Xbox CEO Asha Sharma Announces Four-Point Plan, Next-Gen Console, and Leadership Changes

Hundreds of Xbox employees gathered early on a Thursday morning two weeks before May 7, 2026, inside Microsoft’s studio D building, filling the hallways and atrium. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma addressed the group beneath walls plastered with the “return of Xbox” slogan, the same message she first delivered to employees in February 2026.

Sharma laid out a four-point action plan focused on hardware, games, platform and services.

“We have to be honest about where we are. We’ve got work to do,” she said. Players are frustrated because Xbox has not updated its console enough and its PC presence is not strong, she told the gathering.

“We’re going to start by restoring our core. We have to fix the fundamentals on console and PC. We have to sweat every single detail and every single part of the experience to get to fun much faster and make it simpler,” Sharma said.

In early March 2026 she instructed Xbox engineering teams to begin work on highly requested console features. She promised biweekly console updates until the end of 2026. Sharma also dropped the Microsoft Gaming name and reverted the organization back to just Xbox.

During the same all-hands meeting she addressed longstanding fan concerns over exclusivity. More than two years before May 2026, Microsoft revealed that four Xbox-exclusive games were coming to PS5 and Nintendo Switch under an initiative codenamed Project Latitude. “We will reevaluate our approach to exclusivity,” Sharma said.

She added, “We will focus on players coming back every single day, because our platform and our games are great. ” The next-generation Xbox console is codenamed Project Helix. ” Alpha versions of Project Helix are heading to developers in 2027.

“We have to deliver Project Helix as a big step forward, for our console games and also our PC games, as well as performance and security,” she said. Earlier this week relative to May 7, 2026, Sharma announced a reorganization of the Xbox platform team. Jared Palmer is joining Xbox as VP of engineering and a technical adviser to Sharma.

Palmer joined Microsoft in October 2025 as GitHub’s senior vice president. Sharma hired Tim Allen to lead Xbox design. Tim Allen was previously part of CoreAI and GitHub’s senior VP of design and research.

Jonathan McKay and Evan Chaki have joined Xbox from CoreAI. Hours after the leadership changes memo, Sharma announced that the mobile Copilot gaming feature would be scrapped and that development of Copilot for Xbox consoles will cease. Jason Ronald is being promoted and is accountable for Project Helix.

Roanne Sones is leaving Xbox for a leave of absence. Kevin Gammill, corporate vice president of Xbox user experience, is stepping down after nearly 20 years at Microsoft. Sharma wrote in a memo this week, “Right now, it is too hard to ship impact quickly; we spend too much time inward instead of with the community; and we lack the capability we need in some key areas.

We are promoting leaders who built Xbox and bringing in new leaders with consumer and technical expertise we do not yet have. ” This week Sharma revealed a new Xbox boot animation and slightly tweaked boot-up sound on X. The update is shipping next week relative to May 7, 2026.

The Verge reported all details of the all-hands meeting, leadership moves and Sharma’s public statements.