The episode is media criticism, and it's opinionated. The Fortune profile it targets, though, contains real Xbox news. The biggest item is a reported internal price projection for the next Xbox console that should worry anyone who planned to buy one. Below, I separate the hosts' critique from what the reporting actually says.
The critique: "At least don't do the work for her"
Aftermath sums up the recent coverage with a sarcastic question: with Sharma cutting studios full of veterans, don't you want to know about her jackets and sneakers? The hosts single out Fortune's descriptions of Sharma as "a decisive boardroom boss" with "swagger" and "a remarkable knack for marketing."
Their main objection is to how Fortune opens. Writer Sebastian Herrera starts with Sharma coming back from a walking meeting on Microsoft's Redmond campus, crossing a 1,100-foot bridge to the Xbox building on a brisk September afternoon, and notes that more layoffs and studio consolidations lie ahead. Kerr, who covered the industry at Game Developer for nearly a decade and now runs the new independent site Vertical Slice, says the framing treats the layoffs as an inconvenience to Sharma, even though she is the one ordering them.
The hosts make several distinct points:
- The press-tour theory. Riley says the profiles look like a press tour. She thinks Sharma and Microsoft have every right to run one, but journalists don't have to help.
- The tech-messiah pattern. Grayson compares the coverage to early Elon Musk profiles that cast him as a real-life Tony Stark. In his view, new executives get turned into glamorous characters because layoffs and mistreated workers are less appealing to write about.
- Earn the praise first. Kerr says Sharma could one day be remembered as the person who saved Xbox, but the praise should follow results. He also points out the unequal stakes: a CEO who fails probably leaves with a golden parachute, while the staff below her face more job losses or even a sale of Xbox.
- Access is scarce. Kerr argues that games reporters rarely get any time with top executives, so a writer who spends days following Sharma around Redmond should use it to ask hard questions.
Aftermath has made this argument before. A recent Aftermath piece by Luke Plunkett went after The New York Times profile in harsher terms.
Section summary: This is criticism of framing and tone from journalists who say so openly. It is a reasonable argument. It is not evidence that any outlet coordinated with Microsoft, and the hosts don't claim that it is.
Does Fortune's profile hold up?
To test the "puff piece" charge, I compared the Fortune article with what Aftermath says about it. The descriptive details are there. Fortune calls Sharma a "jacket- and sneaker-loving executive" and describes the blue velvet chairs, NeeDoh stress balls and wedding invitations from fans in her office, her habit of chewing gum, her morning runs, her pour-over coffee and her taekwondo black belt.
The profile also contains more hard reporting than the podcast suggests. A summary of the business content:
- Finances. Fortune calls Xbox a $21 billion business. It reports that an internal Microsoft measure puts Xbox's profit margin around 3%, which it says is one-third to one-tenth of competitors' margins.
- Hardware share. Citing third-party estimates, Fortune says current-generation Xbox consoles have sold slightly more than a third as many units as the PlayStation 5.
- Layoffs. So far, Sharma has cut 1,868 people toward a planned reduction of 3,200 over the next year. People familiar with the plans told Fortune more rounds are planned for October, November and January, though Fortune notes those plans can change. Fortune also found at least one employee who was laid off and then offered a chance to stay.
- Game Pass overhaul. People familiar with the strategy say Xbox is planning a tiered Game Pass with à la carte add-ons for console-only games, cloud gaming and multiplayer. Engadget's write-up of the report also highlighted the potential à la carte restructuring.
- Hardware roadmap. Fortune reports a next-generation handheld by the 2027 holiday season and the next console by the 2028 holidays.
- Spinoff speculation. Several current and former staff members told Fortune they believe Xbox is being prepared for a possible sale, spinoff or outside investment. Commercial chief Judson Althoff rejected that, telling Fortune, "We would not have put her on a business we intend to sell."
Fortune also includes outside skepticism. NYU professor Joost van Dreunen calls gaming an "odd condiment" for an enterprise software company and suggests Microsoft may eventually "burn the furniture" to pay for AI. Former employees blame Game Pass for undercutting sales of full-priced games.
The other profiles vary in the same way. The Wall Street Journal piece by Ben Fritz, republished by Mint, is built around Sharma's motto, "Clarity is kindness." It also reports that Xbox revenue of about $23 billion is declining, that Game Pass has fallen far short of projections, and that 1,250 of the 3,200 announced layoffs had not yet happened when it was written. The New York Times profile carried the subhead "I think the industry will require disruption." Its full framing isn't available here, so I won't characterize it beyond that.
Section summary: Aftermath is right that these profiles spend a lot of space on personality and polish. "Fawning" is a fair label for some passages, but the pieces also contain unflattering numbers. A reader who skips the anecdotes still gets a lot of news.
The real news: a $1,200–$1,800 Xbox
This is the part that matters most to Windows and PC readers. Fortune says the price of the Helix console has internally been projected to cost consumers between $1,200 and $1,800, unless Microsoft decides to subsidize the cost.
Several outlets picked up the figure, and a few points about it are worth keeping straight:
- It is an internal projection, not a price. Microsoft hasn't confirmed any pricing, and a subsidy could bring the final number down a bit. Fortune doesn't say which configuration the range covers or what cost assumptions it uses.
- The baseline is already high. TechPowerUp noted that the current Xbox Series X with a disc drive sells for $799.99, and that is after the recent price hikes.
- A subsidy may be hard to afford. TechPowerUp also observed that Fortune puts Xbox's profit margin at around 3%, which probably doesn't leave much room for one.
- Memory costs are a big factor. Fortune links Xbox's hardware problems to memory-chip shortages. Trusted Reviews adds that demand for AI infrastructure has driven up prices for RAM and other hardware, making it increasingly expensive to manufacture high-performance devices.
- Helix may be more than a console. Engadget describes Project Helix as Xbox's next-gen gaming console that will also play PC games. It notes that in a different interview in August, Sharma hinted that Project Helix would be a "family" of gaming devices.
That last point explains Aftermath's question about the price: who is a $1,200–$1,800 console for? Fortune cites analysts who estimate the global console market is capped at roughly 200 million users per generation, with Gen Z and Gen Alpha drifting toward mobile, PC and Roblox. Sharma's stated goal is 1 billion daily users, up from roughly 100 million today. A console priced like a gaming laptop doesn't obviously serve that goal. If it ends up as a PC-compatible living-room machine, it would compete with mid-range gaming PCs more than with the PlayStation.
The Windows angle
One item in the Fortune profile matters directly to this site's readers. Fortune reports a revived turf battle between the Xbox and Windows teams over what software Helix hardware should run. Windows leaders reportedly wanted it to run a trimmed-down version of Windows Home, while Sharma's team wanted its own software for better gaming performance. It got heated enough that a senior Xbox executive reportedly threatened to scrap the handheld rather than ship the Windows build, though Xbox now seems to be steering the OS. Sharma played down the conflict, telling Fortune, "We can't build Helix on our own."
Fortune also reports that Helix engineering deadlines have moved up by at least several months, partly by leaning on AI tools. Sharma told the magazine she won't use "AI for AI's sake."
The open question for Windows users is what operating system a "plays PC games" Xbox will actually run, and whether the Windows gaming improvements Microsoft has promised will reach ordinary PCs or stay inside Xbox-branded hardware. Nothing reported so far answers that.
Where this leaves things
Both sides have a point:
- For Aftermath: Access journalism has a long record of being too generous to new executives, and an opening scene that treats layoffs as background is an easy target. Kerr's point that workers have more riding on Sharma's success than she does is fair, and many profiles skip it.
- For the profiles: The Fortune and WSJ pieces print the 3% margin, the staggered layoffs, the demoralized staff, the spinoff speculation and a console price that will alarm buyers. That is a lot of bad news for something described as image rehabilitation.
The practical advice is to skip past the wardrobe details and look for the numbers. Microsoft's quarterly earnings, which Fortune calls the next test of Sharma's turnaround, are due this month. Sharma says she expects financial improvement to start showing in fiscal 2027. Until the earnings, the layoff schedule and the Helix price are public, nobody, flattering or critical, can say whether the turnaround is working.
Bottom line: Aftermath's critique of the coverage's tone is fair and worth hearing. The more useful takeaway for Xbox players and PC builders is that, according to Fortune, Microsoft has internally projected a next console price in the $1,200–$1,800 range, and the Xbox and Windows teams are still fighting over what software it will run.