Last Friday, Xbox awkwardly announced the news that Phil Spencer was stepping down from his position as CEO of Microsoft Gaming. It was further revealed that Sarah Bond would not be his successor and would be leaving the company altogether.
Now we might have more of an idea of how it was going on behind the scenes. According to sources speaking to The Verge, Spencer's decision to retire was not made at the last minute, but last year. Meanwhile, staff are said to be “relieved” to see Bond leave Xbox, having found her “difficult to work with” and disagreed with the way she and Spencer were pushing software onto hardware.
Phil Spencer decided to retire last year and Sarah Bond was not expected to replace him, according to a new report
According to The Verge, it is claimed that Xbox staff saw Spencer's retirement as “inevitable”. This comes after it has consistently failed to turn around Xbox's fortunes, hardware sales have declined and a wave of layoffs has seen huge games shelved.
However, as many of us outsiders suspected, it was reported that the news of his departure was not supposed to be announced on Friday. Rather, the news would have been shared with the public today, but Xbox had to get out quickly after learning that IGN was preparing to break the story. That's why, according to the report, Sarah Bond's social media was still pushing a post about her position at Xbox just hours before her own departure was announced.
Additionally, Xbox staff were reportedly unhappy with Bond's leadership as Xbox president. While he praises her ability to partner with other companies, she is otherwise described as “difficult to work with” and would reportedly not tolerate anyone on her team who disagreed with her vision.
Her and Spencer's vision may be what sealed their fate. The report states that they supported the “This is Xbox” advertising campaign, with Bond being particularly passionate about promoting game streaming, which is now seen as damaging to existing customers and Xbox's reputation.
Of course, these are all anonymous sources speaking at a time when there will inevitably be a lot of finger-pointing. No one would want to take responsibility for the disastrous actions that led to a huge hit to Xbox sales, and it's unlikely Bond made all of those decisions alone. Finally, Microsoft faced a tough decision by acquiring Activision Blizzard, something that has great potential but costs billions to overcome. Maybe if it didn't it would be easier to fix the other mistakes.
- Date of establishment
-
April 4, 1975
- CEO
-
Satya Nadella
- Headquarters
-
Redmond, Washington, United States
