Xbox turned 25 this week — and instead of cake, Xbox boss Asha Sharma published a birthday memo about the future of game development. Across all those words, she never once spells out "generative AI." Naturally, that silence is exactly what gaming outlets spent Thursday decoding.
The memo's author: Xbox boss Asha Sharma — an AI-background exec who once promised "no tolerance for bad AI."
The line everybody's quoting: "A small team will be able to build worlds that today demand hundreds of developers and hundreds of millions of dollars." Eurogamer and Polygon both read it as an AI pitch. Sharma never confirms it — Eurogamer even asked Microsoft for clarification.
The memo points to Flight Simulator 2024 being "as far beyond" its 1982 ancestor — this split-screen is that gap.
The timing is awkward: Xbox cut thousands of jobs this year. And because it's a birthday, you get a gift too — Xbox Playback just launched, a Spotify-Wrapped-style recap of your whole Xbox history, live through December 31 in 15 countries.
▶ Watch today's episode: Xbox Just Wrote a Memo Without Saying AI
Source: Eurogamer · memo via Xbox Wire · Playback details via Xbox Wire