Xbox president tries to avoid talking about developer closures in cringe-filled interview | EYM0175 | 2024-05-10 21:08:01
Xbox president tries to avoid talking about developer closures in cringe-filled interview | EYM0175 | 2024-05-10 21:08:01
Sarah Bond has become the first Xbox exec to speak in public since the closure of three developers but she's offered no real explanation.
The reasons why Microsoft shut down three of Bethesda's developers this week and reduced another to support studio status, are many and complicated but it's unlikely that anyone from Xbox is ever going to explain the decision openly.
A key reason is simply that the Xbox business is not doing well and it needs to cut costs and stimulate growth, and Microsoft does not believe that smaller games, like Tango Gameworks' Hi-Fi Rush, are going to help with that. This is especially true as Game Pass subscription numbers stagnate, when the original idea was that lower budget titles could help to make the service seem more attractive.
Nevertheless, Hi-Fi Rush has a much smaller budget, and was much critically acclaimed, than higher profile titles like Starfield, which also did little to stimulate sales. But according to Xbox president Sarah Bond, the closures were a result of Microsoft's 'commitment to make sure that the business is healthy for the long term.'
Microsoft execs aren't exactly known for their straight-talking but the reason the interview has gone viral is not necessarily because it's the first but because Bond seems so ill-prepared for the very obvious question, as she frequently attempts to change the subject and fails to mention the names of any of the affected studios.
Bond was speaking at the Bloomberg Tech Summit (which she'd probably agreed to do long before knowing the closures would be announced this week) and her body language alone shows just how uncomfortable she is at being there.
'It's always extraordinarily hard when you have to make decisions like that. When we looked at those fundamental trends, we feel a deep responsibility to ensure that the games we make, the devices we build, the services that we offer, are there. Even when the industry isn't growing, when you're through a time of transition,' she said.
'The news we announced earlier in the week is an outcome of that, in our commitment to make sure that the business is healthy for the long term.'
When pressed by the interviewer about Tango Gameworks, and the award-winning Hi-Fi Rush, in particular, Bond still refused to discuss the issue directly.
'You know, one of the things I really love about the games industry is that it's a creative art form, and it means that the situation and what success is for each game and studio is also really unique, she said.
'There's no one size fits all to it for us, and so, 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 trade-offs like that, but it all comes back to our long-term commitment to the games we create, the devices we build, the services and ensuring that we're setting ourselves up to be able to deliver on these promises.'
As has already been pointed out, last year Microsoft was insistent that Hi-Fi Rush had been a significant success for the company and had exceeded its expectations. Bond did not address this.
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The only thing of any real note she said, was that Microsoft will launch a web-based mobile game store in July, featuring Candy Crush Saga and presumably other titles from King and Activision Blizzard.
She also reiterated that she's working on overseeing 'next generation hardware' and seemed to confirm that all first party Xbox games would continue to be released on Game Pass day one.
The statement 'every single one of the games we build [will be released] day one in Game Pass' would seem to include Call Of Duty, which it's widely believed Microsoft is having second thoughts about, given the potential lost revenue from people not buying it at full price.
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