{"id":488946,"date":"2026-02-21T02:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T02:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488946\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T02:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T02:17:09","slug":"ai-exec-asha-sharma-to-replace-microsoft-gaming-head-phil-spencer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488946\/","title":{"rendered":"AI exec Asha Sharma to replace Microsoft Gaming head Phil Spencer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/5fc640e1d0010ff40a379a3e9e4248b6.jpeg\" alt=\"UPI\" loading=\"eager\" height=\"601\" width=\"900\" class=\"yf-lglytj  loaded\"\/> Microsoft&#8217;s gaming executive Phil Spencer is retiring after 38 years and will be replaced by Asha Sharma, company officials said on Friday. Photo by Friedemann Vogel\/EPA      <\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Feb. 20 (UPI) &#8212; Microsoft Gaming Chief Executive Officer Phil Spencer is retiring after 38 years at the tech giant and is being replaced by Asha Sharma, whom Microsoft hired from Instacart in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Sharma will become Microsoft&#8217;s<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/digital\/news\/phil-spencer-exits-xbox-microsoft-gaming-1236668679\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:executive vice president for gaming;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"> executive vice president for gaming<\/a> and report to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Nadella said Spencer last year announced his decision to retire, and the company officials announced the pending change to staff on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Sharma will move from Microsoft&#8217;s CoreAI wing, where he was the company&#8217;s president of product development. He formerly was Instacart&#8217;s chief operating officer and before that was Meta&#8217;s vice president of product development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Spencer is leaving the tech giant after former business development head Chris Young and Thomas Dohmke, former GitHub chief executive, departed last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Microsoft&#8217;s security systems head Charlie Bell also changed his role with the company but continues working in an individual capacity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Microsoft&#8217;s video gaming revenues declined by 10% from December 2024 to December 2025, which exceeded the company&#8217;s expectations,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/02\/20\/microsoft-gaming-chief-phil-spencer-retires-asha-sharma-replacing.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:according to CNBC;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"> according to CNBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Despite the tech firm&#8217;s reduced gaming revenue, it posted a 17% gain in revenue during the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to a year earlier.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Microsoft in 2023 bought Activision Blizzard and made its Call of Duty gaming titles available on its cloud service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Competition for Sony&#8217;s proprietary gaming system has impacted Microsoft&#8217;s gaming revenues due to its Xbox system not matching Sony&#8217;s PlayStation or Nintendo&#8217;s Switch in popularity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Microsoft has closed its gaming development studios that developed new titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft&#8217;s gaming executive Phil Spencer is retiring after 38 years and will be replaced by Asha Sharma, company&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[196629,49,48,26795,63,196630,112106,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-488946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-asha-sharma","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-executive-vice-president","12":"tag-microsoft","13":"tag-microsoft-gaming","14":"tag-phil-spencer","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}