Xbox CEO Asha Sharma stated that the company intends to revise its development strategy after several years of excessive business expansion. In an interview with Fortune magazine, she effectively criticized the approach of her predecessor, Phil Spencer, noting that Xbox "scattered resources" and lost focus on its core business.
According to Sharma, the pursuit of growth led to numerous experiments and investments in various directions, but this negatively affected the company's main business.
To grow, we made many bets, and in the process, we inevitably stopped paying enough attention to our core business. The main indicator of any strategy is where resources are directed, and we simply spread ourselves too thin.
Sharma's statements reflect the company's new course, which involves a return to a more traditional console business model. Among the measures already taken are a reduction in the role of the Game Pass subscription service and an increased focus on exclusive games.
On the same day the interview was published, the head of Xbox announced the layoff of 3,200 employees and the separation of four game studios into independent entities. Sharma emphasized that such decisions are related to the need for business recovery.
According to her, the current state of Xbox cannot be called sustainable.
A healthy Xbox would have been able to weather the hardware market crisis more easily. When a business is unhealthy, the situation becomes significantly more difficult and accelerates the need for serious changes.