It’s the dawn of a new era for Xbox. On Friday, Microsoft Gaming announced longtime leader Phil Spencer would be retiring as CEO and that Asha Sharma, Microsoft CoreAI’s head of product development, had been named his successor. With Spencer having been a staple in the gaming community for decades, Sharma knows she has some […]
Phil Spencer is retiring as Microsoft Gaming CEO after nearly 40 years with the Xbox owner and 12 years in his current role. He will stay on in an adviser capacity until later in the year. Asha Sharma, most recently president of product development for Microsoft’s CoreAI division, will be replacing Spencer as the new […]
The turbulence at Microsoft's Xbox division continued on Friday, when the company suddenly announced that long-time CEO Phil Spencer and current president Sarah Bond were both leaving (the former is retiring, while the latter is pursuing other career opportunities outside Microsoft). The new CEO of Microsoft Gaming is Asha Sharma, whose appointment is, however, already being questioned by gamers. The 36-year-old executive has no prior experience in the gaming industry; browsing her career, this is actually the second time she's been at Microsoft. She first joined Microsoft in 2011 and worked in the Marketing department for two years, then left […]
[UPDATE #2 - February 23, 2026] Asha Sharma's journey as the new Xbox CEO didn't quite start smoothly: gamers are already accusing her of using an AI bot to respond on X, and they're also skeptical of her gaming chops after noticing she just created her Xbox Gamertag last month. [UPDATE - February 21, 2026]: Following the publication of this article, former Xbox president Sarah Bond has shared her statement she sent internally within Xbox and Microsoft on her personal LinkedIn account. Notably, she mentions that her decision to step away comes at a time when she feels she has […]
