Xbox’s new CEO, Asha Sharma, says the console business is facing a hardware “crisis” and warns that the market needs to provide consumers with cheaper options if it wants to survive. In a new interview with Fortune, Sharma explained that soaring costs of components like memory and storage have broken the old pattern in which consoles launch at a high price and then become cheaper over time. Instead, she says the bill for a new generation of hardware could reach “thousands of dollars” for players, which she argues is not realistic for a mass audience.
Sharma says Xbox is working on “radically different business models” for its next console (currently known as Project Helix) to keep entry costs under control. In the interview, she discussed the need for lower‑spec machines, flexible payment plans, and deeper partnerships with telecom and hardware providers to give players more affordable entry points into the Xbox ecosystem.
The next Xbox is expected to have a more PC‑like architecture and work closely with cloud services, but Sharma stresses that Xbox must “think about what is needed for console” rather than chasing the most powerful box.
This perspective could take a few different approaches. For players, this could eventually mean more hardware tiers, subscription bundles, hybrid devices that use both local hardware and cloud processing, and more. Meanwhile, the console industry should probably keep in mind that the traditional model—creating hardware that gets more expensive with each generation—might soon expire.
