In an interview, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty clarify previous statements made by the CEO, saying the company wants to bring back its spirit, and it starts with the console.

In case you haven’t heard, Xbox has a new CEO, and fans haven’t exactly been all too pleased about it. With the surprise retirement of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond out at Xbox, former CoreAI CEO Asha Sharma has taken over the reins at Microsoft Gaming, with Matt Booty serving as CCO. Today, the new heads of Microsoft Gaming sat down with Windows Central for an interview to shed light on their future plans for Xbox and discuss their efforts to return the gaming juggernaut to form.

In her opening letter, signing on as CEO, Asha Sharma explained she wanted to bring about a “return” to Xbox. She clarifies what she meant by that statement, saying it’s “about returning to the spirit that the team was founded on,” adding, “It’s that spirit of surprise, it’s the spirit of building something nobody else was willing to try — I’ve heard ‘renegade,’ ‘rebellion,’ and ‘fun’ used. That’s what I was thinking about when I wrote that.”

She explained that she knows how long the dedicated fans have been on their platform, and she’s committed to meeting them where they are, starting with the console. This is far different from the previous “Every screen is an Xbox” strategy touted in February 2024. Sharma explains the company wants to reduce this friction (and the “artificial divide” fans have had between devices touted as the console) since then. They’re committed to breaking this divide and starting with the fans; the company plans to go from there. With regards to 25 years of gaming history, Sharma is looking towards “lifetime value, not just what happened in a previous moment.”

She continues, “players have thousands of dollars invested, in money and time too — it’s incredibly important for me to understand that and protect that,” adding, “I am committed to ‘returning to Xbox,’ and that starts with console, that starts with hardware. You will hear more about that soon,” confirming the company’s commitment to the home platform it started as. New hardware is still in the works.

On the topic of AI, CCO Matt Booty confirmed, “We’ve got no pressure from Microsoft; there are no directives on AI coming down. Our teams are free to use any technologies that might be beneficial, whether it’s helping write code, checking for bugs, or working on more production pipeline tasks. At the end of the day, as Asha said, we’re committed to art made by people,” saying the usage of AI in Microsoft’s ecosystem is for AI to be additive and supportive and not replace people. Sharma also said in the interview, “I will not flood our ecosystem with slop,” in regard to her previous role as a CoreAI executive.

Ultimately, the Xbox executives say they mainly want what the fans want: the next 25 years at Xbox to be incredible. With a sign off, Sharma says, “This team has brought it back before, and I’m here to help us do it again.”

Xbox fans will have to wait and see if the team behind the console will meet them “where they are.”

Fans have already stormed social media to complain about the new Microsoft Gaming (Xbox also) CEO, Asha Sharma, and she has been replying without using AI.

It has been only four days since the executive shake-up at Microsoft, and fans have really let their feelings be known online. Asha Sharma revealed herself on X (formerly Twitter), announced her official Gamer Tag on the platform, wrote a few posts to start a conversation about “Top 3 greatest games ever? Why? GO,” and then went silent after those conversations (not before agreeing to play Borderlands 2).

Xbox fans took this opportunity to pile on the Microsoft hire, citing her prior status as a CoreAI CEO and her lack of experience with the platform as reasons she isn’t fit for the role. Today, the CEO returned to the platform to respond to IGN‘s Ryan McCaffrey.

I agree. Faking would be a terrible idea and wouldn’t work. I also didn't expect my gamertag to blowup and the reality is more boring. I created it recently to learn and understand this world. I’ve played with my family, and it’s a shared home account across devices (which you…

— Asha (@asha_shar) February 24, 2026

On the notion of ‘faking it’ as a gamer, Sharma wrote, “I created it recently to learn and understand this world. I’ve played with my family, and it’s a shared home account across devices (which you can see in the range of games /achievements). Fixed that this weekend, and everyone is only playing on their own GTs. But I get where this is coming from. I don’t pretend to be the best gamer, and even though I’m playing, that’s still not my goal. My focus is to make Xbox the best place to play, return to our roots, ship great things, and become stronger for the future,” signing off with “yes, I’m writing my own posts :)”.

Previously, Sharma’s conversational replies were meant to test the waters and try to find common ground with Xbox gamers, even including her own Gamer Tag in one of them. Her original post asked what everyone’s favourite games were, and when someone replied that Crackdown 3 was a favourite, Sharma blasted the whole community with, “I’m listening!” Sharma also shared her own favourite titles, saying, “For me it’s Halo, Valheim, Goldeneye,” which fans responded to in kind. Fans in the replies are still very cautious due to Sharma’s previous work as CEO of CoreAI, a generative AI company focused on developing applications through generative AI.

While it appears the new Xbox CEO (or Microsoft Gaming CEO) has her work already cut out for her, she is trying to embrace the community fostered at Microsoft, for better or worse. Oh, and she’s also letting everyone know she’s writing her own replies, even if they read like “Beep Boop Beep Boop.”

Ubisoft has gone through many rough patches in recent years, but the CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot, is enacting a plan to save the company.

Recent months have not been exactly good for Ubisoft as they have gone through many layoffs and studio closures due to the less-than-great sales of its recent games. In an interview with Variety, Guillemot spoke about how these lay-offs and closures are all part of a plan to reignite the spark that Ubisoft once had. 

The current idea is to reformat its studios into “Creative Houses.” Essentially, every house will have full responsibility over its assigned brands’ development, plus its profit and loss. They will design new IPs and operate like their own dedicated business with transparent accountability geared toward performance and actual autonomous creativity. 

The latest addition to the creative house project is Vantage Studios, which seems to be in charge of making new games under the Far Cry, Rainbow Six Siege, and Assassin’s Creed IPs. “We have a solid pipeline underway across Vantage Studios. Under the Assassin’s Creed brand, several titles are in development, spanning both single-player and multiplayer experiences, with the ambition to further grow a community that exceeded 30 million players last year,” said Guillemot. He also claimed that they have two ongoing Far Cry projects underway and are putting more resources into Rainbow Six Siege events.

Before all of this restructuring happened, the company cancelled six games from its selection of recognized games, especially the highly anticipated Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake. This doesn’t bode very well for the company, even though Guillemot says, “While such decisions are never easy, they allow us to concentrate our talent on the highest-potential projects and ensure that every release meets the quality our players expect.” Despite three of the cancelled games being entirely new IPs, it can only be speculated on what Ubisoft’s current projects are.

Speaking of current projects, one of the only games in development that didn’t get cancelled was the Splinter Cell Remake. This is still a shock because, according to MobileSyrup, Ubisoft just recently laid off 40 employees working on the remake since 2021 from the Toronto office. Even now, Ubisoft says that the game is not cancelled, but judging by recent trends, it could just be a matter of time. Especially so since 1,200 Ubisoft employees went on strike a couple of weeks ago because of the same cost-cutting measures. 

Only time will tell if or when Ubisoft will come out of this restructure still kicking or not. In the meantime, we just have to hope that new Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed games will come out soon.

Recent shadowdrop release Super Bomberman Collection brings back some classic Bomberman games, some for the first time outside Japan, and we’re happy to see it! But if we’ve learned anything from modern retro compilations, the quality is extremely dependent on execution. So how does this one do?

The package contains the five Super Bomberman games, all originally released on the Super NES and Super Famicom, as well as two bonus Famicom games. The later Super titles didn’t originally release outside Japan and have received localizations here, which is a nice touch! Frankly, though, these are fairly language-agnostic games and you probably would have been fine.

Putting these five games together in one collection might feel a bit redundant! And it is, to a degree. The advantage is in two ways. The first? Historical value. The game makes it easy to look at what power-ups are added in each one, and preserving all five is good regardless. The second is that you can choose your favorite variant. Each of these changes does color the experience, and through either taste or nostalgia, you’ll likely have a favorite.

If you’re having trouble deciding, though? We’d recommend going straight to 5. It has almost all the things from the other games, and there are options to configure it however! And as such a late Super Famicom game that other staff at Hudson were probably already working on Mario Party during development, it really takes advantage of the hardware. If it drops the ball on anything? Maybe it’s aesthetics. It’s trying really hard to do a robot/sentai thing in a way that a lot of the selectable characters feel same-y.

It’s also true that each of these games has a solo campaign. The franchise’s bread and butter is its competitive play, but there’s a dedicated group of people who really embrace the single-player arcade levels. And these are good ones! We’ve spent a while playing, and we are undeniably bad at them but there’s a puzzly element to taking on risky opponents in an optimal order.

When it comes to gallery modes in retro compilations, our usual stance is that it’s a great effort of preservation! But we don’t spend a lot of time with that stuff. Super Bomberman Collection’s “unbox” mode feels a lot more robust, though. With the detail and ability to virtually open the box and pull out the manual, it captures a bit more of the nostalgia of the originals.

While it doesn’t have built-in functionality for this sort of thing, Super Bomberman Collection takes advantage of system-level multiplayer features like Switch 2’s GameShare and Steam’s Remote Play Together. How well does it work? Better than you’d think! We spent our time testing it out on Switch 2, and didn’t experience any of the frequent connection issues we usually get. What’s more, it’s the sort of game that can weather some minor hiccups if you get them, and it also doesn’t look too bad in the windowed GameShare screen.

Super Bomberman Collection, developed by Red Art Games and published by Konami, is out now on Switch 2, Switch, PS5, Xbox Series and Steam. Physical editions of the game will launch on August 25, 2026.

The post Super Bomberman Collection Is a Multiplayer Blast appeared first on Siliconera.

Ah, it's a Friday night, time to rela-

Wait a minute, long-time Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer's retiring, his assumed replacement and Xbox president Sarah Bond has resigned, and the suit now being tapped to take over Spenny's gig currently has the following job title: president of Microsoft’s CoreAI product. Right, guess I'm writing a news.

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Ubisoft are laying off around 40 people at Ubisoft Toronto, the studio behind the forthcoming remake of the original Splinter Cell. That’s approximately eight percent of the studio headcount. It’s all in the service of Ubisoft’s drive to cut costs after restructuring their operations around a big dollop of Tencent funding, which has elsewhere seen Ubisoft propose to lay off up to 200 people in Paris, and chop fixed costs by €200 million over the next two years.

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In the aftermath of reports claiming that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) deepened their reliance on Microsoft’s cloud technology last year, No Azure for Apartheid have issued a statement demanding the company cut ties with the agency.

No Azure for Apartheid are the same worker-led group who've carried out protests against Microsoft's dealings with the Israeli military, amid what Amnesty International and a UN enquiry have called a genocide in Gaza.

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Video game updates are an incredibly funny thing, mostly because I come from a time where they weren't a thing at all, apart from the odd second printing that patched some things here and there. Which is why my humerus has been particularly tickled by the news that a new Assassin's Creed Shadows has arrived today that, amongst a couple of other things, add in the ability to simply let you jump.

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I still haven’t left the starting area in Skull and Bones, but it’s a relief to know that as and when I do, I’ll have some big molluscs to bombard alongside those boring galleons. Ubisoft’s open world Jolly Rogerer forges bravely on with another season of updates, Eye of the Beast, despite Ubisoft recently jettisoning a bunch of games and studios in their efforts to buoy up the share price. Yes, this is the same Skull and Bones that has 320 in-game players on Steam as of writing, and a worryingly Biblical user review average of 66.60%.

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A major shakeup is taking place at the top of Microsoft’s gaming business, as long-time Xbox and Microsoft Gaming boss Phil Spencer is retiring, effective from Monday 23rd February, with current President of Microsoft’s CoreAI, Asha Sharma is set to take over as the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming.

Xbox President Sarah Bond, who was easy to view as Spencer’s eventual successor, has resigned, while Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty is being promoted to Chief Content Officer.

Messages from all (except Bond) have been published by Microsoft. Spencer said that he had been thinking about retiring for a little while, and that this handover has seen him work with his successor for several months now.

“Last fall, I shared with Satya that I was thinking about stepping back and starting the next chapter of my life. From that moment, we aligned on approaching this transition with intention, ensuring stability, and strengthening the foundation we’ve built. Xbox has always been more than a business. It’s a vibrant community of players, creators, and teams who care deeply about what we build and how we build it. And it deserves a thoughtful, deliberate plan for the road ahead.

“Today marks an exciting new chapter for Microsoft Gaming as Asha Sharma steps into the role of CEO, and I want to be the first to welcome her to this incredible team. Working with her over the past several months has given me tremendous confidence. She brings genuine curiosity, clarity and a deep commitment to understanding players, creators, and the decisions that shape our future. We know this is an important moment for our fans, partners, and team, and we’re committed to getting it right. I’ll remain in an advisory role through the summer to support a smooth handoff.”

Sharma might not have been the most obvious choice from the outside, and coming from an AI background will certainly be a cause for concern to many gamers, where generative AI is viewed very negatively.

“My first job is simple: understand what makes this work and protect it. That starts with three commitments. First, great games. Everything begins here. We must have great games beloved by players before we do anything. Unforgettable characters, stories that make us feel, innovative game play, and creative excellence. We will empower our studios, invest in iconic franchises, and back bold new ideas. We will take risks. We will enter new categories and markets where we can add real value, grounded in what players care about most. I promoted Matt Booty in honor of this commitment. He understands the craft and the challenges of building great games, has led teams that deliver award-winning work, and has earned the trust of game developers across the industry.

“Second, the return of Xbox. We will recommit to our core Xbox fans and players, those who have invested with us for the past 25 years, and to the developers who build the expansive universes and experiences that are embraced by players across the world. We will celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console which has shaped who we are. It connects us to the players and fans who invest in Xbox, and to the developers who build ambitious experiences for it.

“Gaming now lives across devices, not within the limits of any single piece of hardware. As we expand across PC, mobile, and cloud, Xbox should feel seamless, instant, and worthy of the communities we serve. We will break down barriers so developers can build once and reach players everywhere without compromise.

“Third, future of play. We are witnessing the reinvention of play. To meet the moment, we will invent new business models and new ways to play by leaning into what we already have: iconic teams, characters, and worlds that people love. But we will not treat those worlds as static IP to milk and monetize. We will build a shared platform and tools that empower developers and players to create and share their own stories.

“As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop. Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us.”

There’s definitely some reassuring sentiments within that, though I would argue that saying your first job is to understand what’s going on makes this sound more of a hurried appointment. We will have to see how much institutional change follows.

Phil Spencer had been at the helm of Microsoft’s gaming efforts for over a decade, taking over in 2014 and setting about steading the suddenly floundering console gaming business. He moved quickly to cut the price of the Xbox One by removing the Kinect from the bundle, made gamer-positive moves like championing backwards compatibility, and enacted major changes to the Xbox business model by promising day-and-date PC releases for Xbox games (and releasing them on Steam), as well as introducing Xbox Game Pass. He also saw Xbox exclusives start to come to PlayStation, breaking down traditional barriers.

However, he’s also been at the helm more recent difficult times for the brand. The Xbox Series X|S launch did not go as successfully as planned, not least with significant game delays for the likes of Halo Infinite, studio acquisitions took a long time to bear fruit, Xbox Game Pass started to see market saturation, and then successive price increases to both consoles and services.

With an eye to the future, now might be the best time for him to step aside, but Xbox as a brand feels somewhat nebulous right now. There’s a lot of rumours about what their next console might be like, whether it’s more PC-like than console and with rival storefronts, or traditional. Microsoft will inevitably be very keen to see AI used in some fashion, having demoed AI helpers with Minecraft in recent years (and that was before the current madness). But with a new CEO all of that could change. We’ll have to wait and see.

Source: Microsoft

Ubisoft has started email users of its services that it is rolling out age verification for Ubisoft accounts, with limits coming in for social features so players can only interact with people on their friends list unless the account is verified. It does not look like it is worldwide but does affect countries where laws require age verification for people to access some content, including the UK with the introduction of the Online Safety Act. This move seems to be specifically about the UK

In the email I received, Ubisoft wrote, “To keep our community safe and ensure age‑appropriate experiences for all players, Ubisoft is introducing a new age verification step for certain communication features. This update also helps us comply with the UK Online Safety Act.

It’s time once more for us to do our semi-sporadic peek into Persist Online, the PvPvE zombie-filled shooter MMO in pre-alpha development by Tibia studio CipSoft. And this time around we cast our eyes to the game thanks to its most recent major update, which introduces a new resource capturing mechanic known as nodes. In summary, nodes […]

Would you like to have your design skills immortalized in Skull and Bones? Then you’re in luck because that opportunity is available during an official second anniversary contest, which will grant creative fans of the piratical playground the chance for their custom sail and emblem to be a part of the game. From now until March 8th, […]

Welcome back to yet another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news! We’ve got quite a bit to cover today, so let’s not waste too much time with a preamble and hop right into this list of headlines. Regime change at Microsoft Gaming and Xbox: According to reporting at IGN this afternoon, Microsoft Gaming CEO […]

March 9th is shaping up to be a significant boon for Elder Scrolls Online’s community, as ZeniMax is prepping Update 49 and an array of player-requested improvements. These include free build changes, account-wide outfit slot unlocks, an increase to the furnishing limit cap, cheaper bag and bank space expansion, and a whole ton of mounts […]

This week’s Massively Overthinking is inspired by a tweet I saw from SMITE, of all games, where the Hi-Rez devs asked players to propose one god to delete from the game. Obviously, this is not a serious proposition, but in the aggregate, the answers can kinda show a trend in what people are tired of, […]

Hey, remember Time Takers? Probably not, so here’s a recap: NCsoft announced it’d be publishing a “time survival” shooter back at the end of 2024, and last summer at Gamescom, it revealed the game as Time Takers. It sort of got overshadowed because NCsoft announced Cinder City (an actual MMO shooter) at the same show, […]

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer will retire effective February 23, and Xbox president and chief …

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Total shipments and digital sales for the Shiren the Wanderer series have surpassed three million …

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In a recent interview with Variety, Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot revealed that two Far Cry games are currently in development, despite recent restructuring at the company and several canceled and delayed titles. He also confirmed that multiple Assassin’s Creed games are in development.

The two Far Cry projects, previously reported on, are codenamed “Blackbird” and “Maverick.” Blackbird is reportedly the next mainline entry in the series, while Maverick is described as an extraction shooter-style title. Both games have reportedly undergone multiple internal delays and changes. Guillemot added that several Assassin’s Creed titles offering both multiplayer and single-player experiences are in development.

According to a recent Insider Gaming report, which cites anonymous sources, three projects are currently “locked in” at the studio: Invictus, a multiplayer title; Obsidian, a remake of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag scheduled to release later this year; and a third game codenamed Neo, also known as Hexe, which is now slated for release in 2027.

In a report from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson last year, several details for multiple of Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed titles were revealed. The report claims that the upcoming title Assassin’s Creed Hexe, will be a linear title with some open world elements. It will allegedly launch at the end of the Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ post launch content plans which has around two years of DLC support. It will also receive one year of DLC support. According to past reports, the game won’t be an RPG and will have players control a Witch named Elsa.  It’s worth noting these are all rumours and should be taken with a grain of salt.

The post Ubisoft Confirms Two Far Cry Games And Multiple Assassin’s Creed Games In Development appeared first on Gaming Instincts - Next-Generation of Video Game Journalism.