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According to The Verge's Tom Warren, who spoke with over a dozen current and former Microsoft employees, Sarah Bond's controversial "Xbox everywhere" strategy had been failing internally for months, and most Xbox staff are relieved she's gone.
The "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign, which launched in late 2024, has been singled out as particularly damaging. The campaign repositioned phones, tablets, and smart TVs as Xbox devices rather than emphasising the console itself. Warren reports it "offended many Xbox employees internally," representing a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Xbox brand meant to its core audience.
Non-existent mobile store announcement
Bond had been pursuing the "Xbox everywhere" vision since her October 2023 promotion to Xbox President, pushing mobile and cloud gaming over traditional console hardware. This included the botched announcement of an Xbox mobile gaming store at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in July 2024 - a store that still doesn't exist nearly two years later. Microsoft proceeded with the "This is an Xbox" campaign anyway, despite the mobile store's failure.
The pivot hasn't worked. Xbox hardware revenue has declined for three consecutive financial years, with no sign of reversing throughout fiscal 2026. Warren's sources describe Bond's approach as "chasing tomorrow's customers by neglecting today's," a strategy that alienated Xbox's existing fanbase whilst failing to deliver meaningful mobile or cloud growth.
Bond was reportedly tough to work with
Multiple sources told Warren that Bond was "tough to work with" and built a team structure where questioning the vision meant you were out. Her tenure saw key departures including Xbox executive Kareem Choudhry in early 2024 and former chief marketing officer Jerret West months later, leaving Bond directly overseeing marketing — just in time for the disastrous "This is an Xbox" campaign.
Warren also reported that Bond carefully managed her image to appear as a gamer like Phil Spencer, when in reality she wasn't. Combined with the strategic failures, this contributed to what Warren describes as inevitable departures for both Bond and Spencer.
New Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma has explicitly promised "the return of Xbox" and a move back to the "renegade spirit that built Xbox in the first place" — a clear rejection of Bond's strategy. Whether Sharma, an AI executive with no gaming industry experience, can deliver remains to be seen.
