Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has acknowledged that gaming has become too expensive for many consumers, pointing to rising hardware costs and a crowded subscription landscape as key pressures on the industry. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly as part of coverage marking Xbox's 25th anniversary, Sharma described affordability as a growing challenge that extends beyond simple pricing decisions, tying it to the broader "attention economy" in which gaming now competes with a wide array of other entertainment subscriptions for consumer time and money.
A Blunt Admission
Asked about the state of the games business, Sharma didn't soften the diagnosis. "Gaming is unaffordable in many cases, in terms of how we've traditionally thought about it," she told Entertainment Weekly. She tied that pressure to rising hardware prices and a growing number of gaming-related subscriptions, factors she said are reshaping what players can reasonably afford.
The Attention Economy Squeeze
Sharma framed the affordability issue as inseparable from a broader fight for consumer attention. "Because of the attention economy and competing subscriptions," she said, players are being asked to divide limited time and money across not just multiple gaming subscriptions but a wider field of entertainment options vying for the same hours in the day. That fragmentation, she suggested, is reshaping how publishers and platform holders need to think about pricing and access. "It's a really hard formula... It's a really challenging business," Sharma said, summarizing the difficulty of balancing cost, content, and competition in the current environment.
Xbox's Answer: Go Wide, Not Narrow
Sharma pointed to structural shifts already underway at Xbox as its response to the affordability problem. She cited the continued expansion of cloud gaming as a way to lower the barrier to entry for players who can't or won't invest in dedicated hardware. She also referenced Microsoft's ongoing strategy of releasing first-party Xbox titles on additional platforms, rather than confining them to Xbox consoles and PC alone. Together, Sharma described these moves as part of a push toward a broader, more open ecosystem, one built to reach mainstream audiences well beyond the traditional core gaming demographic.
A Shared Concern Beyond Xbox
Sharma isn't alone in flagging the shift toward mainstream, non-traditional audiences as essential to the industry's health. Todd Green, of King, the studio behind Candy Crush, echoed a similar sentiment in the same conversation, emphasizing that companies need to treat every consumer as valuable regardless of whether that person identifies as a gamer. The overlap between Sharma's and Green's comments points to a wider industry recognition that growth increasingly depends on reaching casual and mobile-first players, not just enthusiasts already embedded in traditional console and PC ecosystems. Sharma's remarks arrive as Xbox marks 25 years in the console business, a milestone that has prompted reflection on where the platform goes next. Her comments suggest Microsoft views affordability not as a problem to be solved through pricing alone, but through expanding where and how people can access games in the first place, via cloud streaming, cross-platform releases, and a pitch aimed squarely at audiences who have never owned a console. Whether that strategy eases the financial pressure Sharma described remains to be seen, but it signals how seriously Xbox is treating the disconnect between gaming's traditional business model and today's crowded entertainment market.
Join the conversation — sign in to comment.
Sign in
