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Amid the official statements and many tweets that followed one of the biggest shakeups ever at Xbox, one of its creators believes Microsoft’s true plan is to bring its gaming business to an end.
Seamus Blackley co-created Xbox at Microsoft, bringing to life Microsoft’s console hardware in 2001 before leaving just a year later. He has watched his former company hit the headlines as Phil Spencer and would-be successor Sarah Bond announced their exit. And in a new interview, he revealed what he believes to be new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s actual mission — which sounds like nothing good for Xbox fans.
Speaking to GamesBeat, Blackley said that Xbox is not a core part of Microsoft’s all-encompassing AI push, and so “is being sunsetted.” Drafting in Sharma, who Blackley points out came from Microsoft’s AI team with no gaming background, is further evidence of the company’s true strategy, he claimed. “They don’t say that, but that’s what’s happening,” he went on. “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.” Xbox will be “sunsetted” under new CEO, original Xbox co-founder and console designer Seamus Blackley expects:
• “Xbox, like a lot of businesses that aren’t the core AI business, is being sunsetted, They don’t say that, but that’s what’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.”
• “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.”
• “Microsoft is a company that is now about enabling its customers by enabling AI to drive things,” Blackley reiterated. “That’s at odds with the auteur model of any art, but specifically of games.”
• Blackley described Spencer as “managing the beast so that he could continue to try to do the right thing for games” until “that finally just wore him out.”
