Xbox CEO says company aims to become top gaming brand by 2030

Xbox is setting a bold finish line for 2030, but Asha Sharma spent her first 100 days making the opposite case: the business is still fragile, and players should judge the turnaround by what changes next, not by the slogan. The new Microsoft Gaming chief said Xbox is aiming to become the number one gaming and entertainment company by the end of the decade, even as she admitted the division is "not in a healthy spot."

Sharma took over Microsoft Gaming on Feb. 20, 2026, replacing Phil Spencer after his 12 years leading the division and 38 years at Microsoft. The latest memo from Sharma and content chief Matt Booty, dated June 10, framed the next 100 days as a reset period, with the clearest near-term questions centered on studio stability, exclusive releases, Game Pass, hardware and how Xbox talks about itself.

Microsoft’s pitch starts with scale. Satya Nadella said Xbox reaches more than 500 million monthly active users, while Microsoft Gaming spans nearly 40 studios across Xbox, Bethesda, Activision Blizzard and King. The memo pushed those numbers further, saying Xbox reaches more than 1 billion players each year and 72 billion hours of play across console, PC, mobile and streaming. That is the audience Xbox is fighting to keep engaged while games compete with TV, film, apps and everything else in the attention economy.

The company also said the first 100 days under Sharma produced more platform updates than the prior year combined, and that Game Pass had started growing again after more than eight months of decline. Those are the kinds of player-facing signals that will matter most over the next stretch, especially as Xbox tries to prove that the reset is changing actual service momentum rather than just messaging.

The money side looks tighter. Xbox said it expects to end the fiscal year at about a 3% accountability margin, after more than $20 billion in five years of spending on content, platform and hardware subsidies, excluding Activision Blizzard King. Over that same period, annual revenue declined by nearly half a billion dollars. In Microsoft’s FY25 Q1 filing, gaming revenue rose 43% year over year, driven by Xbox content and services, while Xbox hardware revenue fell 29% on lower console sales.

Hardware remains the biggest pressure point. Xbox said storage-component prices were more than twice what they had been the previous fall and could rise to more than five times what they were two years earlier by the 2027 holiday season plan. The memo said Xbox expected a "new business model and partnerships for hardware" while staying committed to its next console, Helix.

There is still a lot of ambition in Xbox’s 2030 target. The next 100 days will show whether the company is building toward that goal with a steadier studio slate, clearer platform priorities and a console strategy that players can actually see.