"It was bought at a time before ChatGPT"
Just under 1000 days ago, or about two and a half years ago if you measure time like a normal person, Microsoft completed their acquisition of Activision Blizzard following a lengthy legal process. It cost $68.7 billion and meant Xbox's parent company now lorded over the likes of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch. Not a small thing for the corporate behemoth to have done, then. Looking back in 2026, was it a shrewd move? Well, amid some bigging up of the series I just mentioned, current Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has said it's "hard to say how to think about those decisions".
This answer came during an interview with Bloomberg Tech. The host pointed out that Sharma "inherited" the deal, which has been followed by layoffs, cancellations, and a Game Pass price hike, as part of asking the exec whether she believes the acquisition is paying off.
Sharma's response started how you might expect. "I don't know anybody in entertainment who wouldn't want Call of Duty, which is now grossing in more revenue than the Marvel Cinematic Universe," she said. "Who wouldn't want one of the top three apps in the world with Candy Crush? Who wouldn't want World of Warcraft? And who wouldn't want a team that for 20 years has been able to create predictable hits every single year? I love Activision Blizzard King."
Then, things got a lot more intriguing. "Look, it was bought at a time before ChatGPT," the exec continued. "It was bought at a time when our strategy was predominantly on the core console. It was at a time when we were right in the middle of Covid. So, hard to say how to think about those decisions. But I think these are incredible assets and we intend to continue to invest in them."
On one hand, the ambivalent shrugging that creeps in midway through the second half of that answer could well just be Sharma making an effort to further distance herself from the decisions of the Phil Spencer/Sarah Bond regime she replaced, as she's seemed very keen to do since gaining the big green throne. On the other, to have hints of potential buyer's remorse creeping into the boss of a company's on-stage answers about a deal as huge as the Activision Blizzard one just a few years down the line struck me as fairly shocking.
Even if it's abundantly clear at this juncture whether such a move has played out how the company planned - Spencer and Bond's departures signify a firm no - I'd expect their bosses to still be in the 'say nice things and try to make it work' stage. That's firmly where Sharma is for the rest of her answer, but to even momentarily let the mask slip feels noteworthy, if not out of out of character for an exec who's spent some of her early reign apologising to vocal online Xbox fans about moves the console makers have made.
CEOs being a bit more open and honest about big decisions like this, as Sharma's shown thus far, is a double-edged sword. It can help them convince us regular peons that they're not living in some corporate dream land without a finger anywhere near the pulse, but not defaulting to unflinchingly defending the company line can also result in situations like this where the seeds of doubt in terms of your commitment to certain things can start to creep in. That way lies wishy-washy ditheriness, arguably the most damaging impression someone in Sharma's position can give.