Amid the leadership shakeup at Xbox, news has broken that the brand’s controversial “This is an Xbox” campaign was also contentious internally. Microsoft’s gaming division has had an uneven few years, with the brand seeing great success as a game publisher but struggling to find its footing in the hardware space. Now it seems Xbox employees also questioned some of the company’s bolder moves.
Xbox sent shockwaves across the gaming sector recently when it announced Phil Spencer was retiring as Microsoft Gaming CEO and that Xbox President Sarah Bond was also stepping down. It was a surprise not only because Spencer had been the face of the brand for so long, but also because many had assumed Bond would be next in line to replace him. The situation likely involves far more internal factors than the public is privy to, but as more about the leadership change comes out, it sounds like there might’ve been more conflict at Xbox than met the eye.
Outgoing Xbox President Sarah Bond Issues Statement Following Departure News
Outgoing Xbox President Sarah Bond issues a formal statement following the confirmation that she will be departing from Microsoft.
Insider Claims Many Microsoft Employees Found ‘This is an Xbox’ Campaign Offensive
Industry insider Tom Warren posted an in-depth take on Xbox’s leadership shift, revealing that sources told him the “This is an Xbox” campaign “offended many Xbox employees internally.” The strategy was emblematic of the Sarah Bond era’s focus on pushing beyond exclusives and hardware to bring a cohesive experience to all platforms. While the goal of capitalizing on a larger install base may make some sense, many found the campaign to be confusing and questioned if moving away from consoles was a good decision. Notably, former Blizzard President Mike Ybarra put “This is an Xbox” on blast, saying “only a moron” would continue to make hardware while making all games available everywhere.
Despite this public shift away from consoles, or at least away from console exclusivity, Bond insisted that hardware was still core to the Xbox brand and fan experience. The company did come out with new systems under Bond in the form of the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, but these weren’t enough to lift console sales as a whole. While games from Microsoft-owned studios like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Forza Horizon 5 sold well when they came to competitor’s consoles, Xbox’s hardware sales have struggled. According to Warren, the company’s hardware revenue has fallen for three consecutive fiscal years and looks like it will keep falling through 2026.
The “This is an Xbox” strategy is likely not solely to blame for this decline, as gaming hardware as a whole has faced an uphill battle lately, but it seems like it didn’t help. Warren also reports that this apparently offensive marketing campaign was not the only source of conflict internally, saying multiple sources told him Bond was difficult to work with. According to his anonymous inside sources, “if you didn’t follow the vision or questioned it, you were out,” which would make the controversial “everything is an Xbox” spirit hit all the harder. At the same time, these sources praise Bond for her skills as a deal-maker, which notably include overseeing much of the legal drama surrounding Xbox’s Activision acquisition, having taken charge of the company almost immediately after that process began.
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Regardless of how contentious things may have been under the surface at Xbox, all eyes now turn to the future. With Bond and Spencer out, there are a lot of questions around where the company will go from here. It’s rumored that the next Xbox console may be delayed because of the RAM shortage, so there’s a chance that rollout could go in a different direction from where it was headed under the previous leadership, but it’s impossible to say for certain. Whether the brand will move away from “This is an Xbox” is likewise a mystery that only time will clarify.
- Brand
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Microsoft
- Original Release Date
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November 10, 2020
- Original MSRP (USD)
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$499
- Operating System
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Proprietary (Windows-based)
- Processor
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Custom AMD 8-core Zen 2 3.8 GHz
- Resolution
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720p – 4K UHD
Source: The Verge
