Xbox isn’t healthy, CEO Asha Sharma insisted once again,this time in an interview with BBC. It’s a refrain that Sharma and Xbox leadership have been repeatingsince Microsoft laid off 1,600 peoplein its July 6 “reset.”
Sharma has been CEO of Microsoft’s Xbox unit for six months after taking over from former head Phil Spencer. Despite Xbox’s apparent struggles, Sharma told BBC that her prediction for the future of gaming is that it’s “on the cusp of becoming the most important form of entertainment for the next century.” It’s just that getting there, she said, will be “challenging.” Sharma also told the BBC the reset and its layoffs were necessary “to help ensure we are here for the next 25 years and we’re continuing to serve our purpose.”
Another 1,600 employees are expected to be laid off by the end of the fiscal year. It’s led to a feeling of uncertainty and fear at who’s next,an Xbox worker told Game Developer in July.
“Within Xbox, we haven’t been healthy,” Sharma said. Xbox revenue decreased by 7 percent, or roughly $1.7 billion,in the last fiscal year. Both Xbox content and services revenue were down alongside hardware revenue.
Sharma told BBC that Xbox is thinking about “efficiency and affordability alongside performance” for its reset and next-generation console. Component costs continue to rise due to AI data centers gobbling up re doing just that.) Xbox prices—as well as competitors—have gone up several times
“All of the industry needs to start to innovate on affordability and efficiency,” Sharma told BBC. “That is something that we have not had to do [previously]. But with the crisis that’s currently happening in hardware and components, it is absolutely something all of us need to be thinking about and innovating on and giving people more choice in terms of how they play their console and how they purchase their console.”
Sharma also discussed the company’s new disc to digital program, in which people will be able to convert their physical discs into digital copies of some games. She declined to discuss whether Xbox’s next generation console will have a disc drive.
