Sarah Bond dodges questions on Xbox studio closures

While on stage with Dina Bass at The Bloomberg Technology Summit the President of Xbox, Sarah Bond, was asked about the Xbox studio closures of Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Studios

[ApocalypseShadow]

Of course she did. She's part of the problem and will just tow the company line.

[VenomUK]

Bloomberg’s Dina Bass could barely read her scripted question without looking at her notes, whilst Sarah Bond who WAS expecting the question spoke without saying anything of substance or answering the question in any meaningful way. Clearly she’s had the same expert PR training as Phil, but this avoidance was disrespectful. In time the short-sighted decision to shut down Tango Gameworks will be seen as of the most notorious examples why Phil Spencer messed up his tenure in charge of Xbox. That’s a fully built out talented team that could’ve been put to work on any project.

Additionally, Phil Spencer should not be using Sarah Bond as a patsy for his mistakes- he should be answering that question.

[gleepot]

I think you are all really overselling Tangos value. Hi-Fi rush was a lot of fun. Ghostwire was incredibly dull. Evil within 1 and 2 were just okay.

[lucasnooker]

Evil within 2 was incredibly under rated. I thought that game was surprisingly good

[NotoriousWhiz]

Someone else said it best. I don't think it was a Phil decision. It was most likely a Satya decision. I think Microsoft is done giving out free money to Xbox.

[Cacabunga]

people please boycott Activision Bethesda next release and support Hellblade.
these people mus understand that they cannot treat their fans and employees that way.
scumbags.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Yikes you don't help Sarah 😬 making a problem worse

[Christopher]

She's playing her role. There's absolutely nothing any of them can say other than the truth, this is about profit margins and not quality, so they just don't answer anything and wait for gamers to forget.

[shinoff2183]

I think news is coming of more ps5 release but they gotta be careful cause Xbox is still sitting on store shelves. They can't get left holding all that stock

[Lightning77]

Come next month they'll flash nice looking games in our faces and expecting us to forget.

The only thing that'll be going through my mind at their showcase is how many of those studios will get shut down after release.

I'm not joking around either. MS probably expects every game to be like COD and do COD numbers. What a way to destroy gaming for the entire industry because they're dumb af at being realistic in what success means for each game.

[-Foxtrot]

Always feels she was brought in / promoted for this. Happened just before things started to be out in motion.

Phil and co have someone to throw under the bus and share the blame with

[zaanan]

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[darthv72]

....won't get fooled again

[Hofstaderman]

Like a deer caught in the headlights.....

[VariantAEC]

A deer that just learned how to speak English.

[notachance]

I always wondered why xbox had multiple leaders with similar titles like Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, and Sarah Bond, like, how many heads do you actually need?

Seems to me it would be more cost efficient to cut 2 of them instead of all those studios.

[DarXyde]

Frankly, I suspect she is the most competent of them. I don't mean that I like her more, I mean that she's the best at articulating herself and giving the talking points MS wants to give. The others are starting to sound more like her than her sounding like any of them.

Are any of these people "responsible" for what's happening? No. This reeks of Nadella. But that being said, I don't see any of the Xbox heads stepping down in protest.

"Don't shoot the messenger", sure, but at the same time, the messengers don't seem to take umbrage with the message. Not enough to remove themselves from it, anyway.

[CS7]

I disagree. Nadella is looking for profit as a CEO should in my opinion.

The problem is Dr. Phil & Co. had 10 years to bring Xbox back on track and have been failing woefully.

Phil needs to sell to Nadella that if we are to make a profit, we need to make great games. And to do that we need employees here for the long haul and the freedom to work on creative projects.

But as Phil said himself he doesn’t believe great games sell consoles.

[VariantAEC]

Profit is what keeps the conpany afloat from one month to the next. Selling a product people want is what keeps a company profitable. If Nadella is looking to profits first... he's running they company wrong.

[RpgSama]

Dude, 100%, forgot Major Nelson and Aaron Greenberg, like what is the point for all these suits? They have more C-level executives than games released in a generation.

This is just so they can all pass along the hot potato one at a time and in between all of them can say a lot without actually saying anything, misinformation at its finest.

[RhinoGamer88]

Sarah & Matt & Aaron are rich thanks to MS and XBOX. If you are in high executive-level gaming and getting $$$, you tow the line. Then after you retire or leave, you are a multi-millionaire (Phil is probably worth $25 million+) and can speak honestly about the past.

[PRIMORDUS]

I would have called her a fucking cunt right to her face. Because that's all she is nothing more.

[Reaper22_]

Lol...I'm sure she would probably call you the same to yours.

It sucks that these studios will close , but let's stop acting like this is the first or last time this will happen. It happens to every industry at some point. Sony and Nintendo has laid off people too. What amuses me is that why are people that don't even play xbox so upset about?

[PRIMORDUS]

I don't have Xbox, or PS5 but the studios they are closing made really good games. This is just not right. I would rather that cunt lol and Phil just leave the industry along with Xbox and just exit the game industry. And the studios that are under them, I'm certain other companies would pick up. Now Blizzard I don't give a shit for either, to me they can just leave now.

[Nacho_Z]

Well she's a person doing her job just like the rest of us. Are you a Fng Cnt for doing your job and being paid for it? Are you nothing more than your job?

[PRIMORDUS]

She's not answering the questions, and as I said being a cunt.

[Fonsecap]

If she's a Bond, of course she's good at dodging. She's Bond, Sarah Bond.

[-Foxtrot]

Makes me think of that video clip going around on Twitter with her and Phil talking about the closure of Lionhead and what they learnt from it so they didn’t repeat the same mistakes

[lellkay]

She's embarassing

[peppeaccardo]

On the same level of the whole XBOX team ....

[anast]

Starfield tanked these companies. MS overpaid for a past their prime company in Bethesda and now they have to strip it down to make money. Also, MS is going all in on AI game development along with their streaming and mobile aspirations.

[thesoftware730]

I think she answered the questions well enough; all companies practice PR talk, but she did say, plain and simple, that the industry isn't growing, game development has gone up in cost and time, and during a transition, devs are evaluated and cuts had to be made.

Now look at it from a different standpoint: Tango's main leadership left the company, regardless of who worked on what; Shinji left, so now you have Tango without its face and near to no hope of a good Evil Within(the biggest thing the dev has ever done). HI-FI rush was excellent, and I am sure some of the employees were moved to other studios, that game alone did not warrant a whole studio remaining open.

Arkane Austin, while they made Prey, and Dishonored(all old games now) their output hasn't been spectacular, and we can blame Phil and anyone else we want, but Redfall was a disaster, on top of them being the weaker of the Arkane branches. Cuts had to be made and it seems logical for these two companies to be on the chopping block.

We can talk about the fact that they spent 80Bill on A/B, but if anyone had 1/2 a brain, they should know that these studios closing was a part of a bigger restructuring and not only because they bought A/B. The big picture can be seen when you look at the executives' restructuring, which was bound to come along with trimming devs and minimizing money and resources spending.

The loss of jobs is always devastating, but it has been going on for a few years now; gaming is changing, and MS is in 3rd place in this sector, making power moves(Acquisitions) and restructuring(cutting studios and changing key management) is what must be done. We often take things personally due to our passion for this hobby, but we often make huge assumptions based on that passion, which often leaves us with tunnel vision; sports, video games, and politics are the most fanboyish things we engage in, and only see what we want.

[ApocalypseShadow]

Shilling isn't pretty.

Aggressively buying publishers and developers that made more money on the competition's platform, then shutting them down or firing them while gaining IP control is not a good look. Millionaire executives selling companies to other millionaire executives through consolidation has always, ALWAYS hurt employees and consumers.

They spent 80+ billion, BILLION with a "B," while not investing in their own developers. Taking away games from consumers who actually kept these developers afloat from actual purchases of their games. And putting those games on a service that kills their game sales in favor of promoting a service. That's not valuing the product. Only the profit off the product.

Restructuring... What kind of nonsense are you spewing? They could have done that without buying up third party publishers.

Shinji left because he knew Microsoft wasn't a good fit as most Japanese developers know. But had no control of his company after the buyout.

[shinoff2183]

Although we'll thought out and wrote. I think there's alot more going on at Ms then what's being said in your post, thesoftware730

[PrecursorOrb]

Maybe she’ll circle back lol

[Psychonaut85]

God I’m so tired of the soulless corpo mouthed hacks. Haven’t said a genuine sentence in their entire career. Reminds me of the BP president bit in South Park, “Sorrryyyyy” while naked on a bear skin rug.

[TheSenorCheese]

The interview that wasn't.

[gold_drake]

of course she did.

shes not any better than phil

[Aussiesummer]

no waayyyy.

[S2Killinit]

Oh god these xbox execs are so horrible…

[Knightofelemia]

Just like a politician you will never get a straight yes or no or even an answer to the question. They lie and they like to play that miss direct or read off topic tactic. The Liberals in Canada do it all the time. And even if they are the root of the problem or created the mess they will deny it and pass it off to someone else or pass the blame to someone else. I am not surprised if she is the root or part of the cause to the problem.

[CrimsonWing69]

Here’s what I don’t get, did Hi-Fi Rush sell well? Because it doesn’t make sense to shut down a studio if it’s making money.

[Traecy]

It did well critically but probably didn't sell well especially when most could play the game through Gamepass.

[OneLove]

These guys arnt the head of microsoft. What else would you expect? They would get fired with the quickness.

[Demetrius]

Of course they'll dodge questions it's like tryna ask a politician is there a area yall can set up funds support for us Americans lmao HELL NO🤣 they probably drove the folks away who were originally in the 360 era of creativity

[esherwood]

So is she the one directly under phil? Great there’s no relief in site, going from Phil Spencer to a dei hire there’s no chance of Xbox surviving this

[Profchaos]

When Xbox started it was a passion project pushed by blackly now it's a business pushed by arrogance and greed

Sarah bond was on a video a few years ago talking about their mistakes around shutting studios instead of nurturing and they wouldn't do it again.

Lie after lie I can't take much more. Looking back at segas departure from hardware at least it was reasonably graceful and respectful even if it was a shock at the time