What is Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s stance?

Xbox leadership: Asha Sharma won’t rule out exclusives returning

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has said she will not rule out the return of exclusive games, signaling that Xbox’s approach to platform strategy may change again under the new leadership.

The comments come after Sharma published a company-wide memo outlining her plans for Xbox. In a rare interview following the memo, she elaborated on what she’s aiming for—framing the effort around making “the right decision, not the fastest decision,” and focusing on affordability and what players actually want.

What she did—and didn’t—commit to

• She refused to rule out exclusives returning.
• She did not fully commit to abandoning exclusives or confirming a specific long-term policy in the accessible parts of the discussion.

Why it matters for players

Xbox exclusivity policy is one of the biggest decision points for console ecosystems. When leadership signals exclusives could come back, it can shift: - how players decide whether to buy on Xbox versus PS5/PC - how developers think about platform targets - the expectations around day-one content and multi-platform releases

The key point is that Sharma’s message reads less like a permanent reversal and more like an open option set: Xbox leadership is willing to reconsider its stance rather than treating the current approach as fixed.

For now, concrete details about which franchises would be exclusive—or whether exclusivity would be timed or full—weren’t specified in the surfaced material, but the door is clearly not closed.