New Microsoft Gaming CEO Has 'No Tolerance For Bad AI' (variety.com) 58
In her first major interview as Microsoft's new gaming chief, Asha Sharma said that "great games" must deliver emotional resonance and a distinct creative voice, while making clear that she has "no tolerance for bad AI." Stepping in after Phil Spencer's retirement, she's pledging consistency, community trust, and a human-first approach to storytelling as Xbox enters a new era. Variety reports: Sharma was quick in laying out her top priorities for Microsoft Gaming in an internal memo announcing her promotion, noting "great games," "the return of Xbox" and the "future of play" as her three main commitments to the gaming community. So first, what makes a great game for Sharma, whose roles prior to CoreAI include top positions at Instacart and Meta? The new Microsoft Gaming CEO tells Variety it's all about games with "deep emotional resonance" and "a distinct point of view." She wants to develop stories that make players "feel something," like the kind of feelings Campo Santo's 2016 first-person mystery "Firewatch" elicited in her.
Sharma takes on the mantle as head of the leading competitor to Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo knowing full well she's entering the role as an outsider to the larger gaming community and has "a lot to learn" still. But Sharma says she's got a commitment to "being grounded in what the community is telling us." "I'm coming into gaming as a platform builder," Sharma said, adding that her goal is to "earn the right to be trusted by players and developers" and show the fanbase that "consistency" over time. In her interview with Variety, Sharma acknowledged the tumultuous state of the gaming industry, referencing Matthew Ball's recent State of Video Gaming in 2026 report as evidence that the larger "transformation" of the sector is "protecting what we believe in while remaining open-minded about the future."
Due to her strong background in AI, initial reactions to Sharma's appointment have raised concerns about what her specific views are on the use of generative AI in game development. Sharma says her stance is simple: she has "no tolerance for bad AI." "AI has long been part of gaming and will continue to be," Sharma said, noting that gaming needs new "growth engines," but that "great stories are created by humans."
Sharma takes on the mantle as head of the leading competitor to Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo knowing full well she's entering the role as an outsider to the larger gaming community and has "a lot to learn" still. But Sharma says she's got a commitment to "being grounded in what the community is telling us." "I'm coming into gaming as a platform builder," Sharma said, adding that her goal is to "earn the right to be trusted by players and developers" and show the fanbase that "consistency" over time. In her interview with Variety, Sharma acknowledged the tumultuous state of the gaming industry, referencing Matthew Ball's recent State of Video Gaming in 2026 report as evidence that the larger "transformation" of the sector is "protecting what we believe in while remaining open-minded about the future."
Due to her strong background in AI, initial reactions to Sharma's appointment have raised concerns about what her specific views are on the use of generative AI in game development. Sharma says her stance is simple: she has "no tolerance for bad AI." "AI has long been part of gaming and will continue to be," Sharma said, noting that gaming needs new "growth engines," but that "great stories are created by humans."
Has this woman (Score:1)
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I doubt she's even looked at a video game. She's an attractive 37yo woman with an MBA
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Yo mama (Score:1)
Oh christ if you're going to be racist and obsessed with people at least know *something* about them
Re:Has this woman (Score:4, Funny)
Have you ever read a summary in your life? Sounds like she's at least played Firewatch.
I think it's fine to criticize her lack of industry experience, but yes, it does sound like she's played at least one game in her life.
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Firewatch isn't a game, it's a movie you watch while holding a controller.
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Re:Has this woman (Score:4, Insightful)
Online competitive games (MOBA, FPS, strategy) tend to have very little story or "emotion", but most successful single player games do. All RPGs are built on emotional resonance (think of GOTY Clair Obscur). Even modern action / adventure games tend to have a gripping story (the Last of Us? shit even the first Assassin's Creed had that resonance).
Sure, the early generation of games (Space Invaders! Pacman!) had no story, but for the last 20 years at least emotional resonance and good storylines are what make games stand out. So let's give this Asha person a break. I know nothing about her, but I don't really care either, because she's not the scenarist or the creative director of the games that will come out, she's the business boss. If her only relevant comment was "I liked Firewatch, and I think games should have an emotional story", I don't understand the instinctive backlash.
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If a game wants to make me feel something, I probably don't want to play it unless that thing is "fun". And there is a direct connection to sex, in that women seek shared emotional experiences, and men
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Ahh yes. It must have been the girls that drove The Witcher series to fame. Guys don't like stories.
Must be the girls paying for the whole Final Fantasy series too. Including the spinoffs. Guys don't like stories.
Same with the huge lineup of Dragon Quest games. Guys don't like stories.
Must have been all those explosions that drew millions and millions of guys to World of Warcraft too. They wouldn't be there for the story... oh wait, there were multiple expansions with such shit story lines that people aban
Re: Has this woman (Score:2)
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That's not what she said either.
"Emotional resonance" != "a plot/story". I didn't play DA:O for "emotional resonance", I played it because it was a great game with a great plot and innovative mechanics. I didn't play any of The Witcher games for "emotional resonance", I played them because they were really cool and fun. I don't know anything about the "Tales of" games you mentioned, never heard of them. If they're character-driven narratives, I'm probably not intereste
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> guys like explosions.
Direct quote.
>I played it because it was a great game with a great plot and innovative mechanics.
> I played them because they were really cool and fun.
That doesn't sound like explosions to me.
By YOUR definition of gamers above you must either be wrong, or not a guy.
The only games that people don't care about the characters and "emotional resonance" in are things like the candy crush thing that was popular a few years ago and pure puzzle games like picross / sudoku. Everything
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> guys like explosions.
Direct quote.
>I played it because it was a great game with a great plot and innovative mechanics.
> I played them because they were really cool and fun.
That doesn't sound like explosions to me.
By YOUR definition of gamers above you must either be wrong, or not a guy.
I was being flippant, or perhaps facetious. Was that not clear?
Are you suggesting that what motivated Super Mario players was an emotional need to rescue some pixels? I don't recall that being the case. What I remember is a motivation to win, with a lot of sub goals like finding the fastest route to the end, getting the most explosions at the end of a stage, getting the most extra lives, etc. Also, the time by friend Stephen tricked his little sister into jumping down a hole after a mushroom. We thou
Re: Has this woman (Score:2)
https://youtube.com/shorts/N2N... [youtube.com]
Means Nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes. Essentially, a "AI that is bad is bad AI!" null-statement.
So not using Copilot then? (Score:2)
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Bro, seriously? Hear her definition?? It's a weasel phrase dude. There is no definition, it's arbitrary. It's like every car manufacturer can claim they sell the "best" car, except in inverse.
Answer to the number 1 question (Score:2, Insightful)
is no, she is NOT a gamer. However, Microsoft has embraced the idea of her learning to play a few games https://www.windowscentral.com... [windowscentral.com]
Doesn't seem like a DEI hire either, more like WTF is Microsoft thinking?
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Perhaps they want to turn the XBox into the definitive platform for AI enhanced grocery ordering?
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well they did once (before the Phil era) spend the first hour of an XBox console release presentation talking about how it was a really cool box to receive cable TV on...
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well they did once (before the Phil era) spend the first hour of an XBox console release presentation talking about how it was a really cool box to receive cable TV on...
...Depressingly, the idea didn't quite stick the landing...but Windows Media Center was probably the best DVR software ever released for general consumer use, and using an Xbox360 as an extender was a great idea, too. Seriously, I ran this until right around 2021, and it's sad that MS didn't quite manage to work out how to sell this to consumers properly. In an amusing irony, I think cable TV itself would have lasted a bit longer if they did., because two of the things people hated about cable were the slow
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The industry dilly-dallied on cablecard with the intent of killing it until it became irrelevant. It was barely possible to get working and the pricing was abusive.
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I'm sorry but
"didn't stick the landing"?
That's... generous to say the least. I don't support that interpretation.
I predict that Microsoft, without someone to hold back their executive culture, are again going to openly represent consumers in a self-congratulating way that presumes all forms of consumer entertainment are shallowly comparable.
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I'm sorry but
"didn't stick the landing"?
That's... generous to say the least. I don't support that interpretation.
I'm interested to hear why, in greater detail. The software part seemed pretty damn polished to me - easy UI, extensible via plugins, can't remember it crashing even once in ten years, seamlessly added support for digital cable and OTA sources, guide data was seamless and accurate, extenders worked well, unavoidable DRM was seamless...at a software level, I'm hard pressed to find a place where WMC fell short for its intended scope.
To me, the real issue was that Microsoft didn't have a flagship DVR that look
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Perhaps compare the sales figures to its competitor (the PS4) and consider how they could have been like that if Microsoft's offer was comparably appealing to the audiences they were pursuing.
Further, the XBox One was released at a base price of $499. The TiVo Roamio was released 4 months earlier at $199.
It's weird that you're bringing up WMC when the XBox One was explicitly not on the Media Center Extender list, of their first party consoles only its predecessor the Xbox 360 was.
I do not think 'the cable c
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DEI? Have you ever worked at a tech company? SMFH.
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The Xbox has gotten absolutely *destroyed* this generation. Sony has outsold them solidly 2:1, but it's worse than that. Basically they did alright when both were unavailable for a solid year in covid, but once PS5s were easy to buy, Xbox sales really fell off a cliff, it's a disaster.
Combine that with Windows gaming suddenly being under serious threat from Valve, Microsoft gaming is truly a nightmare right now. It's worst case scenarios on all sides.
I would not be all that shocked if they aren't seriously
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Very good, let's start upstairs! (Score:2)
Since Bing's AI _just_ happened to answer me for a simple search by inventing the "Ukrainian Olympics 2026", I suggest her first step should be to walk into her boss's office and let him know his "AI" is just shit, and he should simply get rid of it and shut up about it until it's at least worth wiping one's arse with.
Gamers have no tolerance (Score:3)
Gamers have no tolerance for empty headlines, empty corpos, empty heads and horrible games full of badly done intentionally divisive activism and devoid of gaming, entertainment and fun.
Translation (Score:2)
Can she point us to the "Good AI" then? (Score:2)
No, she cannot. Unless she is talking about something different than Generative AI. There is no ethical use case for Generative AI.
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And where's the line between "Generative AI" and "Procedural Generation"?
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Generative AI is based on massive content theft and resource hoarding. Until these are addressed, no Generative AI usage is ethical.
Procedural generation has none of these problems as far as I know, and is thus completely OK, as are many other forms of AI.
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In other words, "All generative AI is bad because some of it may have been trained on unlicensed material", is not a reasonable claim. You're begging a lot of questions.
Show that at least the overwhelming majority of training was on unlicensed material, then meaningfully resolve the question as to whe
DEI hire has no idea about gaming, AI maybe... (Score:2)
How about (Score:2)
...making NPCs smarter than their current room-temperature IQ, so that you can have actual conversations with them and don't have to find out what keyword you have to use to actually get the information you seek?
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...making NPCs smarter than their current room-temperature IQ, so that you can have actual conversations with them and don't have to find out what keyword you have to use to actually get the information you seek?
Well, I've heard that before...and perhaps there are some games where open-ended NPCs with CoPilot running the conversation in the background could be interesting, but for narrative-driven games, the NPCs will still need to be on-the-rails to a degree, in order to ensure that the player's interaction with the NPC fits the narrative. Conversely, I, as a player, don't want to have to type out all my dialogue to NPCs; I can go to Discord or IRC for that, so multiple-choice makes a whole lot more sense for expe
Elder Scrolls VI (Score:2)
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What about woke trash games? (Score:2)
No tolerance for those either? Yeah? Nice, good stuff. Keep going.
If not, good luck!
good thing she's against bad AI (Score:1)
Well, er: yeah she hires clerks, not AI?
https://insider-gaming.com/xbo... [insider-gaming.com]
"....created her Xbox account just one month ago, and since then, has racked up more than 10,000 Gamerscore across a variety of games.
The problem is, the pseudo-detectives analysing Sharmaâ(TM)s profile have uncovered some strange behaviour, such as hitting 100% in Firewatch and Ball x Pit, the latter of which she played 43 hours in a single week. She has also unlocked rare achievements in Minecraft and has bounced between âr