Following the executive shake-up at Microsoft’s gaming division, Xbox co-founder Seamus Blackley has shared what he believes is the future of the gaming brand, alleging that Microsoft was sunsetting the brand.
Xbox co-founder Seamus Blackley
Blackley left Microsoft in 2002 after overseeing the launch of the original Xbox. The veteran game designer made the comments in an interview with GameBeat following the appointment of Asha Sharma, a former AI executive, to replace Phil Spencer, who announced his retirement.
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According to Blackley, Sharma’s appointment to head Xbox over people with a background in video games is a sign that the future of Microsoft games will be dominated by generative AI. He praised Spencer for “managing the beast so that he could continue to try to do the right thing for games,” even though he was likely worn out.
“Satya Nadella has made an incredible number of bets and invested an incredible amount of money and credibility in the transform model AI future,” Blackley said. “Xbox, like a lot of businesses that aren’t the core AI business, is being sunsetted. They don’t say that, but that’s what’s happening. I expect that the new CEO, Asha Sharma, her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night.”
“It just seems really true. I imagine asking somebody if it made sense to put a major motion picture studio into the hands of somebody who didn’t like movies, or a major record label into the hands of somebody who’d never seen a live show. Why would you do that? Well, you only do that if you’re looking at the problem in a more abstract way.
The natural consequence of the focus on AI is that AI abstracts every problem from the minds of the executives who believe in it. We’re abstracting the problem of games as well. There’s a core belief, and you can see it in what Satya said, that AI will subsume games like it will subsume everything.”
Blackley issues strong advice to the new Xbox boss
Asha Sharma, new Xbox CEO
Blackley believed that Microsoft was pivoting all its business units towards generative AI, and gaming was not an exception. Therefore, it made sense that they chose Sharma to replace Spencer instead of someone passionate about making games.
“That is in no way surprising,” the Xbox co-founder said. “It would have been shocking if they had somebody in there in a meaningful role who was passionate about games, passionate about the creator-driven business of games, because it would be in direct conflict with everything else Microsoft is doing.”
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“Microsoft is a company that is now about enabling its customers by enabling AI to drive things. That’s at odds with the auteur model of any art, but specifically of games. Microsoft doesn’t have the problem that Apple does, or that Netflix does, where they have an auteur-driven content model to manage. Games are the only place where they have a content business.”
In the interview, Blackley advised the new Xbox boss to “leave this job soon” if she doesn’t develop a passion for games. To succeed, he called out other veterans whom she should reach out to for advice.
“If you want to look for people to emulate, you look at Shuhei Yoshida,” he said. “I’d tell her to go and spend a day with Shu. Go and spend a day with Peter Moore. Go and spend a day with Phil Harrison.”
“Go and spend a day, if you can, with some of the guys from Nintendo. Find Reggie. Spend a day with Reggie. Go and talk to those leaders about how they succeeded and failed in the business. Learn from them. Don’t try to make it up on your own. Go get that data. They’re all out there. I’m sure Reggie–shit, there’s a recently-departed executive from Nintendo who might be very interesting for her to talk to, right? That would be my advice. Go talk to all of those people.”
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