Something about Sarah Bond's exit from Xbox stinks

There are more than a few things that just don't add up for somebody who probably deserved better than to go out like this.

The gaming world is still reeling from Friday's sudden upheaval at Xbox. I still remember the note from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. I remember the message from new Xbox head Asha Sharma. I also remember the outgoing message from the "retiring" (with the heaviest of air quotes) Phil Spencer. I even remember hearing from Matt Booty, who seems to be the last member of the old Xbox guard standing. However, the more time that passed without hearing from now-former Xbox President Sarah Bond, the more something felt off. She did eventually post an outgoing message to her own channels, but that did little to alleviate that feeling that something was amiss. Then came Monday and, as the day went on, I grew more certain than ever that there was something rotten about Sarah Bond's departure.

IGN was the first to run with the story of the Xbox division's shakeup. It happened at the end of the work week, which is where big companies like Microsoft seem to love to dump their bad news. Shortly after IGN's report, the bigwigs at Microsoft and Xbox weighed in. Nadella talked up the new leadership of Sharma and Booty, citing the latter's experience and the former's recent body of work at Instacart and Meta. Sharma affirmed a commitment to rebuilding the Xbox brand, though a Gamertag that seemingly surfaced overnight doesn't inspire much confidence. Booty expressed confidence in Xbox's future.

There was a lot of talk of history, the leadership that Spencer showed in his time with Xbox, and the goals for the future under Sharma. However, there was almost nothing said about Bond. The only mention of the former Xbox President was a brief note from Spencer that she had decided to "begin a new chapter." Bond hadn't posted her own goodbye as part of this series of emails. In fact, she had posted on LinkedIn earlier that day about improving Xbox accessibility features, seemingly implying that it was business as usual. Something didn't smell right.

Bond would eventually pen her own standalone memo on her own channels. She talked about taking the next step in her career, helping Sharma with the leadership transition, and musing about whether she did the best job that she could have. Regardless of opinions on that, something still didn't feel right. Why did Bond have to issue her own statement? Why couldn't she say goodbye alongside Spencer, with whom she had worked with for many years? Bond was as much of a key figure at Xbox as he was.

The questions that many had at the end of Friday were still there on Monday. Then came a report from Tom Warren at The Verge. It pointed to a Sarah Bond that supposedly masterminded the whole "This is an Xbox" campaign, which Microsoft had categorized as a failure. That's bad enough, but the report didn't paint a much better picture of Bond. She was difficult to work with. She wasn't as much of a "gamer" as Spencer. Her persona was manufactured. Is all of that true? Anything's possible. Speaking from my own experience in life, though, I recognize when someone is being scapegoated.

The timelines already weren't adding up. Bond going from a normal day at the office to deciding that this was the day to walk away? That doesn't just happen out of nowhere. Warren's report suggests something more galling. Xbox had been underperforming for a long time and the higher-ups at Microsoft needed to shake things up. But, more than that, they also needed somebody to blame. I make no illusions of Spencer's "retirement," especially after Kinda Funny's Greg Miller pointed to sources indicating that this shakeup was not planned. Read between the lines and it's fair to assume that Spencer's exit was less of a "retirement" and more of an opportunity for him to go out as a grizzled leader. It was a firing without calling it a firing. In fact, Spencer got to be celebrated. He got a pat on the back from Nadella, he got to be the guy who worked his way up to leader of Xbox, led the brand through the past decade, and was beloved by his peers.

Sarah Bond, who was the seeming heir apparent to the Xbox throne before Friday's shakeup, got no such celebration. According to Warren's report, she got the lion's share of the blame for Xbox's shortcomings. One person is not solely responsible for a whole ad campaign. There had to be more than one chef in the kitchen to come up with something like "This is an Xbox," whether it was Spencer and Booty to give the thumbs up or Nadella to sign off on it, so laying the blame on Bond should offer an idea of how little Microsoft ultimately thought of her in the end. More than that, she got slapped with the label of being "difficult." Ask any Black woman in any position of authority, whether it's politics, corporate business, or any other line of work, about the racial coding of that label.

Aftermath's Luke Plunkett mused on BlueSky that "sports journalism readers know a regime change hitpiece when we see one." I'm a sports fan myself and I certainly understand this. When things aren't working, fans want change, but their desire goes beyond that. They also want somebody to blame. There's a visceral need for a villain. Not only does it allow people to assign a target blame for a company's woes, but doing so also conveniently offers a false sense of comfort. "Oh man, things are looking up now that that person is gone!" is what they'll say.

I've never met Sarah Bond, unlike many of my colleagues in the gaming media. With that said, whatever a reader's opinion of Sarah Bond and her tenure may have been, I recognized her as somebody who helped make ID@Xbox what it is today. I saw her as an advocate for indie developers, as someone who wanted to push accessibility in gaming forward, and as a confident voice for Xbox. I'm not about to pretend that things were all sunshine and roses under her, Spencer, and Booty. On the contrary, things were getting pretty bad at Xbox with the move away from exclusives, the de-emphasis on dedicated hardware, the push for cloud gaming, and the wild mismanagement of developers under their umbrella, many of which were purchased by Microsoft during their tenure. On top of all of that, their messaging was often so poor, and I know this, because a lot of us here at Shacknews were right there to call them out on it whenever it happened.

But, I will say this, and I preface this by saying that all of this is one man's opinion. Everything I'm saying could be wildly off and maybe, just maybe, Sarah Bond really did leave Microsoft of her own volition. Maybe in the hours between advocating for accessibility at Xbox and the moments before the shakeup announcement, she decided it was time to leave. Maybe she did decide to fall on her own sword and take the rap for many of Xbox's bad ideas. From everything I've seen and from my own experience, however, something stinks about all of this, so I'm just going to end on this note: Sarah Bond deserved better than to be Microsoft's latest scapegoat.

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