Ever since Asha Sharma was announced as the new Xbox boss last Friday, there's been speculation about whether exclusive games could become part of Xbox's strategy in the future once again, and she's at least partially addressed this in a new interview with Windows Central.
Speaking on a whole range of topics, Sharma was questioned at one point about the potential to revise Xbox's current strategy and suggested that nothing is off the table, but that she needs to learn and figure out "what the data says about the Xbox strategy today".
When asked what Asha Sharma thought about the idea of returning to exclusive games, she said, "Right now, I need to learn, candidly. About the 'why' of these decisions, what we were optimizing for, and what the data says about the Xbox strategy today. That's the honest answer. I'm looking at lifetime value, not just what happened in a previous moment, or in short-term efficiencies and things like that. The plan's the plan until it's not the plan."
Ultimately, it sounds like there's at least a slight chance of exclusives becoming more prominent in Xbox's future, but that the new Xbox boss doesn't really have any answers right now — it's simply too early to make any judgments.
What's refreshing is that she's keen to look at the bigger picture and analyse every single element of the current strategy to see what's working and what isn't, and although there's every chance exclusives won't be a part of the strategy going forward (for better or worse), they're at least being factored into her initial analysis as the Head of Xbox.