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.
[x] Doubt
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
😅
You can’t force engagment by picking a guy whose name is Matt Booty, Microsoft.
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
Together they are the great BootySharma to you… spiritual Guru-as-a-Service…
It worked for Nintendo with Bowser.
Cmon guys. make a statement with your wallet.
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.
Copilot gaming will inevitably crash and burn. aaa corposlop games are out.
The future is indie gaming.
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.
She actually used the word “slop” when asked about AI.
Huh.
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.
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.
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.
Is this what they call “absolutely unemployed behaviour”?
Nobody gives a fuck about your or her Gamerscore.
Full on gamer brain take.
