Asha Sharma Explains Xbox's Plans After Layoffs

After A Year Of Brutal Layoffs, Xbox Expects To See Some Growth At The End Of 2027 Published Jul 30, 2026, 8:25 AM EDT Sign in to your TheGamer account Xbox just rolled out 1,600 layoffs and is expected to roll out 1,600 more before the end of the year. This is all part of CEO Asha Sharma’s big “reset”, which has seen studios gutted and the future of some games left uncertain. Now, Sharma has provided an update on what this means for Xbox going forward. Speaking on social media, Sharma says that Xbox is expected to “return to growth” by the end of the 2027 financial year. That is despite Sharma saying that Xbox is already bringing in millions of new players right now - apparently, that is not enough. Asha Sharma Sheds Some Light On Xbox’s Projections After Mass Layoffs “In FY26, over 200 million new players came to XBOX and our games, but our business did not grow with our audience,” Sharma says. “We need to close that gap by investing in what players value. That will take time, but we expect to return to growth by the end of FY27.” Realistically, it sounds like this is Sharma’s way of preparing us (and preemptively justifying) the next round of layoffs that will hit this year. In other words, her “reset” is ongoing and is very much seen as Xbox’s path to success. With that said, workers aren’t taking these layoffs lying down. Unionised workers recently protested outside various Xbox-owned studios, and many are publicly speaking out against how workers are being treated during Sharma’s reset It remains to be seen if Sharma’s plans are enough for Xbox to survive another console generation. There were serious conversations in the gaming community about the company having to throw in the towel, but we know that the next Xbox, Project Helix, is on the way. Next-gen consoles are expected to be here in 2028, so just after Sharma is hoping Xbox has returned to growth. Whether Project Helix will continue that growth or not is the real question. Brand Microsoft Original Release Date November 10, 2020 Original MSRP (USD) $499 Operating System Proprietary (Windows-based) Processor Custom AMD 8-core Zen 2 3.8 GHz Resolution 720p - 4K UHD