Xbox CEO Asha Sharma denies Microsoft plans to sell the Xbox gaming business

Despite recently having overseen the laying off of 268 staff in the second of multiple rounds of cuts planned for this financial year, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has denied that their are plans to sell Microsoft's gaming division. The bloodletting at Xbox in recent months has not only seen workers let go, but the place of studios within the company's structure being altered. Rather than lots of studios with their own degree of independence, Xbox have been parting ways with many studios and consolidating what remains under a small number of arms led by the bosses of the likes of Activision and Bethesda. Read more

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says Microsoft has no plans to sell the gaming business, telling The New York Times that "Xbox is not for sale" and that the company intends to take a long-term view. Windows Central reports: Microsoft's vast layoffs across the summer have hit Xbox in their thousands, with studios like Ninja Theory on the path to being closed, and others like Double Fine being divested completely. Microsoft has effectively shut down Halo Studios itself and handed off the franchise to Call of Duty showrunners instead, as Xbox aggressively seeks to restructure for its next decade. [...] The NYT interviewed (paywall) Sharma recently covering the Xbox layoffs generally. The outlet said that Asha "did not stall" in declaring Xbox not-for-sale. "Xbox is not for sale. [...] We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model and everything needed to achieve that. [...] We've got a long way to go with Microsoft and we're going to take the long-term view." The NYT quite patronizingly called the comment a "bob and weave" seemingly unwilling to let go of the idea of divestiture. It's great shareholder bait; Xbox has long been an aspirational type of product, and it has been a loss leader in some regards. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has remarked in the past about how, despite the fact Xbox isn't a huge profit generator, fandom of the brand has led to lucrative deals for Azure on the business side of things. Yet, shareholders would love nothing more than for Microsoft to quit the difficult and risky game industry to dive all-in on AI psychosis products instead... Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The "Xbox reset" has people wondering whether Microsoft is preparing to exit the video game business, but Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has flatly denied that the gaming division will be put up for sale. "Xbox is not for sale," Sharma said to The New York Times. "We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model, and everything needed to achieve that." Sharma's comments come in the wake of analysts predicting that Microsoft could sell Xbox off entirely. Compared with Microsoft's profitable cloud computing and artificial intelligence businesses, Xbox has paled in comparison, and the gamble on Xbox Game Pass hasn't paid off, despite Microsoft investing tens of billions in acquiring several video game publishers and studios over the years. Xbox’s accountability margins amount to only a 3% profit, a small return on investment for its parent company. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiYNNGR4uLo Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that Xbox will have to start pulling its weight under Sharma's leadership, and the Xbox CEO previously told employees that the Xbox business was not in a healthy state. Nadella has also praised Sharma's cuts at Xbox, saying they have led to a "streamlining" of the division. If Sharma is setting Xbox up to generate more profit for Microsoft, then it's all part of a years-long strategy in the making. Halo is now an Activision project, and is likely several years away as the publisher is currently building a new team to develop the next Master Chief adventure. Meanwhile, two of Blizzard's biggest upcoming games will arrive at the end of this decade: Diablo 5 is aiming for a 2029 launch, while StarCraft is set for 2030. At the same time, Xbox has also tasked several of its studios with working on its Fallout franchise, with multiple new games in the series in various stages of development. "We've got a long way to go with Microsoft," Sharma said to the NYT. "And we’re going to take the long-term view." The Best Xbox Series X Games In 2026 View Images