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As former Xbox CEO Phil Spencer prepares to exit, we caught up with incoming CEO Asha Sharma and newly promoted CCO Matt Booty to learn about what the future holds for Microsoft's gaming operation.

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[-] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 38 points 1 week ago

What does the future hold?

Well Microsoft started shoving in copilot into more and more of their software from browser to even their notepad. And gamebar on Windows has...you guessed it...copilot.

And then they go and hire an AI affiliated person who likely hasn't written anything themselves relying on copilot to churn out scripts.

The future is copilot gaming.

[-] athatet@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

Copilot gaming will inevitably crash and burn. aaa corposlop games are out.

The future is indie gaming.

[-] qarbone@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago

You can't force engagment by picking a guy whose name is Matt Booty, Microsoft.

[-] actionjbone@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

It worked for Nintendo with Bowser.

[-] BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

vikings tried that by drafting a guy named john david booty. he lived up to his name and was out of the nfl in a few years

[-] Beetschnapps@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Together they are the great BootySharma to you… spiritual Guru-as-a-Service…

[-] LoremIpsumGenerator@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Yoga-as-a-service

[-] LoremIpsumGenerator@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

And a dudette's name Asha Sharma sounding like an Arabic food.

[-] garretble@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago
[-] digitalFatteh@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 week ago

It felt like Higby lost control once Gamepass started getting popular. He did great work getting the Xbox series launched but dropped the ball on the ‘both systems need to run the same.’ Concept.

But once gamepass started raising prices and gutting itself into different tiers on both systems and they went hard into acquisitions I was done.

She uses the same CEO speak of our team “family” will bring it back trying to insert herself into the group but when it goes to shot it’ll be the workers fault not hers as it is with any Corperate drone put in to place. I expect more downward spiral and studio closures from them. I left the ecosystem some time ago with the writing on the wall.

[-] sirico@feddit.uk 14 points 1 week ago

Hi I hope this interview finds you well. We have great plans for Xbox 💪

Such classics as Mario and jet set radio with talented studios like Arkane austin we will make gaming history

[-] Tronn4@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago
[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 week ago

She actually used the word "slop" when asked about AI.

Huh.

[-] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 week ago

No not she. The copilot prompt told her to say that when she asked copilot make me a script that will make people think I'm not pro AI despite my background. Wouldn't be surprised if she is a glorified newscaster reading copilot generated teleprompter.

[-] SCmSTR 1 points 1 week ago

Black pilled. But probably based. What if she is AI?

[-] imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago

Cmon guys. make a statement with your wallet.

[-] SCmSTR 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'm convinced it won't happen.

We've seen it age and age again, the young people and new people are too ignorant and weak. The only way is through learned family values, which take far too long to impart. Maybe, once the gaming community settles and all parents who vote with their wallet tell their kids to vote with their wallet...

The rate at which young people appear and give leeway to companies catering to inexperienced kids enforces a no-consequences for zero innovation and continuously evolving dark patterns cycle.

We have to solve the company bad behavior problem a different way. We had a very small window with tb years ago, but even then we flubbed it as a community.

[-] Nilz@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 week ago

"AI'm here to help us do it again"

[-] dragontology@retrofed.com 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

To literally any Xbox gamer reading this: how do you feel about having a higher Gamerscore than the (new) CEO of Xbox? Rhetorical question. I don't expect (or have any use for) an answer. Rather, I just want you to think about that. You might not be qualified to be a CEO of anything. But you undoubtedly know more about gaming, and what Xbox players want, than this person who has only recently taken up gaming to say she has (or maybe she has assistants playing on her account for some fake cred).

Mine's not worth bragging about, but I'm sure it's over 100k. That used to mean something. Now it just means Xbox has been around for 20 years and you've played a lot of games on the platform. Either you platinumed 100 games, or you played a lot more (including Arcade titles which were capped at like 200-250GS, IIRC). I actually only have like five platinums. Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Oblivion, Skyrim... maybe one other? (Bethesda games are easy to platinum.) (Yes I know platinum is a PlayStation term. We all know it means to get all the achievements.)

Achievement I'm proudest of? Rockband 2, Bladder of Steel Award. Complete the "Endless Setlist II" (all 84 songs on the disc!) without pausing or failing at any difficulty other than Easy, on any instrument. I did it on Medium Vocals (easiest way really). Regardless of instrument or difficulty, playing the ESL2 without pausing takes 6 and a half hours. It takes longer if you fail, obviously, but once you fail, you may as well stop, since you're out of the running for the achievement.

Until AI can game for you, I don't think Sharma is going to get 100k GS, or do something like the Bladder of Steel Award that requires more than just casual interaction with a software title.

[-] mcforest@feddit.org 25 points 1 week ago

Nobody gives a fuck about your or her Gamerscore.

[-] SCmSTR 2 points 1 week ago

Chill. This isn't Reddit. People are allowed to express themselves or go on tangents here. No need to be an asshole.

[-] rtxn@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Is this what they call "absolutely unemployed behaviour"?

[-] SCmSTR 1 points 1 week ago

You, too. What an absolutely toxic and unhelpful thing to say to somebody.

[-] Aielman15@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Gamerscore is a useless metric and doesn't prove how much of a "gamer" a person is. I had a low gamerscore back in the X360 days because I played few titles per year, but I would play them for countless hours for fun and not to chase fake internet points. Add to that the hours spent on emulators and other platforms with no achievement, and it's no wonder I never cracked 100,000 until, years later, Covid and GamePass let me play more games than I usually do (I've since jumped to PC, so my gamerscore hasn't increased since then). Heck, I have friends who only have a few thousand fake points because they have spent thousand of hours on the same few games, while I usually hop from game to game as I chase different experiences.

Even if the above wasn't true, I fully expect someone who has a real job to have less time to devolve to gaming, which means less gamerscore. I don't want Microsoft (or any company, really) run by sweaty neckbeards who spend more hours in their man-cave than the outside world. I want those companies to be run by competent people who understand and care about the gaming industry. Which is not to say that the ex-AI exec cares about any of that stuff, but her lack of gamerscore doesn't mean anything.

Sharma having no gamerscore is not the problem. The problem is her not having any gaming background and having been cherry-picked by Nadella because she was an AI exec. Xbox desperately needs new blood and a bold vision to resurrect their dying brand, but I doubt she's the one who'll save the day. I'll be more than happy if she proves me wrong a few years from now, though.

[-] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 2 points 1 week ago

@Aielman15@lemmy.world Possibly setting her up for a glass cliff

[-] Aielman15@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Huh, I wasn't familiar with the concept. Thanks for showing it to me.

[-] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 2 points 1 week ago

@Aielman15@lemmy.world

[-] dragontology@retrofed.com 1 points 1 week ago

She doesn't have no gamerscore, she has like 1200 because her account was set up like a month ago and she has some token achievements she probably didn't earn.

It's not about the amount or how much. Phil Spencer had a lot because he was a gamer and an exec. He was one of us, more or less, he played games and he liked working in gaming. I don't agree with all of his gaming opinions (in fact, mine are fairly uncommon, so that just comes with the territory).

I have a pretty high amount just because I've been gaming since before most people here were born. So I've had an Xbox account for something like 20 years. I've only really gone after a few achievements. Mostly I just play. Over time, that builds up. I've worked longer hours than a lot of people, in jobs most people are too good to do. "Work hard, play hard" may be a cliche, but I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't do recreational drugs, and I don't engage in extramarital affairs. I'm not a woodworker or a gearhead — gaming is my hobby. It's what I do to relax at the end of the day, if I have time. If I don't have time for a more "serious" game on the Xbox, I fire up my Switch and dick around on my Animal Crossing island. I've already rolled the credits (several times, long story, AC fans get it) but it's somehow fun to just run around and talk to animals and catch bugs and shit. Either way, it's what I do and I've been doing it for a long time.

I just think someone who's been playing games for years would make a better executive of a company's gaming division than someone who's never picked up a controller. LOTS of people play games. If someone never games, that says to me they don't like gaming — and they possibly don't like gamers. It's not a good look. Especially juxtaposed with the rise in AI and Microsoft bringing an AI exec in to run Xbox. It's not a good look at all.

[-] Aielman15@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I agree with you, I just don't care about gamerscore and I don't think it has any relevance in any topic.

We all know she is not a gamer, we all know she's an ex-AI exec and that's why I think she doesn't have what it takes to save Xbox. I just think that using achievements as a metric and being proud of having more achievements than another person is weird.

I also think that her setting up an Xbox account to play a month before her promotion is a stupid "how do you do, fellow gamers?" marketing pitch that I'm not sure why was attempted in the first place.

[-] dragontology@retrofed.com 1 points 1 week ago

Yeah, it's not so much gamerscore as it's gamer history. So if you look at my gamerscore, the actual number of points doesn't really matter, but you can see I've been gaming on Xbox for like 20 years, I've played so many games, you can judge me as a gamer based on what I've played and how far I got. It's not fair to mistreat a person based on gaming preferences, I'm just saying you get a clearer picture. So on mine you'd see a lot of RPGs, action/adventure games, point and click adventures (Dontnod/Telltale stuff), and Metroidvanias. You wouldn't see many sports games, racing games, or simulation games, and that would tell you things about me as a gamer.

Of course, I'd been playing video games for about 20-25 years before I ever heard the name "Xbox," but that's not tracked.

We could get into how achievements are just a stupid collectible for gamers, but are used by Microsoft to monetize anonymized gaming metrics to inform publishers how their games are played. Not all of them care, and this service is part of what Microsoft charges ~30% for, it's not an extra service. Some do, and most famously to my knowledge, it's why you didn't get an evil path in Fallout 4, because an overwhelming majority of Fallout 3 players went for the good karma achievements. Fallout 3 gave you achievements at levels 8, 16, 24, and 30 (the cap), but it also noted your karma level (good, neutral, or evil). And at each level it was like a stupidly overwhelming win for good, so they assumed most players didn't want the evil option. I mean, they did give you a couple evil factions to work with (the Institute if you were scientifically evil, and the Brotherhood of Steel if you were militarily evil), but ultimately your character is a good person.

this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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