New Xbox CEO is under fire for her brief gaming history

Late last week, Xbox announced that longtime CEO and face of the company, Phil Spencer, is leaving after 25 years with the team. His replacement, Asha Sharma, is the current president of Microsoft CoreAI.

The announcement immediately drew scrutiny as fans queried what that would mean for the platform as a whole, with the concerning use of AI becoming more commonplace, but Sharma has also come under fire for her seemingly brief gaming history.

In a conversation on X with a skeptical Xbox player, Sharma revealed her gamertag. Players immediately clocked that the first achievement on the profile she shared is only from Jan. 15, 2026 — around five weeks ago.

To her credit, she’s spent the last month or so playing some excellent games. Halo: The Master Chief Collection was up first (she couldn’t take the role without being at least somewhat familiar with Xbox’s lead mascot, right?), alongside Forza Horizon 5, Minecraft, and Fallout 76. She also appears to enjoy critically acclaimed shorter indie games, as she’s 100% completed Firewatch, she’s only one achievement away in What Remains of Edith Finch, and she’s just missing three from A Short Hike.

Interestingly, last year’s underrated roguelike hit, Ball X Pit, appears to be her favorite. She’s only missing one achievement, despite having played just 42 hours over the span of eight days. It seems like Sharma was afforded a considerable amount of time between jobs to get some research done.

Sharma’s rapid immersion in Xbox gaming has led some to question whether she’s playing the games herself. Far too many women in games have had to endure this kind of gatekeeping for us not to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she just wasn’t an Xbox gamer previously, and maybe she just got hooked on Ball X Pit (and who could blame her).

It’s an open question whether Sharma needs to be a gaming expert to lead operations at Xbox, but living up to Phil Spencer — a man who bled green and has a gamerscore of over 120,000 — was always going to be a difficult task.

Skepticism about Sharma among Xbox fans is so intense that some are speculating that her posts on X are AI-generated. And then there’s the rumor that Spencer’s retirement was more of a firing in disguise: “I’ve been passed something that reiterates to me that this was not planned,” Greg Miller said on the Kinda Funny Games podcast. This won’t help her legitimacy in the eyes of Xbox fans.

Establishing trust with gamers will be an uphill battle for Sharma, and her tough start in the new job isn’t helped by the fact that Xbox’s recent track record has been dubious at best. Fable and Forza Horizon 6 are two highly anticipated Xbox games due this year, but the green side of the console war hasn’t had much to write home about recently.

There’s no reason to believe Sharma’s desire to connect with Xbox players on X this past weekend wasn’t genuine, even if she betrayed some inexperience with the Xbox culture. But the community does not appear to be ready to give her the benefit of the doubt. Only time will tell if she is up to the task of running Xbox.

Update (Feb. 25): In response to Ryan McCaffrey, senior executive editor at IGN, weighing in on Sharma’s social media posting on X, she gave some clarity on why her Xbox playing history is so brief:

“I created it recently to learn and understand this world. I’ve played with my family, and it’s a shared home account across devices (which you can see in the range of games/achievements). Fixed that this weekend and everyone is only playing on their own GTs [gamertags].”

She also claims she’s writing her own posts, as McCaffrey said he doesn’t think AI is helping out, but he does believe she’s getting help from “an experienced gamer on the Xbox team” to help her sound more like a “real gamer.”

“I don’t pretend to be the best gamer and even though I’m playing, that’s still not my goal,” Sharma also explained. “My focus is to make Xbox the best place to play, return to our roots, ship great things, and become stronger for the future.”