Xbox President Talks Positive & Resistant Feedback From Fans, How It’s Shaping The Future

Earlier today, a new interview with Xbox president Sarah Bond was shared on YouTube by the folks at Fortune Magazine, and Bond had a particularly interesting response to a question about “redefining” the identity over at Xbox.

After spending a fair bit of the interview discussing the idea of “playing anywhere” and accessing your Xbox games across multiple devices, she was questioned about leading the brand through such a shift after multiple decades of being console-focused, and ultimately whether there’s been some resistance towards that.

Bond explained in her response that it can be “hard” changing anything when so many passionate fans have gotten used to a certain identity, and that there’s a need to balance the here-and-now along with what’s to come in the future.

Host: “You’re leading this legacy brand that’s currently redefining itself. When you’re steering a ship from a decades-long console identity, which is what Xbox has long been known for, towards this service-first model that you’ve talked about today, what have you learned about leading through cultural change, through organisational change, and even perhaps resistance that comes along with it because it’s new and it’s different?”

Sarah: “Xbox is a brand that people have counted on now for almost 25 years. And people who play Xbox love Xbox. Our players deeply care about what Xbox is, it has a ton of meaning for them, and so changing it is hard, right? Where you know that there are things that are coming in the future that you need to invest in that help ensure the long-term health and growth of the brand, but you also know that there are players who really love what is right now.”

So, how does Team Xbox handle this? Apparently it’s being measured through a ton of fan feedback, both in terms of what Xbox fans are saying as well as what they’re actually doing.

The Xbox president went on to explain that feedback is continually being incorporated into both the current-day and future plans for the brand, but suggested it’s often a lot more about actions than words:

Sarah: “The number one way that we talk about this as a team is we recognise that people love what we do and that’s why you get so much passion, that’s why you get so much feedback – and then listen to that feedback, and continually incorporate it into what we’re doing so that we’re sure we’re investing in the things that people love now, but also that we know people are going to love in the future. And then relentlessly look at the core metrics of the health of the business. How many people are playing? What are our hours of play? What are people buying? What are people subscribing to? And so listening to both what people say, but also what they do and how they behave as we’re continually making the change, and then adjust and learn along the way.”

Again, she elaborated more on this in a follow-up question, explaining that the way Team Xbox separates the noise from meaningful feedback is by seeing how players are spending their time and whether their activity lines up.

Xbox Play Anywhere and improving Windows on PC handhelds were two examples she mentioned here, suggesting that Play Anywhere was essentially shelved for a while until the team saw that it was generating a good deal of interest.

“And so it’s looking at a combination of signals to prioritise what matters most and ensure we’re executing on them over time.”

So, there you go! Those are some of Sarah Bond’s comments on fan feedback, and you can catch the entire interview at the top of the article. We also covered her comments on the next Xbox console today, which you’ll find down below: