We have an interesting anecdote on how Sarah Bond helped Microsoft secure the Activision deal. This big power move is the reason she got promoted to the President of Xbox.
As you may remember, Bond was only one of several Microsoft executives who appeared in hearings and meetings with regulators around the world to secure their approval of the Activision deal. Several Xbox fans actually watched the public hearings, and she won admirers among those gamers for her strong performance and arguments compared to even her peers in Microsoft.
Fans may have then felt disappointed when she gave a middling, confusing response when she was positioned to answer for why Zenimax chose to close several studios this year, including Arcane Austin, and the recently resurrected Tango Gameworks.
But these two very public events seemed to have created a misleading picture of Bond. A former T-Mobile executive, she has been responsible for more of the recent good decisions that has given Microsoft’s gaming initiatives more momentum.
As we had reported last year, CMA initially seemed amenable to the Activision deal, even rejecting Sony’s argument that it would be harmful to competition between Xbox and PlayStation. But they would eventually reject the deal, over concerns about Microsoft’s position in the growing cloud gaming market.
Bloomberg shared a recent profile on Sarah Bond, and this was an opportunity for Sarah to reveal what was going on behind the scenes in this situation. Sarah said to herself at the time that “How I feel right now doesn’t matter.”
Bond saw the difficult position Microsoft was in. In spite of commentary we had shared from patent experts, there was no precedent for CMA changing direction in a situation like this. Bond volunteered to take charge of dealing with regulators to get the Activision deal approved herself.
In that position, Bond had already been doing the research over regulatory documents and spreadsheets, flying across the US and Europe. Bond made the choice not to make empty promises that Microsoft would engage in good behavior, but actually made amendments to the deal.
So, it was Sarah that opened the door for Nvidia to get some access to streaming for Activision Blizzard games, and for Ubisoft to acquire the cloud streaming rights for Activision games. Microsoft had already had some deals for cloud streaming companies in Europe, such as Boosteroid, for those same games, but these newer deals were for the CMA.
We do remember that Microsoft’s president Brad Smith also took immediate action after the CMA’s rejection of the deal, doing the press circuit and even flexing some soft power to compel the UK government to review the decision. But Brad’s actions could have still failed, because the CMA is an independent agency from UK’s prime minister, parliament, and other government branches.
The CMA revealed in their decision that they were satisfied with the changes Microsoft made to the deal, calling it a “new and substantially different deal”. Bond celebrated this win by inviting the team who helped her secure the deal to her living room for a champagne toast.
And two weeks after that victory, Phil Spencer promoted her to the President of Xbox. That’s because the same Phil Spencer who reportedly ‘clashed’ with Bond over differences in management styles, also chose to hire her in the first place. Phil saw Bond as an outsider who could have the knowledge to set Microsoft in the right direction, so hiring her and trying to adjust to her way of doing things was the entire point of it.
While gamers certainly haven’t been 100 % satisfied with Microsoft Gaming’s decisions and overall direction as of late, we have to be on guard that preexisting biases cloud our assessments.
Microsoft has a strong slate of upcoming first party releases, positioned to profit from PlayStation gamers as much as Xbox and PC gamers, and are now bridging the gap with third party companies like Square Enix.
Behind all of this, Sarah Bond seems to be an unseen driving force to Microsoft Gaming’s success now and in the near future.
