The bear’s skin, all that
In an interview with GamesBeat, Seamus Blackley gave his opinion on the appointment of Asha Sharma as head of Xbox. He thinks, like many, that the fact of having appointed someone who has led an AI section and who has no other experience in the industry says a lot about Microsoft’s desireor rather on that of Satya Nadella, who has always been a fervent defender of technology.
“ Satya Nadella has taken considerable risks and invested huge sums in transforming the future of AI. Xbox, like many companies whose core business is not AI, is disappearing. They don’t say it openly, but it’s the reality. I expect new CEO Asha Sharma to play the role of palliative care doctor, accompanying Xbox to a peaceful end of life […] There is a fundamental conviction, which we find in Satya’s words: AI will absorb video games as it will absorb everything else. »
When asked if he thinks that Microsoft is preparing to make “a SEGA” by withdrawing from the console market, he answers:
“ I think the rules have changed. It is crucial to understand Microsoft and the scale of this investment. This is an unprecedented financial and strategic bet in the field of AI, a bet of historic magnitude for a company. Nothing to do with Sega which is trying to withdraw discreetly. Microsoft is trying to completely rethink our relationship with technology. To achieve this, they relied on generative AI models. They want to integrate everything into a generative AI model. […] It’s all a generative AI problem. Video games, of course, are one. This is why I find this strategy perfectly logical. If you are Satya, you have a hammer called Generative AI and every problem is a nail. So, who should be given responsibility for the games? A video game specialist? No, because in Satya’s universe, everything is a generative AI problem. We therefore entrust game management to a specialist in generative AI, equipped with a training model and intensive training to train it as we train an AI model, in order to allow generative AI to revolutionize video games. »
Remember that apart from her time at Microsoft CoreAI, Asha Sharma worked at Instacart, a company which again had nothing to do with video games (food delivery), but the new CEO obtained very good results by raising the group’s finances. Which could also be one of the reasons why she was chosen, even if, naturally, we will look more at her previous position at Microsoft which is legitimately worrying, and that is all of Seamus Blackley’s speech.
On the other hand, we will agree less with what he has to say about the passion, or lack of passion, that Asha Sharma has for video games, as there are many other CEOs of large groups who do not play and who obtain excellent results:
“ If I were talking to him, I’d say, “Look, if you’re not really passionate about video games, or you can’t develop that passion, then you should find a way to quit this job quickly.” You shouldn’t do it. Because it’s harder than you think. You are a very intelligent person who has achieved a lot in your career. You’ll think I’m wrong, but you’ll realize I’m right. History is full of extremely successful people in the gaming industry who have hit this wall. » »
Asha Sharma should further polarize opinions until her first concrete action, which is particularly expected at the turn and which will give a clue as to the way in which Xbox will evolve in the coming years.