Phil Spencer has been at Xbox since 1988. In March 2014, he became head of Xbox. Under his leadership Xbox One stopped the requirement to use Kinect, Play Anywhere, where you buy a game on Xbox and it’s available on PC, he oversaw numerous acquisitions of publishers and developers, and much more. On Friday, after 38 years at the company, Phil Spencer retired. Last year there was a rumor that Spencer would be retiring after the launch of their next generation Xbox is released. The rumor stated that Spencer was preparing Sarah Bond, the President of Xbox as his replacement. Microsoft released a statement that he would not be retiring anytime soon.
As of Friday, Phil Spencer has retired. Sarah Bond will not be replacing him and instead has left as well. Asha Sharma, formerly of Microsoft’s CoreAI products division, is the new CEO of Xbox. We probably won’t know what changes she will be making to Xbox for a few months at least, but as of right now, she has promised three things: great games, return of Xbox, and the future of play.
Sharma’s promotion marks a new era for Xbox. It’s a fitting time as well, with 2026 being Xbox’s 25th anniversary. We already know that the 25th anniversary will see a remake of the original Halo. In June Xbox usually has a press conference that shows off new games and other things. It’s where Xbox announced their backward compatibility program, the Asus Rog X, as well as hundreds of games over the years. It’s possible that the next Xbox will be shown this year, though when the Xbox Series X was announced, it was at the Game Awards. With the next Xbox rumored to be released in 2027, June might be a little early for it to be shown. June shouldn’t be too early to see even an inkling of how Xbox is going to change under the new CEO.
I am excited about this next chapter. Phil Spencer came on board and changed the game so to speak. Xbox went from a console to an ecosystem that includes Game Pass and apps. Some people hate this and want it to go back to just being a console. It’s clear that up until this point, that wasn’t going to happen. Now though, with a new CEO? Personally I doubt it, but it is possible that with the new leadership some things revert to how they once were.
What do you think, are you excited for the change in leadership? Do you think this will change anything significantly?
