Xbox boss Phil Spencer has retired, Xbox COO and president Sarah Bond has left the company and there’s a new boss at Microsoft Gaming: Asha Sharma.
Sharma assumes control of the entire Microsoft gaming empire, which includes a multitude of mobile games from King, Activision, Bethesda, Blizzard and more. She moves over from her role as president of Microsoft’s CoreAI product and becomes the division’s new CEO.
Sharma has also previously served as COO at delivery firm Instacart and VP of engineering at Meta, where she worked on Messenger and Instagram.
In her most recent role at Microsoft’s CoreAI arm she led AI teams working on models, apps, agents and developer tools.
And that mention of AI and Microsoft Gaming may remind you of last summer’s King layoffs, which were, according to our sources, made partly due to the rise of AI tools. Some King staffers we spoke to claimed that they were effectively replaced by the AI tools they helped build.
Microsoft and Xbox veteran Matt Booty also has a new role as EVP and chief creative officer, reporting to Sharma.
In a blog post confirming the news, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella thanked Spencer for his 38-year run at Microsoft, 12 of which saw him lead its gaming arm. During that time Spencer helped triple the size of the business and he oversaw the acquisitions of Minecraft, ZeniMax and Activision Blizzard, which of course includes King.
In an introductory message, new Microsoft Gaming boss Asha Sharma said her priorities would be “great games”, the “return of Xbox” and perhaps most pertinently addressed AI in a section about the “future of play”.
She said: “As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop. Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us.”
“The next 25 years belong to the teams who dare to build something surprising, something no one else is willing to try, and have the patience to see it through. We have done this before, and I am here to help us do it again. I want to return to the renegade spirit that built Xbox in the first place. It will require us to relentlessly question everything, revisit processes, protect what works, and be brave enough to change what does not.”
Sharma assumes control of a Microsoft Gaming empire that’s seen its console business decline and PC remain relatively steady while its mobile division has plateaued.
Activision launched a mobile edition of Call of Duty Warzone in March 2024, but by September of that year the Warzone Mobile team – as well as Blizzard staff running Warcraft Rumble – were hit with redundancies. May 2024 saw the closure of Mighty Doom studio Alpha Dog Games.
Activision confirmed it was closing Call Of Duty: Warzone Mobile in May 2025, and in July 2025 Blizzard announced it had stopped creating new content for Warcraft Rumble as it cut ~100 staff on the game.
King, meanwhile, launched its first major new game for six years in February 2025, Candy Crush Solitaire. It has so far not had the same impact as the other Candy Crush games.
In May of 2025, longtime King leader Tjodolf Sommestad stepped away from the company after nearly 14 years at the firm, having serving as president for the last three years. He was replaced as King president by former Candy Crush GM Todd Green.
Then, last summer, reports emerged that King would be laying off around 200 staff as part of a major reorganisation. We were later told that some staff feel they were effectively replaced by the AI tools they helped build, while others told us about layoff lawsuits, toxic leaders, toothless ethics teams, low morale and mandatory AI use at the Candy Crush maker.
