Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says Microsoft’s gaming business must balance two conflicting roles: reaching large audiences as a multiplatform publisher while still building a platform strong enough to need exclusive content. That tension now sits at the center of Xbox’s future strategy.

Exclusivity has become one of the most sensitive topics around Xbox. Microsoft has clearly moved away from the old console-war playbook in recent months: both Halo: Campaign Evolved and the Fable reboot, for example, are set to launch day one on PlayStation 5. For many long-time Xbox fans, that can feel like the platform is slowly giving up part of its identity, even if the business logic is obvious. As one of the biggest publishers in the world, Microsoft does not want its largest games trapped inside a single ecosystem.

Asha Sharma, who replaced Phil Spencer as head of Xbox in February, appeared in a live interview on Bloomberg Tech to discuss her first 100 days, the state of Xbox, and what comes next. The most important moment came when she addressed the question of exclusivity. Rumors have suggested that Sharma may be willing to reconsider the full multiplatform direction, but officially, she is presenting the issue as a careful balancing act.

Publishing Scale and Platform Logic Are Pulling in Opposite Directions

Sharma said Xbox is being pulled in two directions at once. On one side, Microsoft is the second-largest publisher in the world, and a publisher of that scale needs its games to reach large audiences. On the other, Xbox is still becoming more of a platform, and platforms need exclusive content and services if they want to remain competitive. “I think it’s a tough topic. Look, we’re the number two publisher in the world, and in order to be a great publisher, you must have your games reach large audiences to play. At the same time, we’re increasingly becoming a platform. In order to be a platform, you must have exclusive content and services. And so we’re looking at that very closely. I think that we have to be very thoughtful about each title on how we want to think about it and learn from similar cases in the industry, and that’s what we’re doing.”

This is not just a messaging problem. It is a real strategic trap. If Xbox releases all of its biggest games everywhere, it can generate more sales, reach more players, and strengthen Microsoft’s publishing business, but it also weakens the case for buying Xbox hardware or staying inside the Xbox ecosystem. If it keeps too much locked down, Microsoft’s publishing strength cannot fully express itself. The most likely compromise may be to release the biggest games across all platforms while keeping smaller or more strategically important titles exclusive, but even that would leave parts of the audience unhappy.

The First 100 Days: Game Pass, Growth, and a Business Reset

Sharma also said Xbox has accelerated during her first 100 days. According to her, the company has shipped more in that period than it did in the previous year, and it has managed to reset Game Pass after an eight-month decline. “We’ve done so much to start to revive Xbox. We’ve shipped more in the last 100 days than we have in the last year. We’ve been able to reset Game Pass after an eight-month decline – it’s now returned to growth and expanding revenue retention. And most importantly, we’re starting to get back to being closer to our players and our community.”

The next step, though, is not only about games or announcements. Sharma described it as a business reset, one that will require Xbox to rethink investment, priorities, and operations if it wants to return to growth. “I think the next 100 days, we have to reset the business. We need to look at how we’re investing, how we’re prioritizing, and change how we operate in order to return to growth, in order to be where the world plays. I’d love to see us be the number one gaming and entertainment company.” That is a large ambition for a business trying to be a console brand, subscription service, PC ecosystem, cloud platform, and global publisher at the same time.

AI, but Not as a Replacement for AAA Games

Sharma came from Microsoft’s CoreAI division, which initially worried fans who feared Xbox might lean too heavily into artificial intelligence. She eased some of those concerns by quickly shutting down the Gaming Copilot program, and in the Bloomberg Tech interview, she described a more cautious approach to AI inside Xbox. Her focus, she said, is on making sure AI solves actual problems in game development rather than simply being attached to everything as a corporate buzzword.

“The biggest thing that I’m thinking about is how to just make sure it’s solving problems on the game development side. I’ve gone to a lot of our studios, big and small, and I’m blown away with how they’re using AI in the production pipelines, how they’re using it for iteration and prototyping. Look, that’s not production-ready. There’s still work. And 30% of game development is software, so there’s the traditional applications that we see in enterprise. At the same time, I do not think AI will replace AAA games. I think it’s entirely possible, though, that AI represents a new category of games and a new type of development, and it enables more people to create and participate.”

Sharma may appear at the Xbox Games Showcase 2026 on Sunday, where more players will be watching than during any corporate interview. Xbox is now in a strange transitional position: too large as a publisher to think only in terms of its own hardware, but still too important as a platform to exist without exclusives. Sharma’s first major challenge is to turn that contradiction into a workable strategy rather than a slow loss of identity.

Source: Wccftech