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"Her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night" - original Xbox co-creator thinks Microsoft's reshuffle is all about AI

Seamus Blackley, one of the co-creators of the original Xbox, has interpreted Microsoft's recent Xbox leadership shuffle as a sign the business is being "sunsetted". The appointment of Asha Sharma, he thinks, is "as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night".

"Her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night" - original Xbox co-creator thinks Microsoft's reshuffle is all about AI

"Why would you put somebody in charge of a record label who didn't like records?"

[A red-hued Xbox logo.]

Image credit: Adobe Stock / HTGanzo

[Robert Purchese avatar]

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by Robert Purchese
Associate Editor

Published on Feb. 24, 2026

68 comments

Blackley, speaking to GamesBeat, said what we're witnessing is Microsoft reorganising everything around Copilot - around gen-AI. "Satya Nadella [Microsoft CEO] has made an incredible number of bets and invested an incredible amount of money and credibility in the transform model AI future," Blackley said. "Xbox, like a lot of businesses that aren't the core AI business, is being sunsetted. They don't say that, but that's what's happening. I expect that the new CEO, Asha Sharma, her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night."

Blackley left Microsoft in 2002, so he hasn't worked at the company for a long time, but he's sceptical about Microsoft appointing someone with no apparent love of gaming to lead the Gaming division, and questions the ulterior motives of promoting someone from the company's AI division. "Imagine asking somebody if it made sense to put a major motion picture studio into the hands of somebody who didn't like movies, or a major record label into the hands of somebody who'd never seen a live show," he said. "Why would you do that?

"The job of all these people is to just gently usher all of these business units into the new world of AI," he added. "That's what you're seeing here. Whether or not you agree with it, whether you agree with AI having the potential to do that, whether AI will be successful, is a separate matter. But that's what we're seeing. That is in no way surprising. It would have been shocking if they had somebody in there in a meaningful role who was passionate about games, passionate about the creator-driven business of games, because it would be in direct conflict with everything else Microsoft is doing."

"The job of all these people is to just gently usher all of these business units into the new world of AI"

Blackley believes Microsoft boss Satya Nadella sees everything as a gen-AI problem now, which is why he's put a former gen-AI person in charge of Xbox. He says Sharma will be trained on gaming, a bit like a large language model, until she can "bring gen-AI into a position to revolutionise games".

"I think younger me would be screaming about this and saying, 'What the hell? Why would you put somebody in charge of a record label who didn't like records?' Looking at it now from my perspective, I probably still feel that way. I do still feel that way, as I've been saying.

"But at the same time, I understand exactly why it is," Blackley added. "I know that, again, Satya is holding a hammer and everything is a nail. There's a nail with an Xbox logo on it. He's applying the AI person to it. He has to show shareholders and the press and the world that he is all-in on this investment. He has to show them that he believes generative AI is going to fix games and make it profitable. He has to make this move. It doesn't matter what you think about it. I don't think he had any choice."

Whether or not Sharma will convince game-playing people depends on whether she can muster a passion for games, Blackley believes, because one thing he's seen consistently is people coming from outside of gaming and underestimating how difficult making games will be. If she can't muster that genuine enthusiasm then his advice would be to "find a way to leave this job soon". "You shouldn't do it because it's harder than you think," he said.

Asha Sharma was appointed CEO of Microsoft Gaming during a chaotic weekend, during which Phil Spencer retired from Microsoft after 38 years and Xbox president Sarah Bond suddenly also departed. Scrutiny remains around Sharma's appointment, but a contrary insider take is that Microsoft is actually pressing reset on Xbox with a genuine desire to turn the division's fortunes around, though it's an argument that will take some convincing to swallow.

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