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[Punished Miku]

Phil got help from the people that had been asking him questions. He was there for making his mea culpa and found himself in what I would say was a AA reunion, and was met with so much love and understanding that he had to force his excuses out of nowhere.
Here we are in public, and by a generalist media who don't really care about that. So there is no help, no desire to understand. Just basic questions: what happened? Why? Why tango in particular?
Phil would have probably been better. But his position would have made the questions even harder to answer, because unlike Sarah he can't say bullshit and have the newbie protection if you see what I mean by that.

I just think people radically underestimate his communication skills. 1. Iwata. 2. Spencer. 3. Everyone else.

 

[March Climber]

Either explain what's going on, or advise that there are changes afoot and the answers will come later.

Second part, fair. First part, you sure? That feels like it would be equivalent to pouring gasoline into a fire.

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

I don't believe Phil has spoken on these closures at all right? I wouldn't really know unless someone posted it here.

For someone with "great communication skills" to be out of the PR loop like this doesn't bode well for him. Maybe he will show up next month after the showcase or someone else will be there in his place.

 

[Hayabusabruh]

Biden's press secretary called. She wants her word salads back.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

I just think people radically underestimate his communication skills. 1. Iwata. 2. Spencer. 3. Everyone else.

Spencer PR had been good for almost a decade now. Of that I am 100% with you.

 

[XXL]

There is indeed a bit of word salad. Lol.

But it's not all word salad, there are some nuggets in there.

She mentions 10 games (aside from Pentiment every game is massive) and never mentions GamePass, they usually never shut up about GamePass.

She talks about Indiana Jones and not Hellblade 2 when talking about what they have coming up. Again, never mentions GamePass.

Hellblade releases very soon (on GamePass), that's not normal.

She also mentions being in a time of transition and that's why they made this decision to maintain the viability of the business.

It's not all word salad, they are trained to talk like this.

 

[bitbydeath]

Second part, fair. First part, you sure? That feels like it would be equivalent to pouring gasoline into a fire.

Depending on how bad it is, yeah.
The current answer shows they have something to hide which is not a great sentiment for those holding out hope on Xbox’s future either.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

She's smart enough to be nervous, but she is just literally not saying anything. Gotta do better to get to even 30% of Phil's PR ability. Gotta just say more shit directly. The BS doesnt work, especially now. Compare this to the Phil Redfall interview. She's not got it yet, at all.

Phil has 10+ years of experience spitting bullshit. (not really convincingly I must add)

 

[Raven117]

Corporate jibberish

 

[Little Chicken]

Thank you for your time, grace and dignity, Sarah

 

[KXVXII9X]

I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. Very odd responses.

Part of me kind of feels bad as I wouldn't want to be in her shoes right now, but another just seems frustrated and confused on how out of touch she sounds.

 

[Lord Panda]

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.

So what the fuck are the success criteria for the fucking Xbox leadership team then? To see how much shit they can destroy before they get their golden parachutes?

 

[Loomy]

Depending on how bad it is, yeah.
The current answer shows they have something to hide which is not a great sentiment for those holding out hope on Xbox’s future either.

You're absolutely right, they have something they're not sharing yet.

I think the point some of us are getting at is there was no reason to do this interview right now. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment and assume they actually have a plan and aren't just closing their eyes and cutting random shit. The time for this interview would be when they're done with the studio reorganizations or "realignment" and they're ready to talk about the strategy behind the cuts.

That way they could explain why they did it in a way that we could go "Oh, that sucked. But at least it's being done for a good reason and I'm looking forward to seeing the results of this intentional and thoughtful realignment"

As it stands, she spent over 15 minutes saying absolutely nothing and nobody feels any better about any of it. She definitely doesn't.

Hellblade releases very soon (on GamePass), that's not normal.

That is the other fucked up thing with the timing of this. Aaron Greenberg who was somehow promoted to VP of Games Marketing tweeted that they had a global campaign(any marketing, really) for Hellblade 2 starting - for whatever reason - this week...2 weeks before the release.

So either they knew they were going to close those studios this week and thought the Hellblade 2 marketing would drown out the news, or they didn't tell their marketing team that they were going to be doing this(which is understandable).

But they could have waited til after the summer to do this. Because between now and the showcase in June, everytime someone looks up Xbox, they're going to see news of the studio closures.

 

[Skifi28]

They setting this poor woman up

This "poor woman" is getting paid 20 times what any of us is and probably knew what she was signing up for.

 

[Loomy]

That "poor woman" is getting paid 20 times what any of us is and probably knew what she was signing up for.

I think she 100% knew she was being set up to be the face of the 20 other disasters coming their way this year when she accepted the promotion last year. To be honest, for what she's making? I'd take the job too.

 

[//DEVIL//]

What a shitty answer that has no meaning whatsoever

Q: why did you shut down a studio that had a hit and won an awards like few months ago ???

A: I love the creativity in the industry and it’s one of the coolest things ..


What the actual fuck !!

 

[hybrid_birth]

I feel sorry for the poor souls at restaurants Sarah Bond eats at.

Waitress: Can i take your order?

Sarah Bond: Did you know about the tower of italy? It is leaning. I have many impressive games that papa phil made for me.

Waitress: What the fuck do you want to eat lady i have other customers waiting.

Sarah Bond: jkadf k afdjfkl eafneoklwgelrngkwjegjreg jwejk gfkwejgnflkaixszadlk fklewktfg pdofv

Waitress

:

 

[Katatonic]

XBOX go away already.

 

[Edgelord79]

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

Situation is fluid.

 

[Iced Arcade]

She answered with an avoiding non answer.


Obviously she was trained by phil

 

[ByWatterson]

"If you want to play smaller, original first-party titles, we have a console for you - it's called Xbox 360."

 

[MasterCornholio]

@adamsapple
Your wife is saying nonsense stuff.

Thats Phil after he loses his balls.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

If my 15 years in legacy media taught me anything, sometimes the disasters are so severe it is better to just shut your trap and work hard to regain at least semblance of reputation and dignity.

This is precisely a disaster like this. And while Bond words are clearly written by OpenAI software (and what you expect from her in the middle of this dumpster fire?), it's a clear setup for her on Phil's part. It his job to speak for the broad company, and he had one job: shut the f up and work hard to produce good games insted of weak excuses.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Wow. Awful answer.

Should have started with the Phil usual, "We have never been this excited about the future of Xbox ..."

 

[Dorfdad]

Fucking word salads man….

Was she Kamala Harris’s roommate in college? WTH is up with these people and trying to talk in circles when they don’t have answers?

 

[Kurimao]

 

[T-0800]

That question was the first time she heard of Tango and Hi Fi Rush.

 

[Companion Cube]

Her face/body language said more than her words did. There’s no good reason for any of this other than short sighted greed.

I hope staff at other MS studios realize it could be any one of them now that they’ve set that precedent.

 

[Alan Wake]

Sh

Phil is a bastard for this.

Now you wanna let her speak alone?

She is the Xbox boss now after all.

 

[SaturnSaturn]

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"

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Biden's press secretary called. She wants her word salads back.

I was going to say, she'd make a great press secretary.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

xbox will go the way of stadia

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.

 

[Meicyn]

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

 

[Spooky Scary Skeleton]

The amount of verbal diarrhea that explodes out of some people's mouths just to avoid the question never ceases to amaze me.

 

[Alan Wake]

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.

The gaming division will. Xbox won't.

 

[squallheart]

She must have gone to kamala Harris public speaking seminar.

 

[N30RYU]

Yeah... we know leaders that can't lead and manage studios... nothing new

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

The gaming division will. Xbox won't.

xbox won't what?

 

[havoc00]

shes pretty hot tbh

 

[Killjoy-NL]

She's smart enough to be nervous, but she is just literally not saying anything. Gotta do better to get to even 30% of Phil's PR ability. Gotta just say more shit directly. The BS doesnt work, especially now. Compare this to the Phil Redfall interview. She's not got it yet, at all.

The BS doesn't work, yet Spencer was nothing but BS most of the time.
It was only when he conceded the console wars that he started feeling more genuine.

 

[Alan Wake]

xbox won't what?

Going to exist. Not as a console and likely not as a platform at all.

 

[semiconscious]

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.

i live in canada, & we have a prime minister who does this all the time, in response to just about any question. he repeats (for the umpteenth time) one of a dozen or so previously memorized talking points that fundamentally isn't even in the ballpark as far as a relevant response. &, if the interviewer says 'well, that doesn't really answer my question' (which is, unfortunately, a rarity), he will simply repeat, almost verbatim, the exact same pre-memorized talking point. it's just so goddamn weird that things've come to this, this utterly bizarre type of synthetic/robotic 'leadership'. I mean, with 'leadership' like this, who needs ai?...

 

[iamvin22]

Said absolutely nothing
They setting this poor woman up

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

 

[LordBlodgett]

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.

I may not be the most hardcore Xbox gamer here, but I'm not going to tolerate this shit. I've purchased around 900 games on the Xbox since 2015 when they announced backwards compatibility, essentially choosing to buy every single third party game on the Xbox rather than elsewhere. I am currently building a PC, and bought around 15 games for PC just over the last few days to replace my Xbox games. I'm jumping ship. I really loved backwards compatibility, and I thought that this was proof that Microsoft was in it for the long-haul. I've also been a huge supporter of Gamepass, and have played a ton of good games. I turned off my auto renew for that as well. In the future I will keep my Xbox systems around just for games in my collection which cannot be purchased on PC. It will act much like my PS5, it will exist for exclusives only.

 

[bitbydeath]

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

Good money though.

 

[Panajev2001a]

but at least he understood you needed aa and smaller games.

I think Phil was the start of Microsoft Gaming culture over Xbox’s culture, you are romanticising him again.

 

[THE DUCK]

Not a great answer, basically just said it didn't fit the criteria they were looking for. She looked very unhappy with what happened or the question in trying to answer it, but I suspect she was trying not to seem like she didn't give a crap for fear of being vilified.
Regardless, I'm surprised she went on so soon after the announcement. Maybe they wanted to put a human face on the big bad Corp.

 

[ahtlas7]

Really makes you wonder how Xbox has such a following.

 

[TropicanaTwista]

Wow. Awful answer.

Should have started with the Phil usual, "We have never been this excited about the future of Xbox ..."

How could you forget the patented "Gamers, we're listening and we hear you".

 

[balls of snow]

Yep about what I expected. Corpo speak for we have cod now so byeee.