Yes but Satya also did so by neglecting the consumer businesses for enterprise and especially cloud. Azure is his big W. He’s always been amazing for business partners and shareholders, but he’s never been as great focusing on the consumer businesses. So I get why people don’t like him. People specifically, not shareholders or business owners.
I would think it was Phil who did the most for Japanese support on the Xbox with getting Atlus, Square and the likes of SEGA’s Yakuza Team on Xbox again
I actually believe Don Matrick did a far better job than Sarah Bond; since 2024 Xbox brand’s standing has been dragged into the gutter & last year, Xbox had the worst black friday ever, some its worst console sales ever & ‘This is Xbox’ one of the worst self-defeating promotions one has ever seen, where you are promoting ever other system bar an actual Xbox console… All that was on Sarah’s watch, so I’m glad to see her go, myself
There’s a difference between actual damage and perceived damage. Don did ACTUAL damage. Xbox’s financials were a mess and Microsoft was about to shut down the business. Xbox shrunk a ton during that time and we saw a lot of studio closures. Sarah did perceived damaged based on “who you ask”. The fact that we even have a different perception of whether she was good or bad for Xbox says it all. At the end of the day people were just mad that she and Xbox weren’t doing things the way things had been done in the console space decades ago. People’s “bad vibes” from her are more based on community talk and social media takes than actual data. Actual Series Console sales have been fine. The issue is that they haven’t grown from the Xbox One, but how much of that is on a specific marketing campaign not even a full two years old vs the long cross Gen support (COD STILL launched on last gen in 2025), forever black hole games, stagnating console market as new generations move to PC & mobile, terrible inflation, awful economy, COVID supply chain issues at launch, and now AI induced shortages? One could argue that the “This is an Xbox” campaign was evident of a company that knew it’d become more expensive and more difficult to produce consoles, so they pushed hard with their expansion strategy to be ready in the interim before next gen. Current Xbox console owners were never the target. It was a campaign meant to tell all the literal billions of gamers out there who aren’t even considering a console that they can be an Xbox gamer in other ways. It was the community who decided to take that negatively, and again neither Phil nor Sarah are marketers. People don’t make sense and actual value is difficult to communicate. Perception does matter. If it didn’t McDonald’s would’ve died out and we’d all be eating 1/3 pound burgers instead of quarter pounders. Apple wouldn’t be nearly as popular as they are if feelings didn’t matter.
However, perception also doesn’t rewrite reality. I’m not telling you based on my opinion, but what Japanese publishers and developers themselves have posted about Sarah. I’m repeating what has been shared by people in the industry who worked with Sarah and partner with Xbox today because of her. She put a LOT of work into building Xbox up and especially with building relations within the industry. You don’t have to think because Phil himself has praised her efforts. I’m not saying it’s a matter of one doing more work than the other in this area, but that they both did invaluable work and the people that matter in the industry have vocally shared as much. And again she was credited with getting ABK across the finish line. The difference between Xbox as a company now and when Don left is night and day. You can barely compare the two. Don got Xbox put on the chopping block and Phil & Sarah evolved it into one of Microsoft’s new business pillars. We can have different opinions on Sarah, but neither of our opinions change the reality of Xbox as an actual business. Just like as much as people love the original Xbox, it doesn’t change that that machine was a financial disaster and unsustainable mess that was losing Microsoft billions to the point that they rushed out the 360 to stop the bleeding.
I mean, if this is really just about the “This is an Xbox” campaign, you’re kinda saying it yourself. Sarah’s actual innovations at Xbox aren’t going away. Cloud gaming has seen incredible growth and will continue to evolve, and Xbox Everywhere is already evolving further along. What will 100% change is the marketing & execution: enter an actual CEO with a background in marketing.
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We had studio closers under both Phil & Sarah & under Sarah, the worst console sales in Xbox history at the end of the day Xbox One sold far better than the Series X & talk of Xbox pulling out of the console battle , still hasn’t gone away.
I don’t think Xbox lost any money during the Xbox One era. That system no doubt, was more profitable than even the 360 console era given that the console was sold at big loss, Xbox didn’t make any actual profit until 2007 on the back of Halo 3 & I would imagine most profits were wiped out with the $1 billion bill to fix 360
It’s nice to see the new boss talking up Xbox & console gaming… she’s already doing a much better job engaging & talking to Xbox gamers on social compared to Sarah. I wish no evil or harm to Sarah, but, in my opinion, she wasn’t up to the job.
I have new hope now & am super excited for the new console & simply can’t wait for the summer showcase 
Don Mattrick certainly did a better job nearly killing the brand than Sarah did. People need to look at facts instead of relying on “vibes” when it comes to this kind of thing. People have been trying to throw her under the bus for what was largely Satya and Amy Hood’s initiatives causing Xbox to lose mindshare. ( along with other factors) It’s weird.
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Let’s dial this back a bit and clear something up. Don Mattrick literally launched the Xbox One to boos and hisses and then dipped. He has a longer history at Xbox, but he literally crashed the ship and took the first lifeboat out. Phil took over leadership in 2014 but everything was VERY shaky after Don. It wasn’t until 2017 that he was made executive VP in charge of gaming reporting directly to Satya (before gaming and Phil were under Windows). That was also the same year that Sarah Bond joined as a VP in charge of gaming business development and partnerships. Sarah did her job and she did it really well. Xbox is financially stronger than it’s ever been, the platform has more third and first party support than ever, and unlike Nintendo and PlayStation Xbox is setup for longevity beyond the console market. She wasn’t brought on as a marketer. Phil just found himself leading after Don left him a sinking ship.
It’s actually wild to me that there’s an expectation for the CEO in charge of an entire business to engage with fans online. That’s bonkers. That’s why companies have marketing departments. Literally none of the other console platforms do this. Phil did it because he’s really just a gamer himself. That’s both good and bad because he got caught up in a lot of stuff because he engaged too much online (he was arguably too transparent for the turbulence of business). Regardless, where does Sarah come into this? Sharma isn’t replacing Sarah, she’s replacing Phil as CEO Microsoft Gaming. Sarah was promoted to president of Xbox, but only under Phil as they transitioned with the ABK and Zenimax acquisitions. President of Xbox seemingly doesn’t exist now.
Anyway, the success of the Xbox One was still Phil and Sarah rebuilding after Don just failed and left. You seem most critical of a marketing campaign that’s started at the end of 2024 (IIRC). At most that’s 2 years out of Sarah’s 9 at Xbox, and as I keep trying to say marketing with gamers was neither her nor Phil’s strong suit. Now there’s someone whose trained in marketing with experience engaging with consumer platforms whose by all accounts steering the same Xbox ship that Phil and Sarah rebuilt to be a sturdy behemoth.
And Xbox IS a behemoth now. I mean what metrics are we going by to say the Xbox One era was more financially successful?? Even without ABK Xbox had been growing it’s revenue consistently post 2020. Then ABK happened and it jumped another 10 billion. Part or that is directly in line with Sarah’s business strategies to support gamers everywhere including the Xbox One with Xbox not pushing for upgrades as much as Playstation. For Series console sales we only have estimates but those estimates put Xbox at 30 to 45 million in five to six years. That’s fine. Even then Xbox is able to continue to grow financially through gamers on Xbox One, PC, Cloud, and even other console platforms. Xbox has also massively grown its first party content pipeline, and studio closures haven’t been bad compared to the rest of the industry and certainly not compared to when Xbox nearly self deleted it’s first party output entirely. From XGS there’s only the iniative (should’ve been closed even sooner) then it’s Zenimax with a mobile game studio, support studio, and the Arkane that couldn’t turn a profit (also Tango but they were sold), and from ABK Toys4Bob went independent (good for them honestly). Xbox still went from like less than five studios to nearly 40 and having several of the biggest games on all platforms.
You can have whatever opinion on Sarah, and again neither she nor Phil have my sympathies. What I’m saying is that it’s buckwild to ignore all that she did for Xbox and insane to suggest she was worse the Don. Hell, why is the buck even stopping at her when she was never in Phil or now Sharma’s position as head of all of gaming? Sarah’s position currently doesn’t exist. Sharma isn’t taking over from Sarah, she’s taking over from Phil. All we have are insider “leaks” about how some people inside of Xbox may have felt towards Sarah and how Sarah executed strategies as leadership, but even then we KNOW Sarah reported directly to Phil Spencer who was CEO of Microsoft Gaming. It’s kinda approaching witch hunt levels of hearsay. By all measures even we can say Sarah did her job well, and now someone else is coming in to take over a job higher than hers and do a job different than what Sarah was there to do. Ideally the roles built up within Xbox to do better at partnerships and business development will handle that and Sharma will do what she’s there to do.
That’s my manifesto I guess. It got away from me because the more I wrote about this, the more weird it seems to me that people are going out of their way to decide that Sarah specifically was the reason everything they didn’t like happened and someone other than Sarah was the reason why everything they did like did happen. It’s weird that people are making comparisons to her in Sharma when Sharma would literally be Sarah’s boss if Sarah was still at Xbox. Their positions and powers aren’t even the same. Much less their roles at Xbox. I think it was for the best Sarah didn’t replace Phil, but I also have no idea what Sarah Bond CEO of Microsoft Gaming would’ve even been like.
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I disagree Sarah was not the CEO she only played a part and when the CEO of Microsoft pushes for 30 percent what exactly were you expecting? Also, regarding the Japanese support thing, I do recall that it was said that maybe her dad or someone in her family had direct relations with Sega which was instrumental to them coming aboard. To me she was pushing in the direction she was led. Also, Asha hasn’t really done anything, only time will tell.
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Agreed also Sarah wasn’t fired she resigned. I believe they probably had a role for her and might be why there wasn’t a quick address from her.
I think Laura fryer is quite correct on her assumptions here
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I skimmed but there’s also a very down to Earth take mentioning how the blame game is dumb with anonymous sources pointing fingers. But also the reality that that game is going to be played and Sharma will benefit from it. It does very clearly give people a renewed feeling where it had gotten to a point that no matter what Phil or Sarah did they were getting hate from somewhere. Like if the quick resume update launched under them then they’d get flack for “too little too late”.
It’s fresh new energy at Xbox. They probably also really wanted to do this ahead of the Summer because even after the Dev Direct people were just feeling negative. The energy at Xbox had gotten stale. Now there’s new leadership and, more importantly, Satya is changing things at Microsoft on the whole to improve the consumer facing businesses which allows the new leadership the ability to actually make changes to improve Xbox’s relationship with consumers. It’s a good recipe.
I’m no fan of Dan, but Xbox hardware sales were far healthier, given the Jaguar chipse, basic DDR3 & bog-standard GPU, it wasn’t like the Xbox One was a technical monster (other than the audio block) that would be sold at a massive loss
I agree Phil saved the brand and did wonders for Xbox, but while Sarah was in charge, the Xbox name & sales only went one way & last year, even revenue was down a big margin
Sharma has been much more positive & I personally love talk like… Return To Xbox
Thats fine,
Some like to say the 30% isn’t real & just gutter talk on social media, so who knows but 30% seems a ridiculous figure, if true
I’ve been a massive fan of SEGA since the Master System days; apparently everyone has relations at SEGA Japan, most usually good golfing butty’s 
For me, Asha has done far more than Sarah in just a couple of weeks. Granted one doesn’t know or isn’t privy to what both contreput behinds the scenes.
Like you say, time will tell
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Hardware sales are fine. They’ve kept pace with the Xbox One but are slightly less. The real issue is a lack of growth, but the entire console market has to deal with that. Plus there’s a LOT of reasons we could point to for why hardware sales are what they are. There’s not even a clear thing to point fingers at there.
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Hardware isn’t everything especially when Microsoft is taking a loss on each console sold. In the age of Fortnite, Xbox is more financially if gamers who only play the same game and buy Microtransactions DON’T upgrade. Beyond that Xbox has become so much more than just console sales. It’s really a power move at this point that they as a publisher hold so many of the biggest games out there and are making new ones.
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I’m still confused by this, Sarah was NEVER in charge. She was president of Xbox, but that might as well have been an honorary position (which it now seems like) because she was under Phil Spencer in his new role as CEO of Microsoft Gaming IN CHARGE of everything gaming at Xbox. In terms of actual dynamics it doesn’t seem like anything changed, but internally who knows. Sarah likely did gain more responsibility, but she also didn’t seem to be doing anything she wasn’t already doing. Regardless, now that position entirely doesn’t exist and the new boss you’re praising has moved into Phil’s role as CEO of Microsoft Gaming not Sarah’s as President of Xbox.
Okay now we’re being delusional and unfair to Sarah. No, Sharma has not done more for Xbox in two weeks than Sarah has in NINE years. I don’t even think you believe that because it’s so far removed from reality. Sarah joined Xbox during the peak years of the Xbox One and the peak years of the brand when they were building up the platform with Xbox Game Studios and improved third party support and new business models. It’s crazy that Sarah Bond joined Xbox for gaming business development and partnerships in 2017 the same year Xbox Game Pass launched. Phil didn’t make all the good decisions in a vacuum. He didn’t singlehandedly build the business back up nor did he single handedly gather support from around the industry. Heck, all Sharma has done so far is improve upon the Xbox platform & ecosystem that came into being under Phil & Sarah’s tenure. We very much don’t yet know what Sharma’s Xbox will be. To pretend that Sarah has done nothing for Xbox in nine years is actually insane. The actual implication here is that what, Sarah should’ve posted on social media everytime she did something? Praise from her colleagues and Phil isn’t enough? She can get credited with getting the ABK aquistion over the finish line and that’s still having done nothing for Xbox?? Going back to the Xbox One, Sarah was there for more of Xbox One’s successes than Don was. Mattrick EJECTED the second it failed to launch.
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Why do you think this is ridiculous? And what should it be?
Trying to learn about financial analytics as they apply to multi year software development.
I have some experience with professional service industry and 30-40% margins are pretty normal. But obviously, software development is very different.
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Such a true statement. vibe talk drives me crazy. even on the podcasts there is tons of vibe talk taken as fact. I would really like to see more sourcing when certain claims are made.
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So what is and isn’t real on social media…?? You seem weirdly focused on putting a lot of blame on Sarah who wasn’t even in charge of gaming. She’s not even in the role Sharma is now or that Phil was in. It’s all a lot of hearsay and insider “leaks”. Why the laser focus on Sarah? The buck stops at either Phil or Satya, and Sarah has been at Xbox for 9 years during some of the biggest community wins. In reality it’s never a single person responsible for any decision or change or development or whatever that you do or don’t like. Xbox is a platform and ecosystem. There are people at every level responsible for every win (especially every win) and loss with the community. Leaders do have greater responsibilities for the losses and hard decisions, but I don’t understand why that’s solely falling on Sarah (especially when she was never in Phil or even Sharma’s position as CEO of Microsoft Gaming). I’m not saying you should love or hate Sarah. Feel however you want about her. But she has also factually done a lot for Xbox (a lot that gamers love) and that shouldn’t be glossed over anymore than criticisms on her should be.
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The 30% is definitely real otherwise this multiplatform drama would not have started at all. The Japan thing she has been widely credited on. Asha hasn’t done anything yet. She’s riding on the work and accomplishments of her predecessors. When Phil came in back in 2014, he immediately removed Knect and reduced the Xbox price. Microsoft pretty much cemented the multiplat strategy on Phil and Sarah. Asha didn’t come in reversing anything yet, just shouting consoles all the time and a few dashboard tweaks is not going to change anything. I do have hopes for her but to me she hasn’t changed anything that makes a difference. I’m not going to say Bond was great, but I felt she didn’t really get the chance as she was still under Phil and shared responsibility with Matt Booty. We will see how Asha handles the June showcase because I think that is where the heat will begin to get really hot.
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Agree with everything you laid out here. The former leadership team began the impossible with this xbox transition that will become helix plus the ongoing transition into cloud.
To the console box counters out there, this was never going to go over well. And we have seen this in the gaming media over time. Unfortunately, it’s just going to get worse. Helix isn’t going to blow the roof off with sales numbers. Box counters need to come to grips with xbox transitioning players to any windows device.
It will be real messy trying to calculate success in the future. There will be people still on xbones, series, cloud, helix, and windows (xbox store and battlenet). There won’t be a box sales number to go head to head with nintendo or sony.
The only way out of this is for xbox to release a mau number that is targeted toward the console/pc core and removes their mobile numbers. This will give the core the warm and fuzzy feeling that they are on a winning team.
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No need to be insulting & condescending. How many Video Game companies operate with a 30% margin?. Maybe Nintendo can with their huge software sales, but one would doubt many others do
& yet there was a push back over the 30% on here by some of the staff.
I’ll never have a go or pop at Phil & only have huge thanks & respect for what that man did for my beloved Xbox. Sarah just seemed to drag Xbox brand down & did little to talk up consoles
Not a big fan of Matt Booty mind, it must be said, but we’ll see how things are, come the showcase
How much of Cloud growth is due to Xbox Cloud rather than gaming on Azure? Since you have experience.. To game on Xbox Cloud , you need Game Pass, correct?. Can you explain why the growth of cloud with Microsoft is not matched by that with the growth of Xbox Gamepass