We had one of those weeks where decades happen recently: not only did we get hit by Sony's closure of Bluepoint, but the next day clocked us with the retirement of Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, who's dipping out of the company after almost 40 years. Xbox president Sarah Bond, who was expected to take the reins off of Spencer someday, also handed in her resignation.
Stepping into Spencer's still-warm boots is Asha Sharma. Sharma joined Microsoft in 2024 and, before transitioning to gaming overlord, headed up its CoreAI division, the part of the megacorp whose job is to build its "end-to-end Copilot & AI stack." Gulp.
But in a chat with Windows Central, Sharma and Xbox's now-CCO Matt Booty took pains to soothe our AI-nxieties. "I think that with any new technology, it brings possibilities as a tool, but even more important, especially now—we need to draw lines on what we won't do," said Sharma.
What won't they do? "I will not flood our ecosystem with slop. We won't have careless output, we won't have derivative work," said Sharma, echoing her own opening message when she was first announced as Microsoft Gaming's new boss. "I deeply believe in the words that I shared previously there."
Booty, for his part, says that "We've got no pressure from Microsoft, there are no directives on AI coming down." Though he also says that, "Just as a group, game developers are always eager to adopt new technology. When Photoshop showed up, it took about one month for it to appear in every game studio on the planet because it was so useful," and that "our teams are free to use any technologies that might be beneficial—whether it's helping write code or check for bugs."
Which, hm. Let me be clear that this is just me speculating through a thick haze of cynicism, but I do wonder what would register to Booty and other MS execs as genuine "pressure" to use AI.
Maybe there are no direct mandates, sure, but if the guys signing devs' paycheques keep talking about how magical and useful this new wundertech is, and pointedly reminding them how free they are to make use of it, would Booty call that pressure? Would Satya Nadella, the Microsoft suzerain who has become a sort of ecstatic prophet of our AI future?
Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, Booty's adamant that humans still rule the creative process at Xbox's studios. "At the end of the day as Asha said, we're committed to art made by people. Technology is only in support of that." Well, I hope that's correct.
