Turns out Xbox wasn't too big to fail, it was too big not to

Asha Sharma doles out the hard truths and the hard cuts — and is clear about who she thinks is to blame (not her) It's not often, as someone who writes analysis of the mysterious workings of video game companies, that a CEO does your job for you. It's more common to find yourself reading the tea leaves of their gnomic LinkedIn-speak and translating it, or attempting to translate it, into words and concepts that make sense to normal people who live in the real world. Imagine my surprise on Monday, then, when Xbox CEO Asha Sharma published this devastating summary of what Microsoft's gaming arm has been doing for the past five to eight years. It displays what I can only describe as admirable clarity and brevity, as well as a bracing disregard for the feelings of any of her predecessors: Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happene