In an extraordinarily turbulent time for the games industry as a whole, Xbox stands out as particularly volatile amid its big reset that’ll see 3,200 people lose their jobs by the end of the current fiscal year. Meanwhile, entire studios have been shut down and their games canceled, while other teams under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella have been gutted and reduced to skeleton crews, as is reportedly the case with Halo Studios. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently said the “streamlining” of Xbox is “great to see,” fueling existing rumors of a potential divestiture from Microsoft. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, however, insists there are no such plans.
“Xbox is not for sale,” Sharma tells The New York Times. “We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model and everything needed to achieve that.”
Back in June, The Information reported that Microsoft had been considering spinning out Xbox or packaging it for sale by restructuring the company as a wholly owned subsidiary. Xbox has been navigating sluggish hardware sales for years, and a pivot to multiplatform anchored by Xbox Game Pass failed to materialize. Sharma announced what she has called “the most significant restructure in Xbox history” in July of this year, when 1,600 workers lost their jobs. Another 250-or-so employees were let go in September amid cuts to Gears of War studio The Coalition and Age of Empires developer World’s Edge.
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All of this change, Sharma says, will one day result in a sustainable and profitable Xbox, even if it takes years. “We’ve got a long way to go with Microsoft,” says Sharma, “and we’re going to take the long-term view.”
