Satya saw the year-over-year numbers and the jokes about losing to NEX Playground, and he had a long talk with Phil. My guess is Phil decided he needed to step down and let someone new take over, and quite frankly… I think he and Satya both decided Sarah wasn’t the right person to take over. Once Sarah found out she was passed over, I think she bailed in hopes of starting over - common in the corporate world. I don’t think Satya is some Xbox hero, but I think he’s more aware of the mess it’s in than people are willing to give him credit. Again, this could all be slightly off, but until we get more information, that’s what I believe happened.
So, where does that leave us? Is this a new Xbox era, or is the old Xbox back? As I said we need more time, you can’t make a judgment call out of two months and Xbox either way has a long road ahead to fix it’s brand image and confidence, but I will say I think Asha has a strong chance to be a solid leader for the brand. There are things out of her control, unfortunately you can’t just drop the price of the console as that’s due to many outside factors, but you can maybe convince Satya to take a bit of a loss and possibly drop it by a bit. You can also run a major holiday sale similar to the one PlayStation ran last holiday. The Game Pass changes are coming, and I’m waiting to see what they'll look like. As for exclusives? I’m in the camp that believes they can probably get away with closing their biggest franchises (Halo, Gears, Fable, and so on) as closed exclusives after this year, or, at worst, as one-year timed exclusives. I think Bethesda, Activision, and Blizzard titles stay multiplatform, as well as smaller Xbox Studios titles, but you can use the power of marketing and console bundles with those games. We will see; there are a lot of changes coming, and we’ll look back next year to see what Asha’s reign looks like. Is the power of X back? I’ll say this… I see a slight, faint green light, and its energy is growing…
Thanks for the article. I'm not a huge Xbox fan by any means, but I do hope they recover their mojo to some degree. The console gaming landscape is more interesting with three committed players vs. just two.