{"id":1790248,"date":"2026-02-24T14:41:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1790248"},"modified":"2026-02-24T14:41:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:41:24","slug":"her-job-is-going-to-be-as-a-palliative-care-doctor-who-slides-xbox-gently-into-the-night-original-xbox-co-creator-thinks-microsofts-reshuffle-is-all-about-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1790248","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night&#8221; &#8211; original Xbox co-creator thinks Microsoft&#8217;s reshuffle is all about AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">&#8220;Her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night&#8221; &#8211; original Xbox co-creator thinks Microsoft&#8217;s reshuffle is all about AI<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">&#8220;Why would you put somebody in charge of a record label who didn&#8217;t like records?&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/xbox-sunsetted.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"A red-hued Xbox logo.\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"xbox-sunsetted.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Adobe Stock \/ HTGanzo<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Robert Purchese avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"user-9946-originalxoriginal-14-03-23.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1017\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/robert-purchese\">Robert Purchese<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Associate Editor<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\nPublished on <time datetime=\"2026-02-24T14:41:24+00:00\">Feb. 24, 2026<\/time>              <\/div>\n<div class=\"comments\">\n      <a class=\"comments__link comments-bubble\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/seamus-blackley-microsoft-reshuffle-all-about-ai?view=comments\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n          40 comments<br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>Seamus Blackley, one of the co-creators of the original Xbox, has interpreted Microsoft&#8217;s recent Xbox leadership shuffle as a sign the business is being &#8220;sunsetted&#8221;. The appointment of Asha Sharma, he thinks, is &#8220;as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Blackley, <a href=\"https:\/\/gamesbeat.com\/what-an-xbox-founder-thinks-of-the-new-xbox-ceo-seamus-blackley-interview\/\">speaking to GamesBeat<\/a>, said what we&#8217;re witnessing is Microsoft reorganising everything around Copilot &#8211; around gen-AI. &#8220;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,&#8221; Blackley said. &#8220;Xbox, like a lot of businesses that aren&#8217;t the core AI business, is being sunsetted. They don&#8217;t say that, but that&#8217;s what&#8217;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/article-45824\">Blackley left Microsoft in 2002<\/a>, so he hasn&#8217;t worked at the company for a long time, but he&#8217;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&#8217;s AI division. &#8220;Imagine asking somebody if it made sense to put a major motion picture studio into the hands of somebody who didn&#8217;t like movies, or a major record label into the hands of somebody who&#8217;d never seen a live show,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Why would you do that?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The job of all these people is to just gently usher all of these business units into the new world of AI,&#8221; he added. &#8220;That&#8217;s what you&#8217;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&#8217;s what we&#8217;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote right\"><p><em>&#8220;The job of all these people is to just gently usher all of these business units into the new world of AI&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Blackley believes Microsoft boss Satya Nadella sees everything as a gen-AI problem now, which is why he&#8217;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 &#8220;bring gen-AI into a position to revolutionise games&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think younger me would be screaming about this and saying, &#8216;What the hell? Why would you put somebody in charge of a record label who didn&#8217;t like records?&#8217; Looking at it now from my perspective, I probably still feel that way. I do still feel that way, as I&#8217;ve been saying.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But at the same time, I understand exactly why it is,&#8221; Blackley added. &#8220;I know that, again, Satya is holding a hammer and everything is a nail. There&#8217;s a nail with an Xbox logo on it. He&#8217;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&#8217;t matter what you think about it. I don&#8217;t think he had any choice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s seen consistently is people coming from outside of gaming and underestimating how difficult making games will be. If she can&#8217;t muster that genuine enthusiasm then his advice would be to &#8220;find a way to leave this job soon&#8221;. &#8220;You shouldn&#8217;t do it because it&#8217;s harder than you think,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Asha Sharma was appointed CEO of Microsoft Gaming during a chaotic weekend, during which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/personas\/phil-spencer\">Phil Spencer<\/a> retired from Microsoft after 38 years and Xbox president Sarah Bond suddenly also departed. Scrutiny remains around Sharma&#8217;s appointment, but a contrary insider take is that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/xbox-insider-report-paints-different-picture-of-spencer-retirement-and-bond-departure\">Microsoft is actually pressing reset on Xbox with a genuine desire to turn the division&#8217;s fortunes around<\/a>, though it&#8217;s an argument that will take some convincing to swallow.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"preferred-source\" data-component=\"preferred-source\">\nLove Eurogamer.net? Make us a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\">Preferred Source on Google<\/a> and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.  <\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>Seamus Blackley, one of the co-creators of the original Xbox, has interpreted Microsoft&#8217;s recent Xbox leadership shuffle as a sign the business is being &#8220;sunsetted&#8221;. The appointment of Asha Sharma, he thinks, is &#8220;as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Blackley, <a href=\"https:\/\/gamesbeat.com\/what-an-xbox-founder-thinks-of-the-new-xbox-ceo-seamus-blackley-interview\/\">speaking to GamesBeat<\/a>, said what we&#8217;re witnessing is Microsoft reorganising everything around Copilot &#8211; around gen-AI. &#8220;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,&#8221; Blackley said. &#8220;Xbox, like a lot of businesses that aren&#8217;t the core AI business, is being sunsetted. They don&#8217;t say that, but that&#8217;s what&#8217;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/article-45824\">Blackley left Microsoft in 2002<\/a>, so he hasn&#8217;t worked at the company for a long time, but he&#8217;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&#8217;s AI division. &#8220;Imagine asking somebody if it made sense to put a major motion picture studio into the hands of somebody who didn&#8217;t like movies, or a major record label into the hands of somebody who&#8217;d never seen a live show,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Why would you do that?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The job of all these people is to just gently usher all of these business units into the new world of AI,&#8221; he added. &#8220;That&#8217;s what you&#8217;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&#8217;s what we&#8217;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote right\"><p><em>&#8220;The job of all these people is to just gently usher all of these business units into the new world of AI&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Blackley believes Microsoft boss Satya Nadella sees everything as a gen-AI problem now, which is why he&#8217;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 &#8220;bring gen-AI into a position to revolutionise games&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think younger me would be screaming about this and saying, &#8216;What the hell? Why would you put somebody in charge of a record label who didn&#8217;t like records?&#8217; Looking at it now from my perspective, I probably still feel that way. I do still feel that way, as I&#8217;ve been saying.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But at the same time, I understand exactly why it is,&#8221; Blackley added. &#8220;I know that, again, Satya is holding a hammer and everything is a nail. There&#8217;s a nail with an Xbox logo on it. He&#8217;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&#8217;t matter what you think about it. I don&#8217;t think he had any choice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s seen consistently is people coming from outside of gaming and underestimating how difficult making games will be. If she can&#8217;t muster that genuine enthusiasm then his advice would be to &#8220;find a way to leave this job soon&#8221;. &#8220;You shouldn&#8217;t do it because it&#8217;s harder than you think,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Asha Sharma was appointed CEO of Microsoft Gaming during a chaotic weekend, during which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/personas\/phil-spencer\">Phil Spencer<\/a> retired from Microsoft after 38 years and Xbox president Sarah Bond suddenly also departed. Scrutiny remains around Sharma&#8217;s appointment, but a contrary insider take is that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/xbox-insider-report-paints-different-picture-of-spencer-retirement-and-bond-departure\">Microsoft is actually pressing reset on Xbox with a genuine desire to turn the division&#8217;s fortunes around<\/a>, though it&#8217;s an argument that will take some convincing to swallow.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"poll_wrapper\" data-fixed=\"true\" data-hashid data-init=\"false\" data-poll-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News &#8220;Her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night&#8221; &#8211; original Xbox co-creator thinks Microsoft&#8217;s reshuffle is all about AI &#8220;Why would you put somebody in charge of a record label who didn&#8217;t like records?&#8221; Image credit: Adobe Stock \/ HTGanzo News by Robert [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-1790248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1790248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1790248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1790248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1790248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}