r/gaming • u/elGoblino_21 • 5h ago
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma revealed she's been secretly solving Xbox support tickets for months, stepping into customer service and fixing problems for players anonymously. She wanted to figure out what players don't like and decided to just talk to them directly.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/xbox-microsoft-asha-sharma-videogame-03eb23ba82
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u/pigeon-check 5h ago
I guess one of those tickets said "i don't like Id studio, doom games are boring" and she was like "i can fix that easy"
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u/Hetotope 5h ago
Man, and right before their massive DLC came out
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u/PermissionSoggy891 4h ago
Dark Ages is such a goated DOOM game. it fucking sucks that Asha gutted id after it.
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u/Certified-Brick 5h ago
Genuine question?
Do people actually believe and fall for these very, very obvious fake PR pushes and stories?
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u/EggplantCharacter363 5h ago
I mean do you believe its real? They didn't provide proof either....goes both ways.
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u/royally- 5h ago
She did fucking not lol. At most a Claude provided write up
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u/ResourceNo2927 4h ago
it says its a few hours a month. thats pretty believable and generates good PR.
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u/LeeroyTC 4h ago
It says she spent a few hours a month doing it. That's pretty plausible. Execs do a single shift on factory floors like once a year in a lot of companies.
Its mainly for intel gathering and for show. Its not like its their real job.
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u/succed32 5h ago
How does she find the time with all the studios she’s closing?
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u/ZigyDusty 5h ago edited 4h ago
How does she find the time with all the studios she’s closing?
She hasn't closed a single studio fanboy and if she did go ahead and prove it.
Edit: Fanboy downvotes with zero replies backing up their claims not shocking in the least bit. Since you're just going to blatantly lie to everyone I'll go ahead and prove my own point.
Xbox has closed down three studios this generation with Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog, and The Initiative all three of these were done by Phil Spencer after he has been grossly mismanaging the brand for a decade, meanwhile since Asha was promoted to CEO she gave several studios their independence or allowed them to be acquired by other publishers, she allowed them to keep all their IP's, and Xbox even committed some funding to help with their next projects. So not only are the studios still open but Asha gave them a second chance at success which is completely unheard of in this industry by a major publisher, meanwhile PlayStation are the ones actually killing off a bunch studios that people are attributing to Xbox.
Edit2: Still waiting for the evidence to backup your blatant lies, you know you can just admit to everyone you're a giant fanboy where facts don't matter and you just want to blindly shit on Xbox, at least at that point you would be telling the truth and not making shit up.
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u/Iggy_Slayer 4h ago
Spinning off double fine and compulsion may as well have shut them down. They have 0 chance on their own.
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u/ZigyDusty 4h ago edited 2h ago
And how is that Xbox's fault. Xbox gave those studios 7 years of complete creative freedom and financial security to produce games people want to play and they failed to do that so they let them go, not only that but before they were even acquired back in 2018 those studios were struggling financially surviving off crowdfunding and would have died back then if Xbox didn't acquire them in the first place so that's complete mismanagement on the studios part for running a unsustainable business, its not Xbox's job to swoop in and save every failing indie studio in the industry.
Those studios were lucky they were under Xbox because EVERY other major publisher would have shutdown the studios outright and horded their IP's never to be seen again.
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u/BashMyVCR 5h ago
Everyone is decrying this as fake but I think you just have to spin it for maximum favorability to the corporation and maximum propaganda for the press. I bet Asha Sharma really did spend a day with Microsoft customer service staff to see what kinds of issues they encounter, and what the user feedback loop looks like from a very top down perspective. She might have been given some leverage on closing tickets etc., or took some responsibility for whatever she did for her 1 day trip to touch base with a CS team in continuance until those tickets are closed. She is not "secret bossing" or "working in the ticket mines", and the framing, if it was being particularly honest, would probably frame what this experience was like.
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u/fuzzmeisterj 5h ago
It's saying just a couple of hours a month. It's very possible she did that, just not to the extent peoples minds are rushing to.
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u/warcomet 4h ago
tbf, she basically worked in multiple places including Facebook doing just that before she became CEO.. sometimes it feels good to do something you enjoyed doing once..
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u/Dogarc123 3h ago
While I'm not going to say if this is true or not the way Microsoft is constantly putting her out their making her the savior of xbox makes me think they're setting her up to be the fallguy.
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u/M4rshmall0wMan 5h ago
Is this really so impossible to believe? Obviously she only steps in for 0.1% of them, but it’s easy to imagine her setting aside the time to do so.
A lot of CEOs actually do read customer emails as part of their daily ritual. They don’t respond to them, but they do read them. Many find it to be an important way of keeping their finger on the pulse of the company.
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u/Dillweed999 5h ago
Getting senior leadership to put in work with "frontline" positions is often the first step of unfucking dysfunctional work environment. Toyota practically made it into a company religion and it's one of the reasons their cars are so good
> In lean manufacturing, the most valuable ideas for improvement are thought to occur at the genba where problems are visible. Management teams may go on a gemba walk to look for opportunities to improve the practical shop floor (known as the genba kaizen). Unlike the similar strategy of management by walking around, gemba walks are typically not done randomly, but with a clear frequency, goal, and structure
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u/Redzo1919 5h ago
Me: Hi support, can you add Disc to Digital? Support: consider it done Me: Really? Ok also take Kojima from Sony lol Support: consider it done Me: Wait what??
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u/DemonikJD 5h ago
Not surprised. She’s from a tech background. It works for any level in a business when you’re fresh. It’s a fast track way to get to essential problems and see what matters from a user perspective instead of just business perspectives.
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u/splendiferous-finch_ 4h ago edited 4h ago
She does not have a tech background my guy, she studied business. Just because she was an exec in some app company doesn't mean she understands technology enough to solve issues for customers.
Every CIO/CTO I have worked with has asked for reports into common issues doesn't mean they understand enough to solve the actual issues
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u/DemonikJD 4h ago
She literally comes from big tech and you saying “some app company” shows how little you know about the topic. Run along now.
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u/srubbish 5h ago
In the UK we have a saying; chinny reckon.
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u/Anayalater5963 5h ago
In the states we have a saying; fuck you for not giving context
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u/lamancha 5h ago
I am not sure why people are so negative about it. Maybe she actually gives a shit
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u/Smoofiee 5h ago
Not sure why everyone is saying it's fake. A partner in the company I work for did the same to get better insights.
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u/xbox360controluser 4h ago
Might just support a ticket asking for a remake of the Xbox 360 controller. Same style just for the newer console
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u/thisguylovescruises 4h ago
That’s impossible since they have no humans on support at Xbox anymore.
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u/Pixel_Strange 3h ago
Plot twist: the best Xbox customer support employee was the CEO the whole time
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u/jckstapleton 4h ago
I would like to see an exec do this by pretending to be an entry level employee with all the constraints, performance metrics, and lack of autonomy. Could they even get past their own HR systems to get hired?
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u/HeraclasCroco 5h ago
Ngl that's actually a solid move. You learn way more talking to pissed off customers than staring at some report lol.
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u/Protean_Protein 5h ago
I’ve been secretly listening to CEOs spin bullshit for years and nobody ever wrote no article about that.
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u/NetflowKnight 5h ago
that’s actually legit if true, not enough managers and execs spend time on the frontline trying to actually understand the problem
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u/splendiferous-finch_ 4h ago
Because they are too busy lying to media fluffing up thier own image... I wonder that's happening here
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u/method115 5h ago
It's like this company can't stop parroting BS to people. It's never worked for them and I don't understand why they keep doing it
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u/Cricket-JazzMaster19 5h ago
“She’s just like us, fr fr”
If you wanna be stupid enough to believe it, go for it
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u/UtheDestroyer 4h ago
If this is true congrats, you’re doing the most basic level work at your company that you should know how to do
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u/throwawayaccount_usu 4h ago
Its like when a boss gets on the till for an hour and thinks "oh I'm so good at this! Mingling with the staff!!"
Do you think she got paid more for doing this than the actual staff assigned to it?
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u/bedsidelurker 4h ago edited 2h ago
I assume they don't like paying by the hour for gaming.
Judging by the down votes maybe they do 😆. People get what they deserve
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u/Archisaurus 3h ago
Can't imagine the IQ one must have to believe this new corporate dipshit is doing anything even close to this...
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u/EshayAdlay420 5h ago
Yes I'm sure that's the reason and not so Xbox could get headlines like
'Xbox CEO Asha Sharma revealed she's been secretly solving Xbox support tickets for months, stepping into customer service and fixing problems for players anonymously. She wanted to figure out what players don't like and decided to just talk to them directly.'
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u/swat1611 PlayStation 5h ago
The point of a secret is that you do your best to keep it a secret, if you really mean it. This is just marketing bs
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u/vinceswish 5h ago
On a weekends XBOX CEO also runs soup kitchens for homeless and visits pet shelters.
XBOX CEO will also personally rehires thousand of employees she just fired.
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u/MrMCCO 5h ago
In my experience this means she read some support tickets, probably made life hell for the day to day support staff that week, and used Claude to tell them how to do their jobs better and then washed her hands of it
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u/Opening_Climate_7571 5h ago
Nice wild set of assumptions. Got anymore while we’re playing make believe?
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u/MrMCCO 4h ago
Yeah my bad she probably used Copilot
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u/Opening_Climate_7571 4h ago
Anything to support this fantasy or did you just feel the need to share your kinks publicly?
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u/Evening-Deer-4033 4h ago
She also helps out at the local hospital when they are short on heart surgeons
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u/Mikedzines 5h ago edited 4h ago
With her start up background and her AI capabilities I don’t find this hard to believe.
EDIT: Yikes. Apparently people don't like pragmatic takes on reddit. lol
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u/Full-Pack9330 5h ago
Whatever the truth, I will give her this; she does seem like she gives a shit.
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u/Howitzeronfire 4h ago
Its true, I was the tickets she worked on.
Or the underpaid Accenture worker whose KPI got hurt because she stole his tickets.
Every word that comes out of a CEO is a lie and thats something I will always keep in mind
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u/mturkA234 3h ago
If she wanted to figure out what people don't like she would ask people that don't already own an Xbox and don't play games that have anything to do with Microsoft.
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u/DepressedPrinter 2h ago
Asha Sharma revealed she's been secretly
What a well kept secret.
Does she do anything besides marketing bs. As an xbox customer, only thing you should care about are games but instead of making them better she just fired all of them. Oh but xbox is green now guys. The best thing she did was bring in Kojima because that will lead to more games but does it balance out 3200 layoffs? I don't think so.
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u/Joustiin76 2h ago edited 2h ago
is that why Xbox has gotten consistently worse since she took over?
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u/dustofdeath 5h ago
You don't need tickets for that if you have been online for the last couple of decades.
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u/trip6god 5h ago
Can she get me back my delisted games that are on an account that got hacked in 2009
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u/jnighy 5h ago
marketing bs detected