Report: Former Xbox President Sarah Bond's direction "offended" employees — "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign deemed failure

Today marks the official first day of Asha Sharma as the new CEO of Xbox. Announced on Friday, Phil Spencer has retired, effective today, alongside former Xbox President Sarah Bond.

The shakeup, announced on Friday, was apparently a bit rushed due to an internal leak. At least, that is according to the latest report by The Verge.

The plan was to announce Phil’s departure today, on Monday, February 23, not Friday. However, a story had reached the front desk of IGN, and Microsoft wanted to get ahead of it by announcing it themselves.

You may have noticed the memo that went out, with messages from everyone that included Phil Spencer, Satya Nadella, and Asha Sharma. You may have noticed the missing person, Sarah Bond, whose own team was apparently caught off guard as well.

Reading a little further, it seems it wasn’t just the fact that she and her team were unprepared, but rather, she may have been unceremoniously said goodbye to. Not that she was fired, but many people at Microsoft didn’t like her direction.

Only a month removed from taking over the Xbox marketing team, “Microsoft delivered a marketing campaign that signalled people didn’t need to buy an Xbox console anymore. The message was that “you don’t need an Xbox to play Xbox,” because games were available through Xbox Cloud Gaming on TVs," as described in Tom Warren's report in The Verge.

“This was all part of the 'Xbox everywhere' strategy that Bond had been pursuing, a vision to move the Xbox brand beyond its roots in console hardware. Months later, the “This is an Xbox” campaign launched, with commercials that positioned a phone or a tablet as an Xbox instead of just a console. It was a confusing campaign, and I’m told it offended many Xbox employees internally.”

To make matters worse, it sounds as though she only surrounded herself with “yes men,” as those who didn’t jump on board were ousted.

“Most of the current and former Xbox employees I’ve spoken to in recent days are relieved that Bond is leaving Microsoft. I’ve heard from multiple sources that Bond has been tough to work with and built a team structure that meant if you didn’t follow the vision or questioned it, you were out,” writes Tom Warren.

“I understand that Bond’s strategy had been failing internally and been questioned multiple times.”

Even I thought the campaign was silly, as did many of our staff. Editor Jez Corden wrote on the "This is an Xbox" campaign it a while back, noting that it was the wrong message to send. Xbox is the one who can define what they assume to be an Xbox; it was entirely confusing for consumers, and definitely didn't help sales of their console.

I want to add that clearly, Xbox's higher-ups were okay with each and every idea that was pushed forward, as they all had the final say. Both Phil Spencer and Satya Nadella played a part in this and clearly gave the process their stamp of approval.

This report by Warren only highlights that "Xbox Everywhere" was her idea, not the multiplatform push or other aspects. I've seen some speculation that this is a potential "hit piece" by higher-ups at Microsoft in attempts to divert blame away from the brand — could that be true?

However, Sarah Bond was still President of Xbox since 2023, and in that position, she held power and made decisions that affected Xbox as a whole. From 2023 onward, we saw many of these multiplatform pushes beyond the initial PC offerings. Microsoft's multi-platform push began before Sarah Bond's tenure, as well, with Xbox exclusive Quantum Break hitting PC a while before she even started in the job.

While there has been a push since 2020 to add xCloud access and Xbox Play Anywhere to PC, it's clear the "Xbox Everywhere" marketing push alienated fans and was a step too far for many. The way I can best describe it is that other platforms initially felt like a companion to Xbox hardware, whereas the "Xbox Everywhere" marketing felt like an attempt to abandon traditional hardware.

One thing's for sure, it's not fair for Sarah Bond to be taking all the blame, even if this was ultimately her marketing decision. Others in the chain of command, at the end of the day, are there to say yes or no to decisions that don't otherwise align with the brand.

Phil Spencer’s retirement was inevitable

While I’ve heard from some insiders that Phil Spencer’s departure wasn't a random, sudden event, that didn’t stop some rumors circulating over the weekend that it was a recent decision. Like that of the KindaFunny podcast, where host Greg Miller said he received some information that pointed to this being more of an ousting rather than a friendly goodbye.

According to Tom’s sources, Phil Spencer’s retirement has seemed obvious to many, countering those rumors. Our own sources tell us that Spencer has indeed been co-ordinating retirement with Microsoft for several months.

“Phil Spencer’s retirement has seemed inevitable to Xbox employees, particularly over the past year. In February last year, Spencer took a long vacation, and I’m told some teams had to wait weeks for sign-off on some key changes. Shortly after this vacation, rumors started circulating inside Microsoft that Spencer was getting ready to retire.”

Obviously, as Tom also states, rumors began swirling in the press, prompting Microsoft to deny them and state that he wouldn’t be retiring anytime soon. I guess who really knows, but Phil has been around for quite some time, and will apparently be on board until October to assist Asha Sharma acclimate to her new role.

What do you think about Spencer's retirement and the Xbox shakeup?

There is a LOT to digest here, so we're curious as to what you think. Drop us a comment on your predictions for the next-gen leadership at Xbox and whether this is a good thing or bad!

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