What’s Going On At Xbox Gaming?
With the departure/retirement of the long-serving Phil Spencer from Xbox, it was long assumed that Sarah Bond, president of Xbox gaming, would take over, but she has also left the company. Read the Microsoft announcement here.
Both individuals together have decades of gaming experience, but to everyone’s surprise, Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, has appointed Asha Sharma as the new chief. This has caused a great deal of keyboard clatter in the gaming community, not least because Ms. Sharma has zero gaming experience, was previously head of Microsoft’s CoreAI, and her background couldn’t be further away from gaming. In fact, her resume includes VP at Meta (Facebook), Instacart, Porch Group, and is on the board of The Home Depot and Coupang, none of which have any gaming connections whatsoever.
Is It The End For Xbox?
This leaves the future of the next Xbox console in serious doubt, and many armchair punters are speculating, nay, insisting that it’s the end of Xbox as we know it. Further, the appointment of an AI insider pushes the ‘AI slop’ argument even further, with many speculating that further jobs will be lost to AI in game creation. One only has to look at what’s going on in Hollywood and the furore that AI has created. Movies and game creation are considered art, but the shift to AI is a real threat to human creativity.
Of course, AI has always had a part in gaming. The enemies you fight in single player are controlled by AI, and the cars (drivatars) we race against in Forza Horizon, and other racing games are designed and run by AI, otherwise there would be no battles or races. Procedural generation in games such as No Man’s Sky is AI-created, but there’s a fine line between these uses of AI and the human imagination and creativity when designing and writing games or movies.
Has The Bottom Line Now Become The Top Priority?
Many point the finger at Microsoft’s mind-boggling $70 bn acquisition of Activision as the turning point in this whole sad saga, and the figures speak for themselves. Last year, around 1.7 million Xbox consoles were sold compared to 9.2 million PlayStation 5s. One only has to look at the chaos caused by Embracer Group, which I wrote about in Be Glad You Don’t Work Under Embracer Group to realise that the bottom line has pushed creativity to one side.
My only experience with Xbox is through the absolutely dire Xbox app for PC because the few games I bought directly from Microsoft could only be played through that God-awful platform. I’ve never owned a console and probably never will, but I do take a keen interest in the world of gaming, especially if AI is set to play a significant part in game creation. Therefore, one has to wonder if this appointment is part of that grand plan.
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