Interviewer: Why did you close those four studios? Sarah Bond: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious...

She's been to the Todd Howard school of how to say a whole lot of nothing

That is the most generic Corporate/ChatGPT response I've ever heard.

The excessive blinking really gave away the fact that she hated that questioning

Remember in 2021 when she was in a documentary about Xbox and she said how wrong it was to close down Lionhead and that they would not make that mistake again.....

It's criminal how 343 escaped the chopping block instead

Crazy how they offer the “poor man’s option” with gamepass and then are shocked when the games don’t sell anymore 😂 I can’t

Phil Spencer should be answering those questions.

My boss calls it the compliment sandwich, compliment - bad news - compliment. Also she gave the most South Park ass answer I’ve heard

She blinks a lot when she is nervous

Real Answer: Bethesda was leaking money from a hundred holes and they had to cut staff. Wolfenstein team wasn't going to be cut, neither were ID games and Doom or the in-house Bethesda team as they had to spin up more people to make the Fallout game that everyone wants, so that only leaves Arkane and Tango. Both companies had founders/heads leave recently, Lyon has Marvel's Blade which MS wants and Machine Games are doing an Indiana Jones game with Disney. It's a no-brainer that Arkane Austin and Tango are the ones to go when you look at it from that perspective.

MIss Universe response 😂

Yeah, they set her up. Phil and Matt dodged a bullet.

Phil and Matt really said "BOND! Go out there! Take our fall"

Spoiler Alert she doesn't addresses anything 💀😭 Spencer and Booty letting her get all the heat lol

Sarah Bond didn't decline to answer the question. She just did what Xbox and every fanboy of theirs has been doing for the past 11 years; stonewalling!

They sent her out to be the crash dummy. It should’ve been Phil or Matt on stage.

How is it healthy long term to close a successful studio (tango gameworks) who just recently released a massive hit? Xbox / Bethesda will be dead in a few years if big changes don’t happen

First of all Shawn Laydan of PlayStation was the one who sounded the alarm, many years ago, about the gaming pie not getting any bigger. And man, I feel like Sarah Bond feared for her life here lol. You can see the pain and fear in her face, the mannerisms, the blinking. She was sent out there to die on the Microsoft sword lol and I don’t think that the market is shrinking. It’s shrinking for Xbox. And I say that as an Xbox fan. When all your games are indefinitely pushed back, release busted or missing features, the ceo says that great games don’t sell consoles. He’s okay with 6 out of 10 games. That’s why. Sony and Nintendo keeps pumping out quality games. Im blessed to have the three systems but it’s still disappointing that one just isn’t holding up. Where are the dividends on this purchase? It was so frustrating that when I had an internet and cell outtage that I couldn’t even play a cd or dvd on my Xbox because that console hadn’t had the app installed. How do I need a separate app to launch a freakin disc?

All Xbox does is lose and lose and lose

John Riccitiello also was the CEO of EA who said they needed to charge players for bullets, speaking of Mass Effect 3. He also spoke at an intetnal event for EA, about ME3s Day 1 DLC which was really necessary content and said they needed to do more of that to get players to pay $80 for games upon release instead of $60. And people wonder why he effed up Unity.

Well, no crap the industry didn’t grow. Just look at how much people are spending just to feed their families nowadays. Inflation is ridiculous right now.

In what world is doing an interview right now a good idea?

Word salad.

Bloomberg: What is your plan? Sarah: The Fallout show is pretty good. What!?

DON'T WORRY THOUGH, WE STILL HAVE 343 😂😂😂😂

I think she borrowed Kamala's speech writers for her talking points.

And just an FYI she is VERY well trained...she's always been at expert at not providing answers it's why she has the position she does.

It's down because gamers aren't trying to buy brand new $70+ games that are completely broken. The gaming industry has been trying to push broken games and/or live service games. Gamers don't want that garbage. "tHE INdUstRy iS dOWn" No shit.

This really reminds me of the jim carrey film "fun with dick and jane" he gets promoted and does a live pr interview where he realizes the company is going under and hes the fallguy😅

Well you could start with 343; they're not even a real studio, they're just a revolving door of contractors performing as a massive money pit.

LMAO me setting the 2x speed just to see you speed it up too LMAOOO

I think Ninja Theory is gonezo.

DEI hiring practices is killing gaming

damn, wasn't aware that Khamala Harris was at Microsoft...

She has the look of, "I better follow the script, or I'm gonna get fired."

People using COVID as an excuse when it was over a couple years ago. Lol

Sarah Bonds description online sounds like she wrote it in the same way she answered all of these questions in this interview! lol Still think they planned this from the start though. "Arkane shut down has nothing to do with failure of Redfall". When asked about why Tango got shut down after delivering an amazing game, they responded "We're really trying to focus on our long term goals" Not actual quotes mind you but just from memory. This all screams to me, "We bought Zenimax studios because BGS and Zenimax Online have the types of games we were looking for, the kinds of games that people play for years and years and will stay/join subscribed to Game Pass to have access to." They don't care if Arkane was going to make Dishonored, they didn't want that. They don't care that Tango gave them the greatest game of 2023 on Xbox, they don't want to pay to have these studios open when they never wanted the games that they produce to begin with. These games don't do anything for game pass except pad the amount of games on the service. With the way Gamepass is currently set up, having these expensive games and keeping these studios open so that once every few years they can release something that generates a month or two of hype just isn't the engagement they are looking for. BGS makes games "You can play for years" Zenimax online has a very successful MMO that brings people back every day and quarterly DLC brings back waves of people multiple times per year. Activision has like 5 studios that create games that are huge on player engagement, these games have a massive online presence thats there every single day, if they lock that to game pass, thats going to move the needle. Thats why studios who flubbed it and made a bad Halo game get the pass, because Halo as an IP still fits their long term goals. It's all about Game Pass and Game Pass is all about subscriptions. When Netflix doesn't have a show you watch, you cancel your sub. When Netflix gets a single season of a show and releases it all in one day, you resub for 1 month and end your sub. It's not sustainable unless they are releasing a new show you want to watch, every month and cancelling shows that don't get the numbers they needed in the first month even though the show has alot of potential. So releasing new games to generate subscriptions every month isn't sustainable, putting games on Game Pass that keep people subscribed to Gamepass in much higher numbers is now the goalpost. If they could buy Tencent or Epic and get exclusive rights to Fortnite or purchase EA to get EA games exclusive on Gamepass, they would also be doing that in my opinion. Looks like Disney might beat them to the punch here though. This is the only way I can make sense of all of this.

Sara is the Kamala Harris of MS, word salad GALORE

Excellent real corporate world analysis & quite fair with your description of expectations from Microsoft with these studio shutdowns.

It’s coopers wife from vault tec!

I get enough of politicians when i watch the news, I'd expect a corporate drone to actually give us a direct answer.

she was a DEI hire, thats why you cant find any accomplishments or anything

Infinite growth is an illusion in itself. But in the game industry in particular this is even more true. The potential player base can grow only so much. Over the last decades, new players coming of age, entering the gaming world were added to the older ones, increasing to overall number. The industry planned on the idea that this could not change. Now many older players are "retiring". The generation of the higher birthrates of the 70s are slowly "dying out". This results in a slowing or even reduction of the growth of potential player numbers. Add to that the increasing cost of life in general, the increasing number of games to chose from and the overall tiredness of the same old ideas and the result is predictable. Money is limited. Players numbers are limited. Play time is limited. Who ever believes that constant growth is possible denies reality. Planning and making decisions based on that belief is stupid. The only way to do this is produce less games and sell them for much more money. Good luck with that. We need a self sustaining industry, not an infinitely growing one. Well, again, good luck - when you tell that to your shareholders....

6:00 This got me thinking that 20 years ago Microsoft settled a federal lawsuit for using temporary workers for over a decade. To avoid this again they hire studios and shut them down when they are done with them instead.

Why is Sarah Bond in that position? Come on, you already know. DEI

I think it's clear why she was given the award by looking that they used the word diversity twice reflecting how important diversity it to them and given that fact she fits the bill perfectly because she is a black woman the only thing that would of been better in their eyes is maybe if she was trans?? Or maybe gay?? Then it would be a trifecta. Never mind that diversity has nothing to do with making good games, we as people who love to play games only really care if they are making good games, we don't care about the colour of the skin or what the sexual preferences are of the people who make them, we just want good fun games. It so very simple

The line must go up companies can dip…. Gaming is the most profitable media, but it’s not enough for these piss poor managed companies can’t keep getting the line to go up any more. Go just go, you have spent the last 10 years making it worst and worst.

Two women who are clearly non gamers talking about gaming. Bond is clearly coming from a place of disconnected-from-gaming, corporate strategy and not from a place of gaming.

Phil Spencer too scared to answer these questions, so he sends her.

Luke, this video is a fantastic analysis - one of your best. Astute points and a great understanding of how the business side of this industry works, but still concluding that it was a terrible decision. I feel like big execs should watch these videos to understand the reasoning behind everyone’s anger. It’s not just anger.

Really? I thought she was pretty clear, allow me to attempt to translate from the transcript; "you know one of the things I really love about the games industry is it's a creative art form" - Hi-Fi Rush is a work of art. " it means that the situation and what success is for each game in studio is also really unique like there's no oniz fits all to it for us" - You can't bank on art. "we look at each Studio each game team and we look at a whole variety of factors when we're faced with sort of making decisions and and trade-offs like that uh but it all comes back to our long-term commitment the games we create the devices we build the services and ensuring that we're setting ourselves up to be able to deliver on those promises" - Our focus is on things that will maximize long term stable growth of revenue so that we can ensure the satisfaction of our investors. You can buy art if you need prestige but trying to cultivate it isn't predictably profitable.

God the corporate town hall vibes are off the charts...that's the worst part of working a corporate job. Being forced to attend town halls to hear an hour of the CEO saying nothing.

My take is that the studios and publishers they (MS/ Xbox) acquired were overpriced/ overvalued. Now that they own them, NOW they realize how they were overcharged. Kinda like how former Twitter owners tried to force Elon Musk to buy Twitter at an inflated value. MS/ Xbox should've taken a page of a lesson from Elon Musk. In terms of the industry "not growing" and games not selling, Sarah Bond and every Xbox fanboy needs to cut the crap. Stellar Blade sold 1 million copies day one! Spider-Man 2 sold 10 million copies within 4 months of release. Nintendo Switch is tipping 140 million units sold. Recently, Capcom reported 7 year consecutive profits and sales from their games. I conclusively doubt that if MS/ Xbox were hitting PS5, Switch and the aforementioned titles numbers they would be shifting the goal post to a "volatile" games industry. She sounds like every losing team coach in a post match interview saying, "We had plenty of chances in the game, but luck was not on our side." Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty are nothing more but classic examples of successful failures 💯

I very much appreciate that you are looking at this as a businessman and not just shrieking "Capitalism am bad". Dont get me wrong, layoffs suck, and closing Tango was idiotic. But as you said, its not an easy thing to look at that chart and pick who to close.

Sarah Bond is about as corpo as they come. I don’t understand why they can’t find more gamers to fill these positions. I’m a CPA that is in corporate accounting/finance, I’ve been a gamer my whole life and I’d work in the games industry, I can’t imagine there aren’t many more like me out there.

A black woman in charge of a failing brand. Meritocracy works best.

She talking about big blockbuster triple a game costs going up. She forget she’s from Xbox not Sony wtf big triple a blockbuster games has Xbox been putting out so many of?

Closing Tango actually makes a ton of sense, people just don't want to recognize it. They didn't have an active project in the works, while Hi-Fi Rush reviewed pretty decently (87 metacritic), it did not sell well nor did it perform well on gamepass. The Evil Within games weren't massive games. They had lost key people are were probably likely to lose more. Managing a team in Japan was always going to be more difficult for Zenimax management and again Mikami leaving, means that process becomes more difficult. Their other games weren't really received all that well and what is the value in greenlighting a sequel to hi-fi rush that didn't sell...

Im going to say what most wont. She was a diversity hire, hence why she has no list of actual accomplishments.

"Why close a studio that released your best game in a good while?" She pretty much said the quality of a given game doesn't matter, because there's no shortage of creativity within every studio. It's all dependant on executive decisions.

15:00 Ok. Let me translate: How we at Microsoft measure "success" may not be how you think we'd measure it. If we have to rob Peter to pay Paul, then that's what we'll do because it's about the financial health of Microsoft, not the future of a specific team (i.e. studio).

When you brought up that chart of game studios under Xbox, my eyes were locked to 343 in disbelief. I've forgotten about them but in that moment I was flabbergasted that Tango gets shuttered but 343 is STILL HERE BRUH

Having listened live to the FTC hearings in late June last year, out of all the Xbox representatives that were called to the stand, Sarah Bond was the one that gave the FTC's lawyers migraines. She gave them nothing and if anything made the lawyer look uneducated. Late 90's Bill Gates would have been proud of her. The FTC got more out of Phil, and especially Matt, than they did Sarah.

According to a recent IGN video called ‘Phil Spencer and the Battle for Xbox’s Soul’ - insiders are saying this decision was made above Xbox & came from Satya at Microsoft

“How did she get there I don’t get it” Pretty. Black. Woman. ✔️

I think she's talking of the "Transition" of Xbox into Microsoft Gaming 😅

You made it funny with the speed lol

This could have been an email.

A hard truth is that hi fi rush isnt a small indie budget project, it cost about 50 million dollars to create, 4-5 years in development. To Microsoft, its idiotic to be investing in something like that while they're in last place in the console market creating games that wont sell or sell consoles

Hey, how's it going. Just discovered your show so far. It's very straightforward. I agree with you on some statements and disagree with you on other statements. As of this moment, my thoughts are on microsoft/xbox being ahead of the curve for future endeavors, like being online all the time during the xbox one era and here we are online all the time that's including sony/Playstation. You also implied microsoft/xbox not having a console or box if you will, but I believe microsoft/xbox will have a streaming gaming hub and or a streaming and downloadable hub with an SSD built in and it shall have the microsoft/xbox logo. I believe hardware will still be available, but a discless digital hub with an SSD will be more likely than anything else. Great show, so far, honest and truthful with a little bit of bitterness and a touch of bias but very fascinating. Made a new fan today. Have a great day.

As a Black man, I hate when these huge coorperations put Black faces on sinking ships like Microsoft Gaming.

She answered the question she said that there are many variables that occur which make our evaluation on each decision. there are no simple solutions or easy answers only areas of priority that best fits the company and it's goals.

Interviewer: “Why did you shut down your game studios?” Xbox exec: “Have you heard about our tv show 😊”

Someone be honest with me, genuinely asking…….was she a diversity hire?

Do you think maybe prior to closure, they received the studios plans for upcoming games and all they had to present was one sequel each? Because if I was a corp, seeing a studio with plans exclusively set in a single sequel, no new IP’s, I’d probably consider them too. (Out of all those studios Luke showed)

The thing is they could easily come out and give legitimate reasons for closing these studios down but they choose not to actually give any reasons. I get cutting out studios like Arkane Austin since if I understand it correctly only really made Prey on their own and were more a support studio to Lyon and it would've taken resources to get them back to full capacity. Fine I get it. But Tango still had the name recognition, still had people working in the studio and could've easily been a studio that Microsoft could use to poach devs from other Japanese publishers like Square Enix, Sega, Capcom etc. Or it could simply be a small studio that doubled as a portal or support system for smaller Japanese devs needing assistance in getting their games released. Just seems like a waste to get rid of a important foothold.

"DEI" here is your answer why she is there

Microsoft throwing Sarah under the bus to answer these questions are exactly why I dislike Microsoft

No mention of the Halo tv show is brutal 😂

11:20 I actually don't think its about them transitioning to Cloud Gaming or Digital Ownership like they are saying publicly. I feel it's more they are selling their investors and shareholders on the idea that they will be able to use AI to reduce both development time and labor costs to make AAA games....That's the transition I feel they're referring to and that pissed me off even more.

This was a Dick Harper from Globodyne type of interview. IYKYK.

A high profile interview like this, they definitely are customed to sending her a set of questions beforehand for preparations. She sounded like she just wings it 2 minutes before the camera rolls.

We all know why she was hired. It’s just that nobody wants to say it 😂😬

Screw quality! I am just so glad everybody is sooo represented. xD

So many words that said nothing except XB is doomed. As an investor this inspires 0 confidence.

The industry is flat.......THEY'RE TRILLION DOLLAR COMPANIES HOW MUCH MORE GROWTH DO YOU NEED!?

The funniest thing to me is watching so many people try to rationalize what is happening without realizing this is just how capitalism operates.

Apologies for the long post. What a softball interview with no follow up to any of the corporate smooze. Any strategy which can't whether predictable down turns and requires rescue actions wasn't properly thought through, kept under review or resilient enough. So either this was part of the ABK merger plan and c suite was gaslighting about valuing the studios and great games, they didn't do due diligence properly, or Microsoft corp reigned in support. The studios chosen make short term sense from a corporate psycopathy perspective, Tango doesn't have anything in active dev, Arkane Austin nothing new in the pipe and committing resources to support a failing project, Alpha Dogs Doom mobile game isn't turning profit (they have King) and Roundhouse merging into Zenimax to continue to support ESO takes out management overhead. From a business first, games as art second perspective short term numbers will go up. Longer term I think the mask is off and I think people may make different choices about the platforms they choose to support. Way to betray your stated values Xbox.😠

Someone has obviously grifted their way to the top. Just another empty suit with a giant paycheck.

It feels all like bad timing for Tango. Something about why they chose Tango to close feels like it was because they had recently finished a game and weren't invested, if you will, years deep into another. Other studios who were invested years jn, M$ would be losing more to shut them down compared to a studio that had little time wise invested to something new. Feels like it was a clear cut, logical choice pressured by higher ups. And that sucks when Tango had so much to offer.

The face of a woman who knows she is soon to be unemployed. Microsoft is a results oriented business and this team has failed. Question is, who will be coming in their place and what direction will they take. Hard times coming, I suspect.

Interviewer: so why’d you close those studios? Sarah: man that fallout show was great huh

Not everything has to constantly grow. These execs just don't get it. Why can't it just stay flat for a while and u keep the damn employees instead?

Almost like your player base is broke and you're trying to squeeze blood from a stone. And then release busted ass games, whenever you can be bothered to finish anything 😂. This generation has been an unmitigated disaster on all sides lol.

Luke went in more prepared into this than the Microsoft part lmao

owning products what a novel concept like buying a hammer and expecting to walk out the store with it

I keep thinking of a Cartman quote.

Xbox, follow Nintedo's lead: Stop talking to the public. Keep your inhouse issues a secret. Close your studios and say nothing to anyone.

The fact Tango got laid off before 343i who has yet to do Halo justice is insane Get to the root of Xbox management failure: Nahh Shut down poorly managed studios that you own: 💯💯💯