New Microsoft gaming chief has “no tolerance for bad AI”

But Asha Sharma faces scrutiny for lack of gaming experience.

See full article...

 

[Fatesrider]

As long as Forza Horizon 6 doesn't suck and isn't invaded by the AI bullshit, I think I'll be happy. MS can ruin themselves after that if they'd like.

I'm one rung below you on that give a shit ladder.

Microsoft ceased being part of our family universe completely a couple of months ago when I finished upgrading my roommate's computer to Linux. Once that was done, there are literally no Microsoft products being used or accessed in our home.

I DO get that's not something everyone will do, and it's always a choice. But it IS a choice, and a viable one. We do the SAME GAMING we did before when Windows was the OS of use (if not choice). And no noticeable drop in performance or experience. In fact, my roommate says things load a LOT faster now than before.

So, for all we care, Microsoft can choke on whatever AI slop it decides to shovel to the masses. They have to figure out how to make some kind of profits from their FAFO with OpenAI as each tried to loot the other for their own gains. I feel for those who don't make the switch away from Microsoft, but understand that people will people and they do what they think is right for them.

It's just for those who want to take far more control of their lives (and digital privacy), there are viable options that can replace most of what they have now that don't cost a thing other than time, and, so far, at least, aren't falling into the AI rabbit hole.

 

[darkowl]

Replace executives with AI first. Of course, “good” AI, not “bad” AI. Then we’ll talk.

Oh, you don’t want to lose your jobs? Funny that.

 

[orangpelupa]

There's no such thing as "good AI" though. Except that MS thinks there is, which means first party MS studios are about to get inundated by slop shit.


Capital G Gamers are so pathetic. You could easily just hate this person because they're an empty suit spouting off bullshit AI rhetoric. There's absolutely no reason to be sexist about it, but uhh, life misogyny, finds a way.

How about something like for forza 6 to grab your drawings / images off USB or forza website, and use it to generate livery decals?

 

[Chmilz]

Not at all, but this is also a figurehead position too. The public will see this new head of gaming and they will judge it based on her.

Does the public outside of terminally online "Gamers" give a crap? I figured the general gaming public just buy games they want to play on platforms that have them.

 

[freaq]

Is it necessary to have experience in gaming for what is essentially a managerial position?

No, but given you could hire someone with that experience, that might be a good thing.

That said we’re about to go on a very fundamental shift, as fundamental as 2d sprite to 3d polygon.
And ML is definitely going to drive a lot of it… so perhaps this isn’t as crazy as people think.

With Splats and Nerfs and Worldmodels, were seeing (near) realtime models at high res and realtime models like oddessey and genie 3 challenge the current techniques…

time will tell.

 

[SteveBigandTall]

Somehow I don't believe that.

 

[Gub]

Thanks to a story on Kotaku [kotaku.com], I've become slightly concerned about her apparently misinformed pronatalism stance. If you want to watch the video [youtube.com], the birthrate stuff starts at 43:10.

 

[rhavenn]

I'm one rung below you on that give a shit ladder.

Microsoft ceased being part of our family universe completely a couple of months ago when I finished upgrading my roommate's computer to Linux. Once that was done, there are literally no Microsoft products being used or accessed in our home.

I DO get that's not something everyone will do, and it's always a choice. But it IS a choice, and a viable one. We do the SAME GAMING we did before when Windows was the OS of use (if not choice). And no noticeable drop in performance or experience. In fact, my roommate says things load a LOT faster now than before.

So, for all we care, Microsoft can choke on whatever AI slop it decides to shovel to the masses. They have to figure out how to make some kind of profits from their FAFO with OpenAI as each tried to loot the other for their own gains. I feel for those who don't make the switch away from Microsoft, but understand that people will people and they do what they think is right for them.

It's just for those who want to take far more control of their lives (and digital privacy), there are viable options that can replace most of what they have now that don't cost a thing other than time, and, so far, at least, aren't falling into the AI rabbit hole.

I have a PS5 I rarely play (less than 10 hours in the last year) and I haven't had a XBox since the XBox 360 days.

"console" games just really don't appeal to me. 1) A lot of them are focused on "online" gaming and/or 2) are "action" orientated. 3) paying Sony or MS for the privilege of buying their games (yearly subscription fees) is just stupid. I play RTS, 4x / colony sims, and strategy games and for the most part the consoles have zero offerings that aren't more compelling on a PC. Been Linux / FreeBSD only for close to 10 years now for my main PCs / servers and have been mostly linux closer to 25 years and if / when DDR5 prices ever come down my next living room gaming rig will be a linux box running Fedora with Steam "big picture" enabled vs. just a gaming PC "in the office" with a monitor. The SO would kill me if I stuck my fugly ass EATX case next to the TV

The work Valve has done with Proton and the work the underlying WINE devs have done in general is just impressive.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Does the public outside of terminally online "Gamers" give a crap? I figured the general gaming public just buy games they want to play on platforms that have them.

The public do not give a single damn. I promise no one outside of fans "in the know" will ever hear her name. Among that, a subset will care just enough to look at trailers for upcoming games, and a small subset of THAT will care enough to find out which companies or even developers make the games they like.

You have to get pretty deep in the reeds to actually start finding the people who know the names of leaders of divisions within the companies like this. I was aware of Howard Phillips and Reggie and such, but I was fully aware almost no one else did. Just as an example just how "outside" the gaming sphere most people are, I recall a "on the street" test someone did, just asking random passers by which Smash Bros. characters they recognized. Everyone knew who Mario was, and Pacman, Donkey Kong, Sonic, even Pikachu. It dropped off DRAMATICALLY past that point. A handful recognized Link as something more than just "some elf", and a few recognized Cloud, but pretty much the entire rest of the roster drew total blanks from just about everyone. That's when I realized just how obscure most of the games we consider massively successful actually are to those outside the gaming culture those games are aimed at in the first place. Everyone knows Mario, and Madden, but the entire group of gamers keeping Square-Enix afloat are basically the ONLY ones who know who the hell Sephiroth is. It's a very very BIG echo chamber, admittedly, but still just an echo chamber when you get right down to it. Yes, "everyone" plays games, but they're not playing the same games you're playing. The games "everyone" plays are sports games, dancing games, party games of various sorts, and a good amount of them either remember playing Mario as a kid or still occasionally get a new Mario Kart now and then, probably because they saw it in a store and said "Oooh wow they're still making those? Remember Mario? Yeah hey, hey we should get Mario for tonight!". It's a lesson we all need to learn. The medium being something everyone plays doesn't mean what they think it means.

Edit: Oh, some people did recognize Ryu, as "that guy from Street Fighter". I suspect they'd have recognized Guile more easily, because let's face facts, at the time the American character was just going to be way more popular than the karate man throwing fireballs. That's right, fireballs. No one thought they were spirit aura or whatever, just fireballs, using some kind of karate magic spell. That's why he had to say the name, right? Because he's casting a spell? What's "ki"? Is that like "chi" from my yoga instructor?

 

[TylerH]

Sharma says in a new interview that she has “no tolerance for bad AI” in game development.

Woot! So, no AI in gaming anymore, then?

Speaking with Variety, Sharma noted that “AI has long been part of gaming and will continue to be,”

Oh, well, nevermind then...

Is it necessary to have experience in gaming for what is essentially a managerial position?

I don't think it is necessary, but I do think it helps when the person leading the company has the same core love for the item they are making as the designers and developers. I mean, at least someone who actually plays the games their company puts out would be a huge benefit vs one who does not.

Microsoft isn't a big fan of dogfooding anymore, though, so we'll see how MSFT gaming operates in 2027+ (about the earliest the impacts from this will really be felt).

 

[Jeff S]

Thanks to a story on Kotaku [kotaku.com], I've become slightly concerned about her apparently misinformed pronatalism stance. If you want to watch the video [youtube.com], the birthrate stuff starts at 43:10.

Because most capitalists are really bad at their jobs, I think they view a stabilized or slightly declining population as a major crisis for capitalism.

Me, I see a world where about 1/2 the global population is either unhoused or underhoused, unfed or underfed, lacking access to clean water and medical care, and underemployed. . . I see that as a huge, huge economic opportunity to both help create jobs for those people, and to provide those necessities to those people. Like trillions of dollars of unrealized economic potential.

Meanwhile the Billionaires are freaking out that they don't have an endlessly growing population where 1/2 of the ever larger population lives in dire poverty.

 

[plarstic]

Nor do I really think trying to shackle yourself to a perceived and nebulous monolith "culture" is really a great way to make good, exciting games that push genres forward. That's how you get annual releases of Assassin's Creed and CoD and not much else. Especially when it comes to an executive, I want an executive team that knows how to attract talent, believes in their talent, and backs them to take risks balanced against blockbusters. I don't really give a shit if they game or "understand gamers."

That nuance is what I was getting at though. If all you look at is the sales numbers a new manager could be forgiven for thinking that blockbusters are the most important thing, because that's where the sales are at so clearly it's what people want, right? By "culture" I meant having an appreciation for the more artistic, independent side of the industry which is so crucial, for the story-telling, for the innovation beyond micro-transactions. Unless you've been steeped in that personally how do you ever get a true sense of what it means? It's like having a movie studio owner that's never watched a movie.

 

[TylerH]

Irrespective of their gaming resume, Gamertag age, or other seemingly random metric, the new head of Xbox seems stunningly unqualified to lead a multi-billion dollar division based on their their prior work history.

But maybe that's the point and they want new blood? I dunno. Good luck turning it around.

She seems to be a big proponent of genAI so I guess that is what Microsoft's board is looking for: someone to inject genAI into all the gaming things.

 

[rhavenn]

Thanks to a story on Kotaku [kotaku.com], I've become slightly concerned about her apparently misinformed pronatalism stance. If you want to watch the video [youtube.com], the birthrate stuff starts at 43:10.

and WTH does that have to do with running a game company / division?

1) it's a fact birthrates are declining mostly because the cost of living is sky rocketing and GOPers / Republicans / boomers are doing their very best to pull the ladder up behind themselves after being some of the biggest benefactors of socialistic policies. Raising a family is expensive and getting more and more expensive while wages are more or less stagnant unless you're a C-suite exec and there are only so many of those jobs to go around.

2) talking about AI "helping" do medical research isn't alarming. In fact, an LLM can processes and correlate huge amounts of data way faster than a human can by orders of magnitude. It's one of the things LLMs are actually good at or for. She's not arguing for eugenics.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-growth-rate-with-and-without-migration

https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/

 

[onlysublime]

The first PlayStation was largely the work by Sony and Sony Music with none of them having experience in gaming. In fact, the gaming industry wondered how a company known for CD drives would succeed in gaming. For Sony UK and Sony gaming in America, neither had gaming executives. SCEA had Martin J. Homlish who was known for marketing for Sony Electronics. Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc (SCEI) was run by Shigeo Maruyama who was the CEO of Sony Music Entertainment. Tamotsu Iba was CFO (chief financial officer) with no gaming experience. Jack Tretton did have a gaming background, coming from Activision. Sean Layden had no gaming experience prior to sie worldwide studios. Phil Harrison had gaming experience. Kaz Hirai started with the Sony Music division and had no gaming experience prior to PlayStation. Shuhei Yoshida was in economics and managed the PC division prior to PlayStation with no gaming background. Ken Kutaragi was an engineer. The father of PlayStation but no real gaming history prior to formation of the PlayStation. He worked on the sound processor for the SNES but that was Nintendo needed a chip and Kutaragi using his engineering skills to make a processor. The current CEO, Hideaki Nishino, has no experience in gaming. Up and down the line, the key for the CEO position is a business mind who can identify trends and generate trends, not prior gaming experience.

 

[jdale]

Jeez, would you people STOP conflating the general term AI/Artificial Intelligence with LLM tool use.

Yes, the commercialization of LLMs is a real problem, but it's a recent one. AI in gaming has been a central pillar since the early days! You literally cannot have an adversarial game without some form of AI powered opponent. Also, asset creation via automated (and yes, AI modeled) means has been used since the 1990s. What did you think procedural generation is? I can tell you it's definitely not random, and it learns from its mistakes in recent incarnations.

AI isn't just LLMs and other generative systems. But procedural generation is not AI. You might add some AI, for example add a neural network / machine learning model to refine the output, but that's certainly not "since the early days".

It's also not necessarily the case that all language model use is unethical. SLMs and other locally run and trained tools exist and are sometimes quite adept at specific tasks.

"Unethical" is a matter of debate, but locally run models that were trained on scraped and copyrighted data don't escape all the ethical issues.

I'm just as skeptical about Sharma's assurances about unethically generated LLM content in future games and other content given Microsoft's media blitz about "AI everything!!" ... which it certainly isn't. It's specificly generative language models everything so they can say they're part of the cool kids crowd. You know, typical Microsoft whenever they get caught with their pants down. Not a moderate bone in their corporate body.

But, of all people, this forum should be able to distinguish media bullshit in claiming "AI" for itself. That's not true, unhelpful, and plain wrong.

My point is, all this rabid hate about "anything AI is bad" is just plain zealotry and completely ignores what AI actually is as a category of computer science and the history of software and hardware.

I don't disagree that we should be more clear about our terms. But trying to give AI a pass by claiming that non-AI software was AI is just as unhelpful for honest discourse.

 

[seelive]

Seems like they hired a person who's good at climbing career ladders and making safe moves. Usually means they're going to cut costs and make profit-centered decisions.

 

[terrydactyl]

Asha Sharma, who comes to head Microsoft’s gaming division after two years as president of the company’s CoreAI Product group.

The interview comes after Sharma promised in an introductory memo: “We will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop."

It remains to be seen if she can pivot, but if you've been that close to AI before, can you identify slop now?

 

[Mustachioed Copy Cat]

It sounds like she’s conflating AI as in NPC behavior with generative AI.

So, this doesn’t seem like it’s starting off great.

 

[seelive]

You know who sucked at leading basketball teams? Michael Jordan.

The skills to be good at leading an organization that does a thing are not the same skills as doing the thing. Having said that, intellectual humility and respect for the skills needed to do that thing are not optional in such a leader.

Yeah and he was coached by Phil Jackson. HOF coach, who also had a 13 year career ... As a player on 2x championship teams.

Of course it helps having some playing experience on some level to be a coach. Even coaches with no playing experience have spent years in the league as assistant coaches or even born into coaching family. Same with any industry.

You kinda invalidated your point with such example.

 

[42Kodiak42]

And by looking at actual objective marketing data, not self-amplified forum screaming.

An ear to the ground is absolutely necessary nowadays, far too many game ideas are "Executive traps" because they look like good ideas according to industry data but completely flop because the data doesn't actually quantify what it takes for a game to succeed. That's why the most spectacular flops have been the relatively booming subgenre of Hero-Shooters. Yes a lot of money is going towards those games, but to make one work, it needs to pull in a massive playerbase from people who aren't already hooked on their favorite hero-shooter.

So I'm somewhat hopeful here: Sharma at least seems to be aware of the general sentiment regarding some video-game topics, more so than some of her contemporaries.

 

[42Kodiak42]

It sounds like she’s conflating AI as in NPC behavior with generative AI.

So, this doesn’t seem like it’s starting off great.

This is the one detail that I find a bit off-putting, but at the same time I have to acknowledge that I've fully accepted "AI" as having completely disparate meanings throughout time and contexts. It's also pretty hard to mistake modern-day-generative AI as being anywhere near NPC behavior systems. Given the rest of her sentiment on the matter, I think this might just be a bit of bad speechwriting on her part. Like she had an idea for a line that seemed clever but couldn't quite get it to work.

 

[NobleNobbler]

Those statements don't read like a clear line against the use of AI tools to me. In fact, they seem deliberately crafted to leave lots of doors at least partially open.

And that artful wordsmithing is the reason she got the job.

 

[Jeff S]

And that artful wordsmithing is the reason she got the job.

Artful wordsmithing? I would call those weasel-words.

 

[graylshaped]

Yeah and he was coached by Phil Jackson. HOF coach, who also had a 13 year career ... As a player on 2x championship teams.

Of course it helps having some playing experience on some level to be a coach. Even coaches with no playing experience have spent years in the league as assistant coaches or even born into coaching family. Same with any industry.

You kinda invalidated your point with such example.

My point is "people who are good at a thing aren't always good at leading other people to do that thing." Not that they are mutually exclusive, and specifically not that one HAS to have been good at the thing. So, no, your argument from fallacy is invalid.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Woot! So, no AI in gaming anymore, then?



Oh, well, nevermind then...


I don't think it is necessary, but I do think it helps when the person leading the company has the same core love for the item they are making as the designers and developers. I mean, at least someone who actually plays the games their company puts out would be a huge benefit vs one who does not.

Microsoft isn't a big fan of dogfooding anymore, though, so we'll see how MSFT gaming operates in 2027+ (about the earliest the impacts from this will really be felt).

Microsoft do believe in dogfooding at least one product, if reports of demands for everyone to work copilot into their workflow are any indication.

 

[islane]

It's not about "being a gamer", it's having at least some base level experience and understanding with the industry before being placed in charge of the entire thing.

Facebook, Instacart and the SlopAI department ain't it.

Agreed, regardless of the person, this particular resume for a leader reads like MS deeply misunderstanding why Xbox is flailing.

 

[Foxtrot360]

Is it necessary to have experience in gaming for what is essentially a managerial position?

Spencer and Bond had a lot of gaming experience but I don't think many people thought they were doing a good job. If she is a strong manager who beleives in the surround yourself with smarter people approach she could do fine. She may also come in and wreck things even more (if that is possible at xbox) so time will tell

 

[MHStrawn]

The primary reason AAA studios are struggling badly is bc they have non-gamers making decisions about what makes a good game.

Microsoft: let's do that!

 

[markgo]

Although I agree, overall, with the proposition that the position doesn’t require a hardcore gamer, it is troubling how much not a gamer she is. She appears to be the rare bird who essentially never played video games. If she had ever had a love for even a single game, at any point in her life, she hasn’t said so.

She does appear to be making an earnest effort to get plugged in to the games people are talking about, so I give her credit for that.

 

[markgo]

How about something like for forza 6 to grab your drawings / images off USB or forza website, and use it to generate livery decals?

You absolutely don’t need AI for that.

 

[Pat_Murph]

If a person's view is "no matter what the new boss says, I think they're lying to me and they'll ruin everything", it's probably a thriftier use of keystrokes to just type that.

We'll see how it goes. There are definitely worse opening statements than Sharma's.

We're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here...

Sure there are worse statements. But this one is still pretty bad. Combined with her background.

Rip xbox

 

[graylshaped]

Agreed, regardless of the person, this particular resume for a leader reads like MS deeply misunderstanding why Xbox is flailing.

Related question: why did Ballmer say he had to quit?

 

[paulfdietz]

What's wrong with using tools like Claude Code to more efficiently produce games?

Because they may very well not actually achieve that goal?

 

[Luddite_Adjacent]

This clearly signals that Microsoft Gaming is dead set on intergrating AI into games. Subscribe to AI DLC and enjoy new maps, tracks, skins, or voices for your favorite games! It will be slop and I hope that gamers will take a stand but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

This clearly signals that Microsoft Gaming is dead set on intergrating AI into games. Subscribe to AI DLC and enjoy new maps, tracks, skins, or voices for your favorite games! It will be slop and I hope that gamers will take a stand but I wouldn't bet on it.

I'm not sure it's a signal they will so much as that it is NOT a clear signal that they won't. We didn't really get a denial, just a statement that they won't use "bad AI" slop, but without defining just what is meant by that, or what "good AI" is.

 

[Abulia]

Seems like they hired a person who's good at climbing career ladders and making safe moves. Usually means they're going to cut costs and make profit-centered decisions.

This whole Xbox shakeup and the promotion gives me strong Ellen Pao vibes.

 

[SteveBigandTall]

r. She's not arguing for eugenics.

get your capes out folks, A rich person needs defending!

 

[lordcheeto]

Is it necessary to have experience in gaming for what is essentially a managerial position?

It's almost as bad as fan casts. "This person matches the physical description of the character!" No further considerations needed.