Asha Sharma has lofty goals for the future of Xbox.
On the same day that she announced the company would be letting go of 3,200 people, or roughly 20% of the Xbox division, through fiscal year 2027, the Xbox CEO revealed a goal she has for the brand moving forward.
Sharma Wants 1/8 of the global population on Xbox per day
In her memo to employees on Monday, Sharma spoke about the Xbox business being in an unhealthy state. She says that the company is “operating at margins that are 3–10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses.” She also spoke of platforms like Minecraft being an underinvested-in franchise.
But despite all the rough changes that are taking place right now, Sharma is keeping large goals for the company moving forward.
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Towards the end of her memo, Sharma said that the changes being made now are “about a bigger future for Xbox, not a smaller one.”
“The next decade of gaming will be larger, more global, and more creative than anything we’ve seen before,” she said. “This year, we’ll invest as much in XBOX as we ever have, but we’ll invest with greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity, all in service of making XBOX where the world plays and creates.”
She then followed it up with her hopes for the future.
“I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect,” Sharma wrote.
By using the word “entertains”, it keeps things quite vague. How exactly do they count people being entertained by Xbox? Is it players of their games; TV shows or movies based on Xbox IP; or people simply watching streams of Xbox games on platforms like Twitch and YouTube? That part is left extremely open-ended, but for a company that has about 1 billion users per year according to the latest estimates, a belief that they can turn that into a “per day” number feels a bit pie-in-the-sky.
Do you think Xbox can hit Asha Sharma’s goals of one billion people per day being “entertained” by the company? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, or join the discussion in the official Insider Gaming Discord.
In other news, read about State of Decay 3’s future and whether it’ll still release on Xbox Game Pass. And for even more Insider Gaming delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter.
Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of…
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Buy Take2 interactive and use AI to cut costs and reduce development time. Also bring back Vicarious Visions have them handle all old Xbox and Activision IP for remakes also let them remake Spyro and THPS 3+4 again then the other massive load Banjo, Kameo, THUG, Tenchu, True Crime, Protoype, Blinx, Conker, Jet Force Gemini, Simpsons Hit & Run cel shaded, Fuzion Frenzy, Magatama, Phantom Dust, and others.