After over 20 years at Xbox, Phil Spencer, the face of the brand for more than a decade, has announced he's retiring from the company . Sarah Bond, the president at Xbox, is also out and Asha Sharma, the president of Microsoft's CoreAI product, is taking over as CEO of Microsoft Gaming. It sounds bleak for Microsoft's long-struggling gaming brand, though Sharma said in her initial email to employees that her goal was not to flood the Xbox ecosystem with "soulless AI slop." Is that the truth or just something you say to placate your workers?
Whenever my kids get stuck playing a game, they run around the house yelling for me to help them. Doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing. Making dinner, taking out the trash, going to the bathroom, nowhere is safe. I patiently try to explain to them that back in my day, there was no grownup to help me beat Snake Man in Mega Man 3 or find Excalibur in Final Fantasy IV.
As artificial intelligence has seeped more into daily life, it's been met with a mix of acceptance and repulsion. The technology has been used to modify photos and improve productivity, but it has also threatened jobs and created havoc with the truth. When it comes to video games, players abhor AI. It's associated with slop and the deluge of nice-looking but cheaply made games. That has created a hunger for authenticity.
In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Sweeney said, "It makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production." He also underscored that an AI tag is more relevant when it comes to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and digital content licensing marketplaces where the buyer needs to understand the rights.
Google might have found a way Gemini could be useful while you're playing games on your phone. The company is introducing a new software overlay today it calls the Play Games Sidekick that gives you access to Gemini Live while you play, alongside a host of other gaming-focused updates to Google Play that could make the app platform a better home for gamers.
