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Original Xbox co-founder and console designer Seamus Blackley reckons it's no coincidence that Microsoft installed a CoreAI executive like Asha Sharma as the new CEO of its gaming arm. Rather, he sees Sharma's promotion as a sign that non-AI businesses like Xbox will be "sunsetted" as Microsoft invests wholly in AI as its ultimate solution to absolutely everything.
Speaking with GamesBeat, Blackley sized up the future of Xbox following seismic leadership changes that included the retirement of longtime gaming boss Phil Spencer, the departure of president (and presumed Spencer replacement) Sarah Bond, and the appointment of Sharma despite her inexperience with games and short Microsoft tenure.
"Xbox, like a lot of businesses that aren't the core AI business, is being sunsetted," he said. "They don't say that, but that's what's happening. I expect that the new CEO, Asha Sharma, her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night."
Blackley also expressed some confusion at Sharma's appointment, concluding that the logical explanation is that Microsoft, especially CEO Satya Nadella, wanted an AI person for what's viewed as an AI job.
"I imagine asking somebody if it made sense to put a major motion picture studio into the hands of somebody who didn't like movies, or a major record label into the hands of somebody who'd never seen a live show," Blackley said. "Why would you do that? Well, you only do that if you're looking at the problem in a more abstract way. The natural consequence of the focus on AI is that AI abstracts every problem from the minds of the executives who believe in it. We're abstracting the problem of games as well. There's a core belief, and you can see it in what Satya said, that AI will subsume games like it will subsume everything."
Blackley stressed that it doesn't matter "whether or not you agree" with this view of AI or games, only that you recognize Microsoft is indeed that committed to AI. If anything, he said, "It would have been shocking if they had somebody in there in a meaningful role who was passionate about games, passionate about the creator-driven business of games, because it would be in direct conflict with everything else Microsoft is doing."
Here, he tipped his hat to Spencer, who Blackley described as "managing the beast so that he could continue to try to do the right thing for games" until "that finally just wore him out."
"Microsoft is a company that is now about enabling its customers by enabling AI to drive things," Blackley reiterated. "That's at odds with the auteur model of any art, but specifically of games."
One concern with AI taking over Xbox, Blackley noted, is that AI is still unproven as a technology and business, whereas games are established and profitable. One might find it strange, then, to see seemingly every executive even adjacent to tech suddenly stricken with the exact same AI brain worm.
"We're somehow subjugating the proven huge business as part of a strategy to prop up a business that we're not sure will work or not," Blackley said. "That's weird. That's weird and I don't understand it. But obviously, these guys are very surefooted about it, sure enough that they're putting a huge amount of resources behind this."
