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[DenchDeckard]

"For Xbox to deliver on its promises"

What are those exactly? Coz it can't be delivering good games from great studios...

There's not much left for fans to defend at this point. I'm saying this as a fan and it feels embarrassing to even admit to being a fan of the platform.

 

[Dr. Suchong]

Waterboarding is the only way you're (eventually) going to get a straight answer out of her mouth.
Sounds like a politician.

 

[Denton]

"You know, one of the things I really love about the games industry is it's a creative art form, and it means that the situation and what success is for each game and studio is also really unique, there is no one size fits all to it, for us, umm, and so, we look at each studio and each game team and we look at a whole variety of factors when we're faced with sorta making decisions and tradeoffs like that, uhhh, but it all comes back to our long term commitment to the games we create, the devices we build, the services, and insuring that we're setting ourselves up to to be able to deliver on those promises. " - Sarah Bond, President of XBOX.

That is fucking hilarious.

 

[Radical_3d]

I love how she nods at the end like “yeah… that!”

 

[Fabieter]

Imagine the audacity of Phil thinking he should also buy nintendo. This guy should have left the industry like 20 years ago.

 

[Alan Wake]

Been saying this since last year. Phil set her up to take the blame for everything Xbox and she fell for it.

That's unnecessary conspiratorial. She's not new to this industry, she's been around for a long time. No matter what she does and says now as president of Xbox, Spencer can't hide from his own responsibility as he had that position for a decade before climbing up to the role of chief of Microsoft Gaming.

 

[Shifty1897]

More evidence that Xbox has absolutely no idea what's going on within its own company, and more proof that there is no overall strategy. Phil Spencer is just rolling a D20 when prompted with any decision and everyone else is just reacting on the fly.

 

[TwiztidElf]

Xbox serious about Japan.

 

[Cyborg]

Unfit for leading a gaming company as she is a corporate manager with no interest in games.

 

[crackajack]

The whole thing is just weird. We already had downsizing a few months earlier and kinda everyone understood that the covid high ended and now team sizes got back to "normal" levels. No specific explanation were asked back then. This just might have been delayed a bit, but why even? Both had nothing announced and seemingly nothing convincing cooking, so why not just do this step already while all other big lay offs happened and it would hav ewent more under the radar? Her non answer makes it not better. There was not even some spin to anything, just empty words.
But iirc when those layoffs happened it was already said that more is coming/expected the entire year, so MS might just be ahead in the second round and more mass lay offs and some studio closures might happen?

 

[SJRB]

Soulless corporate ladderclimber talks soulless corporate speak while being soulless about something that upset a lot of people.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Its clear as day that the Acti/Blizz buy triggered additional oversight into the xbox division, its obviously a decision made by nadella and jill braff (new head of bethesda/zenimax) got tasked with what companies to cut, xbox will go the way of stadia, run by a bunch of people with no interest in games with only mba's. It will spell disaster, you can say what you want about phils buisness skills, but at least he understood you needed aa and smaller games. Guess his "experiment" is over and MS is running the show.

MS will have more focus on fewer games, only AAA and no diversity in the portfolio it seems to me is that path forward that xbox will take.

Also the "Noooo she was setup to fail by PHIL SPENCER how DARE HEEEE" posts are ridiculous. She is a woman that has never played a game in her life, its clear as day in her interviews, look forward to her, JIll Braff and likeminded people running the gaming side of tings with nothing more to go on then a spreadsheet of profitability, lmaaaaaao it will be a disaster. Also bet that old phil will step down this year, making way for some new "talent"

In 2022, she received Visionary Award from GamesBeat in 2022 for her contributions to the industry.

The worst is gaming media actually putting these people on a pedestral even. As much as Phil is shit talked and rightfully so at this moment, he did have vision and he did understand gaming. He started off well after Mattrick left, trying to make gaming its primary focus again and backing it up. But he likely got too much power within MS.

 

[FunkMiller]

Gotta give it to MS, their PR training is on point.

The exact opposite, I’d say.

 

[RoadHazard]

Utterly ridiculous non-answer. It sounds like she's answering a completely different question.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I like how the interviewer leads by suggesting Hi Fi Rush had great engagement numbers when in reality it had putrid engagement numbers. What a clown.

Sarah Bond responds with word salad vaguely explaining that Hi Fi Rush flopped.

It's absurd how many people are trying to trick themselves into believing Hi Fi Rush did well.

 

[GHG]

The art of saying a fucking lot of words that doesn't means anything and neither answers your question.

The real question is how long Xbox users gonna tolerate this kind of attitude.

They've been tolerating it for well over a decade, why stop now?

 

[Bert Big Balls]

Funny thing is if she just came out and was brutally honest, no matter how fucked their reasoning was, at least she'd get a tad of respect for it.

 

[winjer]

The art of saying a lot, while saying nothing.
To think that so many studios are under psychopaths such as her, is very concerning for the gaming industry, for developers and for gamers.

 

[rofif]

She is so full of shit.
Her expression was always so fake and robotic

 

[Zheph]

You don't get in those positions by being honest and sweet

 

[PropellerEar]

I like how the interviewer leads by suggesting Hi Fi Rush had great engagement numbers when in reality it had putrid engagement numbers. What a clown.

Sarah Bond responds with word salad vaguely explaining that Hi Fi Rush flopped.

It's absurd how many people are trying to trick themselves into believing Hi Fi Rush did well.

 

[kyussman]

I wonder if she is a big fan of The Evil Within games,lol.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Unfit for leading a gaming company as she is a corporate manager with no interest in games.

Then she should have refused the promotion. The way up at Microsoft is through Azure and services, not Xbox division.

 

[Cyborg]

Then she should have refused the promotion. The way up at Microsoft is through Azure and services, not Xbox division.

You take what you can get apparently.

 

[winjer]

Most people that know the history of Microsoft in the PC space, know very well how evil this company is. There is a reason why Microsoft has so many cases of Antithrust, Tax disputes and consumer class action lawsuits.
Console gamers are just now realizing that Xbox is a part of Microsoft and how much this company doesn't care for developers and consumers.
This is not just an issue with Phill Spencer or Sarah Bond. This is the culture of the whole company. And the reason why these 2 are leading Xbox is because they fit this corporative culture.

 

[Mr Hyde]

What a garbage non answer. She could at least be honest about it. This is just an insult to Tango and the fans talking shit like this. Urgh I absolutely despise these people.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Most people that know the history of Microsoft in the PC space, know very well how evil this company is. There is a reason why Microsoft has so many cases of Antithrust, Tax disputes and consumer class action lawsuits.
Console gamers are just now realizing that Xbox is a part of Microsoft and how much this company doesn't care for developers and consumers.
This is not just an issue with Phill Spencer or Sarah Bond. This is the culture of the whole company. And the reason why these 2 are leading Xbox is because they fit this corporative culture.

 

[cireza]

A good interviewer would have requested an actual answer. Wasted opportunity.

 

[nemiroff]

Yeah, that politician-speak was embarrassingly blatant.. Oh well..

 

[Radical_3d]

As much as Phil is shit talked and rightfully so at this moment, he did have vision and he did understand gaming. He started off well after Mattrick left, trying to make gaming its primary focus again and backing it up.

I disagree. He started off saying that he was making gaming it’s primary focus, but what he really did was start the horrible idea that is game pass, focus on 3 franchises and canned Scalebound.

 

[winjer]

A good interviewer would have requested an actual answer. Wasted opportunity.

Bloomberg is also a major corporation. They might do some tougher questions, but they don't want to alienate Microsoft, because they want to have the next interviews.

 

[DirtyBast8rd]

shes pretty hot tbh

You get my simp of the year award. Let me go to the toilet and shit it out for you.

 

[solidus12]

 

[Lucifers Beard]

Is she a politician? Because that was a text book politician response. Xbox couldn't be more disconnected from their community. What a fucking joke.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Remember how fast Google bailed out of gaming.

if MS has indeed taking over Xbox. it is almost certain the gaming division is not going to exists in 10 years.

Which is why some of us warned that Microsoft owning culturally relevant IP’s and studios like ID and Doom, Bethesda and TES/Fallout, Blizzard and Warcraft/Diablo was a risk to our hobby.

And here we are, not even a year has passed since the Activision acquisition and we have a bunch of mba generic execs with no knowledge, interest or passion for the medium running the show.

 

[nemiroff]

Most people that know the history of Microsoft in the PC space, know very well how evil this company is. There is a reason why Microsoft has so many cases of Antithrust, Tax disputes and consumer class action lawsuits.

Console gamers are just now realizing that Xbox is a part of Microsoft and how much this company doesn't care for developers and consumers.

This is not just an issue with Phill Spencer or Sarah Bond. This is the culture of the whole company. And the reason why these 2 are leading Xbox is because they fit this corporative culture.

Yes. But there is really not something particularly special about Microsoft at helicopter view in this regard other than its immense size. And because in this instance they are close to this particular hobby of ours, it kinda hits harder. At the end of the day no business on this planet are our friends, including the other usual suspect big companies. They all tend to generate cycling negative headlines from time to time as seen in recent events regarding Sony.

 

[ProtoByte]

They could at least divest in the studios/IP. We're well on our way to getting nothing but COD, and other live services games from XBOX. Sarah literally was grasping for words in her response, because she herself knows that there is absolutely no defense or valid reason as to why they closed Tango, or Arkane, especially with the leaderships promise of supporting AA games, and even Redfall post launch. Consolidation FTW.

There is a good reason, just an embarrassing one that flies in the face of Yeats worth of lies and propaganda:

Contrary to the prophecy of Phil Spencer, people actually need to pay for games to continue to be a worthy investment. Gamepass does not jive with the financial reality of the industry, and consumers, despite talk about smaller games and new IP (particularly in the face a garbage AAA pipeline from a console manufacturer) were not willing to pay for Hi-Fi Rush or Ghostwire Tokyo or Redfall. And for that matter, Evil Within 2, Prey and Dishonored before any of this were the financial deadweight on Bethesda that had them ready to sell in the first place.

Tango and Arkane Austin (and Lyon too if those guys mess up with Blade - no goddamn clue why Marvel gave that to them) presented a cost that did not offer a high enough benefit. The "warchest" is not endless, and the more that's taken out of it, the more scrutiny and accountability will be put onto its usage.

 

[Shtef]

It sounded like this

 

[midnightAI]

I saw the thread title and thought 'oh, here we go' in a sarcastic manner, and I'm not wrong. She gave a complete non answer to the questions, thats some going, definitely trained by Phil.

 

[Revolutionary]

Thread should be retitled "Sarah Bond dodges question about Xbox closing studios"

 

[midnightAI]

Wow, errr, here's a first, something I agree with ColtEastwood on

 

[aygomyownroad]

Time to cancel that Xbox Gamepass subscription.

 

[Woopah]

How would you guys have answered this question if you were appointed to that interview?

"The decision to close any studio is never an easy one to make, and I want to start by thanking that talented team for all their contributions to Xbox.

We conducted a review of the structure at Zenimax, to see where it would be best to invest to deliver value for gamers and our other stakeholders. And unfortunately we saw that, to be able to invest the right level of resources to create great experience, we would need to focus those resources on a smaller number of studios.

We are now having discussions with our impacted colleagues, and offering support such as severance packages to help them through this tough time."

 

[PharaoTutAnchAmun]

How would you guys have answered this question if you were appointed to that interview?

What about answer the dammed question and not some PR mubble tumble damagecontrol spin.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

shes pretty hot tbh

The alanah thread is just next door if you need a wank

 

[panda-zebra]

 

[Reaseru]

Behind all that money, the Xbox division is nothing but a house of cards, and the leadership far away from the days of the original Xbox and 360.

 

[Gaelyon]

Copy/paste from the other thread:



That is absolutely embarrassing. "Let me answer your questions by answering none of your questions by speaking as ambiguously as possible"





Question: Why did you close Tango?


Answer:
"You know, one of the things I really love about the games industry is it's a creative art form, and it means that the situation and what success is for each game and studio is also really unique, there is no one size fits all to it, for us, umm, and so, we look at each studio and each game team and we look at a whole variety of factors when we're faced with sorta making decisions and tradeoffs like that, uhhh, but it all comes back to our long term commitment to the games we create, the devices we build, the services, and insuring that we're setting ourselves up to to be able to deliver on those promises. " - Sarah Bond, President of XBOX.


Not really sure what to think of the current state of XBOX, but it's very contradictory of the leadership team to spout all the pro-gamer stuff that they have been, proclaim things to be great successes, but then turn around and DOOK all over it. XBOX is cooked.

They could at least divest in the studios/IP. We're well on our way to getting nothing but COD, and other live services games from XBOX. Sarah literally was grasping for words in her response, because she herself knows that there is absolutely no defense or valid reason as to why they closed Tango, or Arkane, especially with the leaderships promise of supporting AA games, and even Redfall post launch. Consolidation FTW.

It's a word salad of nothingness. She has absolutely nothing to say and that's embarrassing, insulting even toward the hundreds of devs just fired and the fans.

She could be even brutally honest and say "we buy a very large publisher and choose to focus on high profit project, so we decided to trim and cut those smaller studios..." but of course she can't be honest and she can't say anything to justify Tango closure so she just say corporate salad IA generated vague prospect crap.
It's so condescending from people earning millions yearly but unable to communicate with decency, firing whole talented teams with an email.

 

[Denton]

Replying to "why did you close studios" with "I love this industry" is a level of cringe I thought was unachievable.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

This is what you can expect from a diversity pick at an exec position. AI-generated responses.

I don't believe she's taking any decision on her own, everything that's happening right now comes directly from Nadella.