Seamus Blackley, co-founder and designer of the original Xbox, believes that Phil Spencer has exhausted himself trying to "manage the beast" of Microsoft's leadership. In an interview, he also expressed sympathy for former Xbox president Sarah Bond.
The person I feel the most sorry for is Sarah Bond – she is completely competent as a leader, super cool, a real gamer. It's a bad day for her. I want to tell her what I think of her and that she's cool.
About Spencer he said:
The game he played for a long time, managing the beast to do the right things for games, eventually just exhausted him. It's very hard.
Blackley said that Xbox's success was made possible by the balance between engineers, artists, and executives, including Ed Fries, Jay Allard, Robbie Bach, Bill Gates, and Steve Ballmer. There had to be "clean" people on the team, but some of that "cleanliness" had to be sacrificed for the sake of funding, corporate support, and Microsoft's reputation. In his opinion, without control and oversight, the project would most likely have failed, and attempts by individuals to block it did not make them responsible for its success.
Blackley believes that the appointment of Ashim Sharma as head of Microsoft Gaming will lead to the gradual closure of the entire Xbox division.
