Xbox fans had been anticipating the retirement of Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer for years, but what most hadn’t expected was the departure of Xbox president Sarah Bond too. For many outside the company, Bond seemed like Spencer’s natural successor, a deputy of sorts.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Microsoft CFO Amy Hood clearly didn’t agree.
Instead of picking Bond for the role, Microsoft promoted Asha Sharma, a former Microsoft AI executive, to the top of Xbox. The decision to overlook Bond might have surprised many Xbox fans, but for the more than a dozen current and former Microsoft employees I’ve been speaking to, it’s felt inevitable in recent months.
Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s long-term Xbox chief, made the decision to resign from Microsoft last year after a tough few years for Xbox. The giant Activision Blizzard acquisition had dragged on for far longer than Microsoft had anticipated, and the need to grow the business saw Microsoft walk away from Xbox-exclusive games in favor of a multiplatform strategy. Microsoft has also been trying to reinvent the Xbox brand beyond the console, with mixed results.
Spencer’s decision led to months of careful successor planning. It was announced to the world on Friday, but it was supposed to be today. Microsoft was forced to announce early because it started to leak and IGN was planning to run a story, according to sources familiar with the situation.
That kicked off a day of chaos, where teams inside Xbox were hearing the news first through reporters and news outlets, instead of via internal memos. The team running Sarah Bond’s social media accounts was so unprepared that a LinkedIn post inviting people to provide feedback about Xbox accessibility features went live just before her departure was announced. It sat there for hours, until Bond’s team eventually posted her own memo.
Microsoft executives shared four memos with Xbox teams on Friday, but only Phil Spencer mentioned Bond. Satya Nadella, Microsoft Gaming EVP Matt Booty, and new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma all had kind words for Spencer, but no mention of Bond. Even Bond’s own memo to her teams didn’t arrive until hours after the announcement and wasn’t part of Microsoft’s blog.
Some Xbox employees I’ve been speaking with saw the writing on the wall for Bond last year. She was promoted to Xbox president in October 2023, just days after Microsoft finalized its $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard. Bond had been crucial in getting the deal over the line with regulators and slowly started to become the face of Xbox as Spencer took on the complicated duties of integrating a huge new business into Microsoft Gaming.
Six months after Bond’s promotion, Xbox executive Kareem Choudhry, who reported directly to Bond, departed Microsoft and triggered another shake-up of some teams inside Xbox. Choudhry was key to Xbox’s backward compatibility support and helped bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to life as xCloud in 2019.
Just weeks after Choudhry departed, former Xbox chief marketing officer Jerret West also left Microsoft in June 2024. That meant the Xbox marketing team was now reporting directly to Bond. A month later, Microsoft delivered a marketing campaign that signalled people didn’t need to buy an Xbox console anymore. The message was that “you don’t need an Xbox to play Xbox,” because games were available through Xbox Cloud Gaming on TVs.
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