The gaming community freaked out last week when Seamus Blackley, the original creator of Xbox, claimed the console was sunsetting in an interview with Gamesbeat. However, if you read the interview or his comments on Bluesky, you’ll realize he meant that something at the core of Xbox feels off: The console he built is in “distress.” Blackley speculated that the February shuffle of Asha Sharma from AI executive to executive vice president and CEO of Microsoft Gaming means the product is in “palliative care.” Xbox is not shutting down, but many were quick to believe the headlines, as there’s a dark cloud over the industry right now. What happened? While gaming experienced an unprecedented high during the pandemic, artificial intelligence crept up behind it. AI’s proliferation in the gaming industry is already accelerating job loss and cheapening the work of developers at studios now scrutinized by anti-AI gamers. Data centers have siphoned RAM from the industry, resulting in a global memory shortage. This has driven up the costs of hardware required for consoles, stalling releases …