Xbox chief Asha Sharma has publicly attributed the company's recent cuts — roughly 1,600 job losses and the closure of five studios earlier this week — to strategic missteps made under her predecessors. In an interview with Fortune, she said Xbox had made too many growth-oriented "bets" that drew focus away from its core business, admitting the company "spread ourselves too thin". The remarks matter because they represent her frankest criticism yet of the regime led by Phil Spencer, alongside Sarah Bond and current chief content officer Matt Booty, framing executive risk-taking as the root of Xbox's difficulties.

Sharma also argued that a "healthy Xbox could weather the shock of the hardware crisis", referring to rising RAM and component costs, whereas an "unhealthy Xbox" finds the situation far more challenging and accelerating the changes now under way. The article's author disputes this, noting the same hardware crisis is hitting rivals such as Valve and Sony hard despite their different circumstances, and questions whether a better-positioned Xbox would actually absorb rising costs rather than pass them on to consumers to protect profit margins. Sharma closed by saying a healthy core is "necessary but not sufficient" — a phrase the piece reads as an ominous hint that further cuts or difficulties may lie ahead.