Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is spending part of every month inside the company’s customer-support queue. A Wall Street Journal profile says Sharma devotes a few hours each month to responding to tickets so she can understand the problems Xbox players face and how difficult those problems can be to resolve.
The detail has spread online with an extra claim: that Sharma worked anonymously and players did not know who answered them. The original report does not say that. It also does not state exactly when she started, how many tickets she has handled, or whether her name appeared in any replies. The confirmed part is that she personally responds to customer-support tickets for a few hours each month.
What Sharma is doing inside Xbox support
Sharma took over Microsoft’s gaming division in February 2026 after working in consumer and product roles at Microsoft, Instacart, and Meta. Microsoft later updated her title to CEO of Xbox. Her introductory message promised a renewed focus on core Xbox players and on understanding what they value.
The profile says the support work showed Sharma how complicated one player’s problem can be to fix. It does not identify the kinds of tickets she answered or name a specific account, game, service, or hardware issue that she resolved.
Handling cases herself gives Sharma a direct view of the steps a customer must take after something goes wrong. It is still a small sample. A few hours each month cannot represent every issue across Xbox consoles, PC, cloud gaming, Game Pass, and Microsoft accounts.
The practice fits Xbox’s wider player-feedback push
Xbox introduced Player Voice in May 2026 as a place where players can submit feedback, see when it has been received and reviewed, and follow updates when the company has progress to share. Xbox said the portal complements its support forums, Insider tools, and social channels rather than replacing them.
In its June reset memo, Xbox described Player Voice as an always-open channel for hearing from players, creators, and developers. Support tickets show a narrower part of that relationship. They come from people who need help with a specific problem, not only from players suggesting a future feature.
Xbox players will judge the results, not the gesture
The support-ticket detail arrives during a difficult restructuring across Xbox. Xbox said in June that it expected an accountability margin of about 3% for the fiscal year. Excluding Activision Blizzard King, the company said it had invested more than $20 billion over five years while annual revenue declined by nearly $500 million. Microsoft also announced major job cuts across the gaming business in July.
A CEO answering support tickets does not prove that Xbox support is faster or more effective. Players will see a benefit only if recurring problems reach the teams that can fix them and the company explains what changed. The report does not connect Sharma’s ticket work to a specific product fix, staffing decision, or service target.
The verified story is narrower than the anonymous-CEO version now circulating: Sharma spends a few hours each month inside Xbox’s customer-support process and responds to real cases herself. Players have not been given enough information to know whether they ever received one of her replies.
