Who is Sarah Bond? All about Microsoft Xbox's vice president

Xbox vice president Sarah Bond is one of the many individuals testifying for Microsoft in a US federal court over the company's $69 billion Activision acquisition. The five-day trials began today, and as of this writing, many representatives from the Redmond-based tech juggernaut have been questioned on various Xbox and Activision products.

Bond has been with the company since 2017 and is in charge of improving the gaming experience and bringing the experience and ecosystem to more gamers. She is one of the few Xbox executives attending the federal court as witnesses.

Today's developments come after Sony declared that it won't share any PS6 info with Activision if the latter is acquired, while Microsoft has acknowledged that it has lost the "console wars."

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FTC vs Microsoft: What did Sarah Bond reveal?

Sarah Bond was the last executive to be called onto the stage before the court temporarily suspended the hearing for a lunch break. She was questioned about a variety of products that will be directly impacted by the Activision deal, including the smartphone as a platform, to which she responded:

"Mobile is effectively a duopoly: Google and Apple."

When questioned about Game Pass and its various editions, Bond commented that she likes it. When questioned about distribution rights, she replied that Game Pass has benefitted both parties: the developer and the gamer. She said nearly half the Human Fall Flat players came via Game Pass.

About Cloud Gaming and bundling xCloud with Game Pass Ultimate, Sarah Bond commented that it is more of a GPU feature. According to her, cloud gaming helps in nothing more than cutting video game download times, which should take around two hours.

"xCloud as part of GPU (Game Pass Unlimited) is being used more as a feature. Instead of waiting for the download of a game, you can start playing right away via streaming. Majority of usage is like that."

Bond was also questioned about Activision games like Diablo and Call of Duty. According to the Xbox executive, the Diablo franchise has been around for a very long time. She commented that it is her 76-year-old father's "favorite game" and he played it "to this date."

Sarah Bond clarified that Call of Duty was a different beast since it was difficult to draw up a deal for such a huge franchise released on multiple platforms. The company faced difficulties in figuring out revenue share, among other things. Bond says "there were very clear limits" on their Call of Duty deal.

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What has happened so far at the FTC vs Microsoft federal court hearing?

So far, Sarah Bond; Pete Hines, head of publishing at Bethesda; and Matt Booty, Xbox Game Studios chief, have all testified for Microsoft. Other executives, including CEO Satya Nadella, are expected to be present over the next four days.

It is worth noting that Microsoft is fighting against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in court today. The American regulatory body has sued the company over concerns that the Activision deal could give Microsoft enough powers to put the competition, namely Nintendo and Sony, at a strategic disadvantage.