Xbox CEO: No Mandate on 30% Accountability Margin, Platforms 'Must Have Exclusive Content' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 04 June 2026 / 3,131 Views
New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma in an interview with Bloomberg Live was asked if she had "breathing when it comes to the financials?" and it was revealed she has no 30 percent accountability margin mandate.
"My mandate is not 30% accountability margins, it's not enterprise software margins, it's to be the number one gaming and entertainment company, and that's what we're going to go do," said Sharma.
"If you think about it, Microsoft has invested more aggressively than nearly anybody in this category over the last six years. We've bought Activision and Zenimax. We've invested in our core platform, we've invested in hardware cycles, we invest in subsidies even when we are losing money, because of memory and storage.
"And so, we are long on gaming, long on Xbox. We will keep investing, but we've got work to do. You shared the numbers, we are not in a healthy spot. The next 100 days is going to be about resetting the business."
When it comes to exclusives Sharma admits they are in a tough spot as they are the second biggest publisher worldwide, but also need exclusives in order to sell hardware.
"I think it's a tough topic," she said. "Look, we're the number 2 publisher in the world, and in order to be a great publisher, you must have your games reach large audiences to play. At the same time, we're increasingly becoming a platform.
"In order to be a platform, you must have exclusive content and services. And so, we're looking at that very closely. I think that we have to be very thoughtful about each title, on how we want to think about it, and learn from similar cases in the industry, and that's what we're doing."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Yup, the 30% was for Phil. She'll get a few quarters of grace, then she'll get her own KPI monolith assigned from on high.
She already has the skill of a seasoned xbox exec by being able to talk at length without saying anything. She said they are second biggest publisher... (I guess Sony is the biggest) but for them to be that big they have to be multiplatform which is true because Xbox as a platform is a fraction of the size of Nintendo and Playstation.
Also she includes services as potential exclusives. She said it's a title by title basis. So its really about money vs serving the platform. The option is Microsoft becomes the top publisher but loses its platform.
Sony isn't actually big of a publisher but are the biggest games company, only just a bit ahead of Tencent, which due to Tencent not making platforms (as far as I am aware) means Tencent is likely biggest publisher right? This said, in order for MS to become the second biggest they had to spend 80billion, which at the time was more than the combined profits of Nintendo and Sony made in a decade.
If anything I think they are likely to move to what Sony are doing, single player or platform appealing games leave on PS, so GT, adventures, platforms, etc, PS only. MP and PvE PC and PS.
Whether however this means future Blizzard games will be removed from PS and Nintendo however... well.
Okay got you. Its confusing because if Sony is the biggest games company it seems like the would also be the biggest publisher but I understand the distinction. It makes since that Microsoft would be the bigger publisher than Sony although it seems like if they want to be the top publisher in the world, they are gonna have to keep being multiplatform.
She wouldn't have big KPIs in her first term but they will come eventually. Good to see her looking into the platform side of things. So far she has done good thing for the brand.
IMO trying to be #1 is even harder than the 30% accountability margin so good luck to her.
I fear that she believes that exclusives on Xbox means that players will leave platforms they already have huge libraries on for Xbox.
100 days huh? We'll see in mid September what has changed by then.
