The Xbox brand is facing another massive change as both Phil Spencer, CEO of Xbox, and Sarah Bond, the President of Xbox, are leaving the company.
IGN broke the story, citing sources who could not be named. Phil Spencer, who has been with Microsoft since 1988 and Xbox since 2001, has opted to retire effective February 23.
Sarah Bond would normally have been expected to take the role, but she is apparently resigning from the company. She’s been with Xbox for 9 years, taking the role of Xbox President in October 2023.
IGN got hold of internal Emails in which Microsoft’s head-honcho Satya Nadella thanked Spencer for his time at Xbox.
Asha Sharma, currently the President of Microsoft’s CoreAI product., will take over Spencer’s role as the final boss of Xbox. Meanwhike, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty is being promoted to Chief Content Officer, a brand new role within the company.
Interestingly, no new President of Xbox was mentioned. It’s unclear who will take on the role, or if it is being phased out.
According to the Emails IGN saw, Spencer told employees that, “Last fall, I shared with Satya that I was thinking about stepping back and starting the next chapter of my life.”
“Today marks an exciting new chapter for Microsoft Gaming as Asha Sharma steps into the role of CEO, and I want to be the first to welcome her to this incredible team,” Spencer told the Xbox division. “Working with her over the past several months has given me tremendous confidence. She brings genuine curiosity, clarity and a deep commitment to understanding players, creators, and the decisions that shape our future.”
Spencer also says he wil remain in an advisory role through the Summer.
As for Sharma, she is focusing on three core tenants, saying that she will focus on “great games. Everything begins here. We must have great games beloved by players before we do anything.”
Her second tenant is to “the return of Xbox”.
“We will celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console which has shaped who we are,” said Sharma. “It connects us to the players and fans who invest in Xbox, and to the developers who build ambitious experiences for it.”
Third is the “future of play.”
“To meet the moment, we will invent new business models and new ways to play by leaning into what we already have: iconic teams, characters, and worlds that people love,” Sharma told Xbox’s employees in her Email. “But we will not treat those worlds as static IP to milk and monetize. We will build a shared platform and tools that empower developers and players to create and share their own stories.”
Phil Spencer’s departure is a massive change for the brand amidst a time of already massive changes. He took over Xbox in 2014, shortly after the launch of the Xbox One which had left gamers with a sour taste in their mouths. Under his leadership, he steered Xbox back toward being for the gamers, including making Kinect a seperate product, instantly bringing the price of Xbox’s down to a more affordable pricepoint.
Also also spearheaded the launch of Xbox Game Pass, a massive shift for the industry. While the arguments over whether the subscription service has been good or bad for the industry as a whole remain, it was a titanic shift for gaming and a hail-mary play for a brand which needed to do something drastic to stay in the game.
And, of course, Spencer has also been at the helm of Xbox as the brand has fallen. Under his watch, Xbox bought out Zenimax and Activision-Blizzard for a staggering amount of cash each, and also brought in numerous other studios that have helped make Xbox the biggest publisher in the world. While he was in the big chair, Xbox came to own some of the biggest IP in the world.
Speaking of which, that’s Spencer’s current legacy – an Xbox that is now multiplatform, that publishes its games on PC and PlayStation.
I’m sure the debate of whether Spencer was good or bad for Xbox will roll on for years to come. Regardless of which it was, the man deserves some respect for taking on a difficult challenge. After all, Xbox was only top-of-the-heap once, and has otherwise been on the back foot for most of its existence.
But all of this leads to one question: did Spencer and his right-hand Sarah Bond go willingly, or where they pushed out? The fact that both of them are leaving at the same time is suspcious, and would seem to suggest that both of them are being dropped by Microsoft now that Xbox is heading into its new future as….er, whatever the hell it’s going to be.
The other option is that Bond in not happy with the fact that she isn’t going to be taking over the big chair and would rather just leave. Or she’s so loyal to Spencer that she just isn’t interested in the job without him there. After all, his departure will mark yet another big change for Xbox, so perhaps she simply doesn’t want to be involved with it going forward.
Spencer does address Bond’s resignation in his memo, which you read in full at Insider Gaming, but he simply says she wants to leave to begin a new chapter.
What do you guys think? Has Spencer’s run as Xbox CEO been good or bad? And is this really a retirement, or was this one of those big-company polite nudges out the door?
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