Asha Sharma Won't Rule Out Xbox Exclusive Games as Microsoft Gaming Reclaims Its Name

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and Xbox content boss Matt Booty sat down with reporter Stephen Totilo on April 24, in one of their first extended interviews since Sharma replaced Phil Spencer roughly 60 days earlier.

The 28-minute interview, published in the Game File newsletter, came one day after Sharma and Booty sent an open letter to Microsoft's global game team outlining the division's priorities. Sharma refused to rule out a return to console-exclusive games but declined to offer a timeline. She also addressed the Game Pass price reduction announced that week, investment in current Xbox hardware, and what affordability looks like for a division selling consoles, subscriptions, and PC software simultaneously.

Will Xbox Exclusives Come Back?

The question has hung over Xbox since Sharma took the role in February. Microsoft spent $68.7 billion acquiring Activision Blizzard King in 2023 and $7.5 billion buying ZeniMax Media in 2020, then released once-exclusive titles on rival hardware — most recently Starfield on PS5. The logic was that Microsoft needed games in front of more players to justify those investments, and PlayStation held the largest installed base. Whether that calculus holds under Sharma is the biggest unresolved question on her desk.

Sharma did not answer it. She declined to commit to a timeframe and said no formal decisions had been reached.

"We'll take a data-driven approach and a strategic-driven approach, and then we'll look at our principles and we'll make some calls."

— Asha Sharma

When pressed on timing, her reply was short: "Nothing we're ready to commit to." She had been in the role for about 60 days. "I want to make the right decision, not the fastest decision."

The open letter Sharma and Booty published on April 23 stated that Xbox would "reevaluate our approach to exclusivity, windowing, and AI, and share more as we learn and decide." It was the first time exclusivity appeared in official Xbox communications since Sharma's appointment was announced in February.

The timing adds pressure. Microsoft's Xbox First Look presentation on April 16 revealed Metro 2039, the fourth installment in 4A Games' post-apocalyptic series, confirmed for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 this winter. 4A Games is a Kyiv-based studio, and the game's screenplay draws directly from the ongoing war in Ukraine — its central themes are tyranny, survival, and resistance. The next Xbox Games Showcase follows on June 7. Both events are moments at which Xbox's position on exclusivity could become clearer.

Reversing course would ask Xbox to pull players back to its hardware in significant numbers. Xbox console sales have declined for years, and Microsoft's quarterly earnings have shown consistent hardware revenue drops across that period. Sharma acknowledged the situation.

"We are wanting to see Xbox return to growth next year," she said, specifying she meant the Xbox division overall.

"There's no silver bullets, and our focus is going to be: how many players are playing every single day in the Xbox ecosystem?"

The open letter was also candid about the competitive environment. Players now have access to more games than at any previous point, production budgets for major titles keep climbing, and developers outside Xbox's traditional markets are competing with the largest Western studios by combining speed, scale, and a willingness to reinvent familiar genres. Platforms like Roblox produce experiences that rival major franchises in reach and engagement. Returning to exclusivity in that environment is not a simple reversal.

Xbox Big Plans

The interview and the open letter together describe how Xbox bosses see their future: a platform where success is measured in daily active players rather than console unit sales, with affordable entry points, open access, and a subscription model built to retain subscribers.

Sharma's first 62 days moved quickly. On day 14, Microsoft announced Project Helix, the codename for its next-generation console. On day 35, the "This is an Xbox" ad campaign — which had spent years downplaying the centrality of the Xbox console itself — was retired. On day 60, Game Pass prices dropped.

First, she said Xbox Game Pass has become too expensive, and then we saw the Game Pass price cut. Starting April 21, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate fell from $29.99 to $22.99 per month. PC Game Pass dropped from $16.49 to $13.99. The reduction came with a notable policy change: new Call of Duty titles will no longer enter Game Pass on launch day — subscribers wait a year before those games become available in the service.

Sharma described the Game Pass strategy in two stages. First, address the price. Second, rethink what the subscription offers in a market that has changed significantly since Game Pass launched.

"We've been thinking about Game Pass in two steps. One is just: let's make sure it's affordable, which we addressed. The second is: what does value look like eight years later after the advent of Game Pass and the world changing around us and the next generation coming online?"

— Asha Sharma

Shortly after the interview published, The Verge reported a leak of a "Starter Edition" Game Pass tier bundled with Discord's Nitro service — one of the explorations Sharma had referenced without naming. She had also indicated that subscriber retention matters as much as acquisition: Black Ops 6 may have driven Game Pass sign-ups when it launched in 2024, but those subscribers may not have stayed.

I think the commitment to Gen 9 stability is the part of Sharma's agenda most directly relevant to people already playing on Xbox hardware. She said a dedicated team has been formed to work on console features, performance, and reliability — areas she acknowledged had been underprioritized. More updates to current hardware are coming, though no specifics were offered. Booty, on game quality, said building consistent fundamentals — "predictable cadence, robust roadmap, aim for quality" — could "create the conditions for the lightning in a bottle of winning Game of the Year." He pointed to South of Midnight's Peabody Award win that week and the release of Double Fine's multiplayer title Kiln on the day of the interview as current examples of the output he wants to replicate.

On hardware pricing, Sharma said Xbox's approach historically "hasn't been as flexible" and that the Game Pass cut was the first step under the affordability mandate. No price commitments for future devices were made.

"I want to continue to make sure, as we build hardware, software, services, we're spending just as much time on performance and play time as we are on making sure that we can innovate to offer more affordable devices and hardware and services."

— Asha Sharma

“We're a Challenger” & Xbox Brand Identification As A New Chance For Comeback

One concrete decision in the memo required no lengthy setup: the division called Microsoft Gaming is now simply Xbox again. Sharma and Booty wrote that "Microsoft Gaming describes our structure but it does not describe our ambition." The Xbox name had carried the division for 25 years before being quietly replaced.

The letter described Xbox's current standing as that of a "challenger" — language not heard from Microsoft in gaming since the Xbox 360 era. I guess the framing is deliberate: it sets an honest internal baseline before any external results can justify confidence. Sharma described the mandate as a restoration.

"The 'Return of Xbox' really came from an ethos of: We have to restore the core. We have to restore the core fundamentals of our product and console. We have to restore the core and increase our strength on PC. We need to overhaul discovery and search, etcetera."

— Asha Sharma

The memo was direct about what has not worked. New console feature drops have arrived "less frequently." Xbox's presence on PC "isn't strong enough." Search, discovery, social, and personalization "still feel too fragmented." Those statements appear verbatim in a letter signed by Xbox's two most senior executives.

The letter listed ten principles describing how Xbox intends to operate at its best:

1. Earn every player
2. Protect our art
3. Stay rebellious
4. Progress over perfection
5. Signal over ceremony
6. Core before more
7. Outwork the problem
8. Speed is learning
9. Makers over managers
10. Clarity is kindness

"Protect our art" appeared without elaboration. Whether it refers to AI use in Xbox's own development pipelines, the unauthorized political use of Halo imagery, or something else entirely, neither Sharma nor Booty clarified.

The memo's language around an "open" platform also raised unanswered questions. The ROG Xbox Ally — an Xbox-branded device built by Asus — already places the Xbox PC marketplace alongside Valve's Steam on the same hardware. Project Helix is described in the memo as designed to "play your console and PC games." Earlier this year, Epic's Steve Allison said the Epic Games Store was expected to be available on Microsoft's next console. Sharma said she had not been part of those prior conversations and would not confirm whether that plan remained in effect.

Sharma came to Xbox from senior roles at Meta, Instacart, and a Microsoft AI team before Satya Nadella raised the possibility of the gaming job during a session in his office. She said Nadella described gaming as "a very critical audience and category to the company," with "one of the most incredible brands and portfolios in entertainment." Booty, with 16 years at Xbox, addressed where the business needs to follow its audience.

"Player habits, competition for attention, expectations about where and how they play, these are all changing. And we're putting a lot of energy across our teams into really understanding and delivering what players want."

— Matt Booty

The rebrand, the Game Pass cuts, the exclusivity review, and Project Helix all operate under a single stated north star: daily active players — a metric more familiar from mobile gaming than from traditional console businesses. Whether the first 62 days translate into growth in that number is what the June 7 Xbox Games Showcase will begin to answer.

Asha Sharma stepped in as the new Microsoft Gaming CEO this year, succeeding Phil Spencer, who has now retired.