Feb. 20 (UPI) — Microsoft Gaming Chief Executive Officer Phil Spencer is retiring after 38 years at the tech giant and is being replaced by Asha Sharma, whom Microsoft hired from Instacart in 2024.
Sharma will become Microsoft’s executive vice president for gaming and report to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella.
Nadella said Spencer last year announced his decision to retire, and the company officials announced the pending change to staff on Friday.
Sharma will move from Microsoft’s CoreAI wing, where he was the company’s president of product development. He formerly was Instacart’s chief operating officer and before that was Meta’s vice president of product development.
Spencer is leaving the tech giant after former business development head Chris Young and Thomas Dohmke, former GitHub chief executive, departed last year.
Microsoft’s security systems head Charlie Bell also changed his role with the company but continues working in an individual capacity.
Microsoft’s video gaming revenues declined by 10% from December 2024 to December 2025, which exceeded the company’s expectations, according to CNBC.
Despite the tech firm’s reduced gaming revenue, it posted a 17% gain in revenue during the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to a year earlier.
Microsoft in 2023 bought Activision Blizzard and made its Call of Duty gaming titles available on its cloud service.
Competition for Sony’s proprietary gaming system has impacted Microsoft’s gaming revenues due to its Xbox system not matching Sony’s PlayStation or Nintendo’s Switch in popularity.
Microsoft has closed its gaming development studios that developed new titles.