What is the deal with Phil Spencer?

[Papacheeks]

We are getting close to 15 years with Phil Spencer being responsible for MS output of games and about 8 or more year since he is calling all the shots. I have a hard time understanding how he has such a strong following while apparently overpromising and failing to deliver every time.

Timeline:
2008 - After many year managing the European side of Microsoft Game Studios, Phil Spencer is promoted head of MGS.

Bell out, Kim up, Spencer in at Microsoft

360 marketing chief exits as Microsoft Game Studios head moves on to "strategic" biz dev; MGS UK GM taking over first-party pub's global operations; work on Forza and Peter Jackson's Halo proceeding; no major hires or cuts planned.

www.gamespot.com

2009 - Promoted to corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, with the mission to continue "overseeing the entirety of first-party content at MGS."

Microsoft's Shane Kim To Retire, Phil Spencer Promoted

Microsoft's Shane Kim, a veteran of Microsoft Game Studios and the Interactive Entertainment Business division, will retire at the end of this year after nearly two decades of employment with the company.

www.gamedeveloper.com

2013 - During the Xbox One launch he did every single thing Don Mattrick did but got none of the blame despite being really high up. He even said stuff like "If you live somewhere without good reception, you won't buy a cell phone." He also recommended Xbox 360 for players whose online connections aren't up to the task".

Microsoft says if your internet can't support Xbox One, use 360

"If you have zero access to the internet, that is an offline device"

www.gamesradar.com

2014 - Becomes head of Microsoft's Xbox division.

Phil Spencer takes over as head of Microsoft's Xbox division

Your source for the latest in video games, sci-fi, fantasy, tabletop games, anime, horror, books, and comics.

www.polygon.com

In all those year I don't think he was able to create a single successful new IP (Halo, Gears of War, Forza were all IPs that existed before he was put in charge). What does he have to show for these 15 years? Grounded? Sea of Thieves? It also extends to their second-party deals, they just seem unable to create any hits and they have a terrible track record with those as well. They even seem to have a hard time nurturing and evolving their already successful IPs, with Halo and Gears being the best examples of that.

Even on the hardware side, he announced VR support for the One X and that never happened, promoted on the big stage stuff like HoloLens and IllumiRoom that never materialized. When the One X was the most powerful console on the market it had almost no games to take advantage of that and relied on third-party game that many times didn't even bother that much with the Xbox version. Ok, maybe the terrible second half of the Xbox One had as far as games was a sacrifice to ensure the Xbox Series would have a great launch... but no, it had nothing (even now, one and a half years later it still has very little).

On the service side, they made this big deal about every MS game releasing on Gamepass, then we get a year like 2022 where they completely strike out and looking at the games the included this month they don't even seem to be trying anymore.

He goes all in on PR spins trying to play the role of the good guy, while his actions don't align with what he says at all. He still keeps guys like Aaron Greenberg around and even retweets hardcore Xbox warriors and Xbox marketing is way too focus on the competition while Nintendo and Sony have been a lot more chill about console wars in the last few years. I love that he was going around saying that he doesn't like exclusive while MS marketing even tries to pass games that aren't exclusive by using tricks like "Exclusive World Premier" or having publisher agree to hide for a few days that their games are multiplatform, not to mention the unholy amount of money spent to take games away from PlayStation by buying entire publishers instead of building their studios over time.

Funny enough people that bring this up like @David Jaffe, Me, you, and many others who have followed his career get dog piled by people. The issue just isn't one man though. The thing Jaffe and others seems to forget is the Enterprise part of the company which took over a lot of decision making if not all creative control from Direct X team and people in charge of xbox.
They put people in charge over the course of the OG xbox's tenure that have more background in PC enterprise software. And a lot of the decisions were coming from higher ups that had nothing to do with gaming.

They never once tried to hire a guy from ex sega of america to help run xbox along with the direct x team. I totally believe that if Direct X team didn't have people meddling and enterprise taking control and were able to build their own division the right way. Xbox would not be as flip/floppy throughout its life. For sure you might get them trying some things like motion control. But if you had direct x people there, and someone from lets say ex-sega people running it, you would have a total different beast.
Unfortunately you had enterprise people who know how to sell a product and not entertainment. If they had no meddling I truly believe Xbox would be way stronger and more consistent.

Now I feel the veil is starting to slowly come off Phil Spencer, and his team. This fall is not going to be good for them. It';s going to be a slaughter. I say this without even mentioning anything first party.
All big Third party titles Minus Assassins Creed, have Sony marketing, MW2, Hogwarts legacy have Sony marketing. On top of 2 super high profile titles.

This was all Phil spencer looking after all the issues we saw articles drummed up late last year, and not calling Booty and saying what do we need to sign for 2022 to phil out the Slate in build up to fall?
They thought MLB the show, guardians, and Shredders revenge were enough to battle early on GT7, Forbidden west, Elden Ring? What moves did he make with Booty to really make gamepass shine this year? Fucking nothing.

Like I'm still feeling like a deer in headlights on how different this year feels compared to what they did last year? I mean was their antitrust laws saying they cant sign any big games for 6 month deal to have day one gamepass games? Its not like it would not release on PC/PS4/SWITCH.

Phil loves games, but he doesnt come from entertainment, so to me he's a guy that got into games because he was a gamer but not a developer.

Spencer joined Microsoft in 1988 as an intern and has worked in a number of technical roles, leading the development of Microsoft's first CD-ROM-based titles (such as Encarta), development manager for Microsoft Money, and general manager of Microsoft's online and offline consumer productivity products including ...

Get some ex-Sega of America to run Xbox, i think unless every game is a banger next year fingers are going to start being pointed internally with CEO's and investors.

 

[nominedomine]

Funny enough people that bring this up like @David Jaffe, Me, you, and many others who have followed his career get dog piled by people. The issue just isn't one man though. The thing Jaffe and others seems to forget is the Enterprise part of the company which took over a lot of decision making if not all creative control from Direct X team and people in charge of xbox.
They put people in charge over the course of the OG xbox's tenure that have more background in PC enterprise software. And a lot of the decisions were coming from higher ups that had nothing to do with gaming.

They never once tried to hire a guy from ex sega of america to help run xbox along with the direct x team. I totally believe that if Direct X team didn't have people meddling and enterprise taking control and were able to build their own division the right way. Xbox would not be as flip/floppy throughout its life. For sure you might get them trying some things like motion control. But if you had direct x people there, and someone from lets say ex-sega people running it, you would have a total different beast.
Unfortunately you had enterprise people who know how to sell a product and not entertainment. If they had no meddling I truly believe Xbox would be way stronger and more consistent.

Now I feel the veil is starting to slowly come off Phil Spencer, and his team. This fall is not going to be good for them. It';s going to be a slaughter. I say this without even mentioning anything first party.
All big Third party titles Minus Assassins Creed, have Sony marketing, MW2, Hogwarts legacy have Sony marketing. On top of 2 super high profile titles.

This was all Phil spencer looking after all the issues we saw articles drummed up late last year, and not calling Booty and saying what do we need to sign for 2022 to phil out the Slate in build up to fall?
They thought MLB the show, guardians, and Shredders revenge were enough to battle early on GT7, Forbidden west, Elden Ring? What moves did he make with Booty to really make gamepass shine this year? Fucking nothing.

Like I'm still feeling like a deer in headlights on how different this year feels compared to what they did last year? I mean was their antitrust laws saying they cant sign any big games for 6 month deal to have day one gamepass games? Its not like it would not release on PC/PS4/SWITCH.

Phil loves games, but he doesnt come from entertainment, so to me he's a guy that got into games because he was a gamer but not a developer.



Get some ex-Sega of America to run Xbox, i think unless every game is a banger next year fingers are going to start being pointed internally with CEO's and investors.

The Xbox itself was never that good of an idea to begin with, it seems like the biggest fails of Xbox comes from them trying to be Sony and it just doesn't seem to suit MS.

While they were having a hard time competing with Sony they were getting even more outclased on the PC space by Valve and to this day their store is still a joke, (even with Gamepass they still have to put their games on Steam). Just look at what Valve did with the Steam Deck, how didn't MS do something like that first? They had this big advantage over Valve with Windows and over Sony with Sony's library of games requiring specific hardware.

With that said, Phil at least does seem to have a better feel for PC games and seem to find more success with games that are aimed more at the PC audience.

With how big MS Studios became after the acquisition of Bethesda, Activision and Blizzard I think insisting with Xbox makes less sense than ever for them, that's probably why they are focusing so much on xCloud.

 

[Papacheeks]

The Xbox itself was never that good of an idea to begin with, it seems like the biggest fails of Xbox comes from them trying to be Sony and it just doesn't seem to suit MS.

While they were having a hard time competing with Sony they getting even more outclased on the PC space by Valve and to this day their store is still a joke, (even with Gamepass they still have to put their games on Steam).

Phil at least does seem to have a better feel for PC games and seem to find more success with games that are aimed more at the PC audience.

Untrue. Go watch the youtube series about xbox. Ex sega people were part of some of the things like Controller. Xbox had connections with Sega when sega had the dreamcast.

They had games like Full Auto, Chromehounds, sega rally GT, Jet Set RADIO Future, Otagi, Panzer dragoon orta, Out Run series, just to name a few. They also had a lot of people on board that worked strictly in graphics and animation because Shamous Blackley lead DIrect X and gave a demo of their direct X running on a box that was xbox.

People artists, animators were blown away, and he courted a lot of people over to be part of the xbox team and make games. Lorn Lanning would not be around making games anymore if it wasnt for that.

They helped people on PC make stuff for entertainment via Direct x, so back in 2001 being able to animate on a PC thats not called a POWER MAC was possible.

So please stop spreading fud, you are right on Phil spencer you are wrong 100% on xbox has a brand platform that came from the failings of Sega. When sega failed and left the hardware business it left a hole.

Xbox filled that hole and those early years felt like sega, which was a great time. It pushed Sony. It's that too many non gaming people started pushing the Directr X people out of having control, and started making decisions for the brand. In short term they got ahead of Sony during PS3 era, but it also fucked them because they had hardware issues because they rushed. Also they were signing deals for games just because they had the money instead of leading with all their relationships started by early xbox team with Tecmo, Koei, Sega, Bioware, Lucas Arts, Sierra, and many more.

The issue currently is and always be Enterprise people trying to be in the role of entertainment people. Jaffe is having a stream right now and literally said what im saying. If Microsoft had a shannon loftis, Herman and paid them like a salary of 600k+ they would be destroying everyone.

Issue is they dont have anyone like that, and the thing jaffe omits that it still will take multiple game projects to get to where Sony is Synergy wise.

 

[nominedomine]

Untrue. Go watch the youtube series about xbox. Ex sega people were part of some of the things like Controller. Xbox had connections with Sega when sega had the dreamcast.

They had games like Full Auto, Chromehounds, sega rally GT, Jet Set RADIO Future, Otagi, Panzer dragoon orta, Out Run series, just to name a few. They also had a lot of people on board that worked strictly in graphics and animation because Shamous Blackley lead DIrect X and gave a demo of their direct X running on a box that was xbox.

People artists, animators were blown away, and he courted a lot of people over to be part of the xbox team and make games. Lorn Lanning would not be around making games anymore if it wasnt for that.

They helped people on PC make stuff for entertainment via Direct x, so back in 2001 being able to animate on a PC thats not called a POWER MAC was possible.

So please stop spreading fud, you are right on Phil spencer you are wrong 100% on xbox has a brand platform that came from the failings of Sega. When sega failed and left the hardware business it left a hole.

Xbox filled that hole and those early years felt like sega, which was a great time. It pushed Sony. It's that too many non gaming people started pushing the Directr X people out of having control, and started making decisions for the brand. In short term they got ahead of Sony during PS3 era, but it also fucked them because they had hardware issues because they rushed. Also they were signing deals for games just because they had the money instead of leading with all their relationships started by early xbox team with Tecmo, Koei, Sega, Bioware, Lucas Arts, Sierra, and many more.

The issue currently is and always be Enterprise people trying to be in the role of entertainment people. Jaffe is having a stream right now and literally said what im saying. If Microsoft had a shannon loftis, Herman and paid them like a salary of 600k+ they would be destroying everyone.

Issue is they dont have anyone like that, and the thing jaffe omits that it still will take multiple game projects to get to where Sony is Synergy wise.

Speak for yourself, I still think they completely missed out on the obvious things they already had going on (PC) to chase something that was never going to happen. None of the games you listed were going to even scratch what the PS2 had (and I say that as someone who wasn't even that into the PS2 at the time). The OG Xbox had nothing going on for me, too many games best played on PC while the PS2 really had game that were way more suited to be played on consoles.

The 360 is seen as their best gen but to me it was a still really bad showing when you look at it in it's entirety, even when everything was in their favor they still came out with a far interior library of games. I bought the 360 first because it was cheaper and I just wanted to play GTAIV and I was so frustrated with it that I bought a PS3 not long after that, it was really the generation that Sony convinced me it was worth having a PlayStation (although I liked the PS1 I never really got into the PS2 until much later).

 

[Bodycount611]

And PS2 got Virtua Fighter 4, Gamecube got Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, and every franchise that went to Xbox died never to bee seen or heard from again (JSRF, Crazy Taxi, Panzer Draggon Orta, etc).

The Xbox-Sega association was always a stretch. Beyond Peter Moore there's not much there. Sega also launhced valkyria chronicles, Virtua Fighter 5, and all the Yakuza's as PS2/3 exclusives. By the PS3 gen they had pretty much given up on xbox.

 

[Papacheeks]

And PS2 got Virtua Fighter 4, Gamecube got Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, and every franchise that went to Xbox died never to bee seen or heard from again (JSRF, Crazy Taxi, Panzer Draggon Orta, etc).

The Xbox-Sega association was always a stretch. Beyond Peter Moore there's not much there. Sega also launhced valkyria chronicles, Virtua Fighter 5, and all the Yakuza's as PS2/3 exclusives. By the PS3 gen they had pretty much given up on xbox.

Well part of that is correct.

The other part is Microsoft had a big opportunity to have dreamcast games on their box and they declined.

Sega pushed for Dreamcast compatiblity with the Xbox

Of course, it didn’t happen, but that would have been fantastic. The story goes that SEGA Chairman Isao Okawa visited...

www.destructoid.com

Windows on Dreamcast​

Microsoft had actually been working with SEGA before the Dreamcast was discontinued. The console has a Windows-based operating system, though it couldn’t be used for running Internet Explorer or Word, it did provide support for DirectX, Microsoft’s gaming technology.

While this was only the beginning, the relationship between SEGA and Microsoft would only get closer as we got deeper into the 21st century.

Passing the Baton​

Building on their relationship, many of the team that worked on the Dreamcast eventually provided input into the original Xbox. In fact, Peter Moore, the executive at SEGA of America that made the decision to halt production of the console in 2001 joined Microsoft in 2003.

For a while, SEGA had tried to get Microsoft to make the Xbox support Dreamcast games, creating a direct successor to the console, though this idea was eventually shelved.

As the Japanese giant transitioned to a software-only company, it began making a lot of Xbox-exclusive titles. While many of its games are now released on other platforms too, SEGA still has a close alliance with Microsoft and is reportedly working on a new line of “Super Games”.

You can also see plenty of evidence of the Dreamcast’s influence on the Xbox. The controllers were remarkably similar. The A B X Y buttons used the same colours (though they were shifted around) and had similar placements for the left analogue stick, triggers, and D-pad. And because the newer Xbox machines have retained much of this design, the Dreamcast’s legacy lives on to this day.

Is the Xbox the Successor to the Sega Dreamcast? | SEGA Nerds

The SEGA Dreamcast was once a force to be reckoned with, but now that it has gone away, we take a look at whether the Xbox has become the true successor.

www.seganerds.com

It's a little more nuanced than just a couple games and peter moore.

 

[thelastword]

We are getting close to 15 years with Phil Spencer being responsible for MS output of games and about 8 or more year since he is calling all the shots. I have a hard time understanding how he has such a strong following while apparently overpromising and failing to deliver every time.

We are getting close to 15 years with Phil Spencer being responsible for MS output of games and about 8 or more year since he is calling all the shots. I have a hard time understanding how he has such a strong following while apparently overpromising and failing to deliver every time.

Timeline:
2008 - After many year managing the European side of Microsoft Game Studios, Phil Spencer is promoted head of MGS.

Bell out, Kim up, Spencer in at Microsoft

360 marketing chief exits as Microsoft Game Studios head moves on to "strategic" biz dev; MGS UK GM taking over first-party pub's global operations; work on Forza and Peter Jackson's Halo proceeding; no major hires or cuts planned.

www.gamespot.com

2009 - Promoted to corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, with the mission to continue "overseeing the entirety of first-party content at MGS."

Microsoft's Shane Kim To Retire, Phil Spencer Promoted

Microsoft's Shane Kim, a veteran of Microsoft Game Studios and the Interactive Entertainment Business division, will retire at the end of this year after nearly two decades of employment with the company.

www.gamedeveloper.com

2013 - During the Xbox One launch he did every single thing Don Mattrick did but got none of the blame despite being really high up. He even said stuff like "If you live somewhere without good reception, you won't buy a cell phone." He also recommended Xbox 360 for players whose online connections aren't up to the task".

Microsoft says if your internet can't support Xbox One, use 360

"If you have zero access to the internet, that is an offline device"

www.gamesradar.com

2014 - Becomes head of Microsoft's Xbox division.

Phil Spencer takes over as head of Microsoft's Xbox division

Your source for the latest in video games, sci-fi, fantasy, tabletop games, anime, horror, books, and comics.

www.polygon.com

In all those year I don't think he was able to create a single successful new IP (Halo, Gears of War, Forza were all IPs that existed before he was put in charge). What does he have to show for these 15 years? Grounded? Sea of Thieves? It also extends to their second-party deals, they just seem unable to create any hits and they have a terrible track record with those as well. They even seem to have a hard time nurturing and evolving their already successful IPs, with Halo and Gears being the best examples of that.

Even on the hardware side, he announced VR support for the One X and that never happened, promoted on the big stage stuff like HoloLens and IllumiRoom that never materialized. When the One X was the most powerful console on the market it had almost no games to take advantage of that and relied on third-party game that many times didn't even bother that much with the Xbox version. Ok, maybe the terrible second half of the Xbox One had as far as games was a sacrifice to ensure the Xbox Series would have a great launch... but no, it had nothing (even now, one and a half years later it still has very little).

On the service side, they made this big deal about every MS game releasing on Gamepass, then we get a year like 2022 where they completely strike out and looking at the games the included this month they don't even seem to be trying anymore.

He goes all in on PR spins trying to play the role of the good guy, while his actions don't align with what he says at all. He still keeps guys like Aaron Greenberg around and even retweets hardcore Xbox warriors and Xbox marketing is way too focus on the competition while Nintendo and Sony have been a lot more chill about console wars in the last few years. I love that he was going around saying that he doesn't like exclusive while MS marketing even tries to pass games that aren't exclusive by using tricks like "Exclusive World Premier" or having publisher agree to hide for a few days that their games are multiplatform, not to mention the unholy amount of money spent to take games away from PlayStation by buying entire publishers instead of building their studios over time.

Phil is the nothing messiah of MS gaming. Mattrick was so much better and gave them games, Mattrick was also a great developer where I enjoyed his game Stunts on PC_DOS. Yet they love Phil who's been promising something great for decades. I guess if you dress in T's, Jeans and sneakers and act like a cool uncle chilling with XBROS like Dealer and the gang with a fake dudebro smile and a fake XBOX Live profile, you are all the rage.....

 

[ksdixon]

That guy actually felt like he cared.
Phill is this happy go lucky two face... "oh we all play" "oh we all have fun together" "oh we all create wonderful worlds" "oh we buy every studio"....
He talks all the right things in the interviews but I feel he is so slippery.... maybe not greasy but for sure oily.

XB needs to use Panos Panay from the Surface team. Weather he's trying to cosplay as Steve Jobs or not, I feel like that dude cares about his product.

 

[ethomaz]

The forever waiting promises…

 

[Darth Vader]

The other part is Microsoft had a big opportunity to have dreamcast games on their box and they declined.

If course they did. People often blame Sony for killing Sega, but the only player that benefited from the exit of Sega from the console market was Microsoft. And Peter Moore did such a great job at killing Sega consoles that he got promoted to a job at Microsoft.

 

[Vertigo]

100 billion dollars spent.

Zero original ideas. Zero successful IPs developed in house not named Forza.

Oh, Here’s some middling pc jank no one will give a shit about like State of Decay, which is a euphemism for 343’s condition as a game studio.

Xbox games division is an embarrassment.

They had to buy Minecraft and CoD to pretend like they own something relevant to the industry

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Even on the hardware side, he announced VR support for the One X and that never happened, promoted on the big stage stuff like HoloLens and IllumiRoom that never materialized. When the One X was the most powerful console on the market it had almost no games to take advantage of that and relied on third-party game that many times didn't even bother that much with the Xbox version. Ok, maybe the terrible second half of the Xbox One had as far as games was a sacrifice to ensure the Xbox Series would have a great launch... but no, it had nothing (even now, one and a half years later it still has very little).

He can generate buzz around the Xbox ecosystem with all the distractions, people come on the forums and repeat his word in list wars.

If that was only forum posters it would be one thing, but they have an army of media personalities (traditional and social) that will repeat the same until it's accepted as truth. They never explain the shortcomings or non delivery of something, they just move on from dx12, cloud and Halo 5 will be 1080p to 12tf, VR and Halo Infinite.

It's a media space occupation strategy, the marketing people behind it understand that they must keep the attention on them with shiny new things all the time... This has worked in generating sales, many people just won't t stop to think about what is actually going on.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Phil just isn't cut out for this.

No games; fake promises; questionable business decisions. That's Phil Spencer's legacy.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Xbox 1st party output sucks.

That's about all I care to think about Phil Spencer; feel like this thread is just taking the cult of personality thing in the opposite direction making drama out of jack shit lol Oh no Phil said he enjoyed Voodoo Vince with his daughters, he must have terrible taste!

 

[Papacheeks]

Xbox 1st party output sucks.

That's about all I care to think about Phil Spencer; feel like this thread is just taking the cult of personality thing in the opposite direction making drama out of jack shit lol Oh no Phil said he enjoyed Voodoo Vince with his daughters, he must have terrible taste!

I think the talking point though is similar to Matt Booty's career, that Phil's career most of it anyway has revolved around Microsoft Gaming Software and nothing of real note has come from his tenure in terms of increased quality/Consistency of internally developed or collaborated software.

Booty was promoted at Midway when the company was literally about to die, and it basically did die regardless of him coming in and axing projects, employee's.
He has a background in gaming, doesn't mean he's exceptional. And usually if your exceptional, you move around within the industry as others know of your Resume and want you to be exceptional at their studio/Publishing house.


Jaffe commented on this multiple times on his stream and to an extent Colin as well. They need a shannon loftis, Shue Yoshida, Scott Rhode, Cory Barlog, or Herman. They just dont have that, they just look at resumes within the company and promote because their resume says they have a background in games.
Booty led the mobile team for xbox, not something that was lighting the world on fire. And he oversaw Minecraft, and honestly Minecraft was and is already established giant brand when MS bought it. So its not like they had to reinvent anything to keep it making money in terms of managing teams that do updates.
Phil may be good at a corporate level, but hes not good on a software level. Don mattrick though had his failings and made mistakes, he knew games. He knew what would sell, what would be a big get in terms of signing exclusivity.

Say what you want about Yoshida's current position if to some it feels like a demotion, but the guy picks the best indies to showcase. Look at all the bangers Sony promotes compared to Xbox?
Xbox gets some good ones like Tunic, Deaths Door, and Hollow knight sequel. But for everyone of those, Sony has Sifu, Kena, Stray, Bugsnax, Rollerdome, The pathless. XBox is getting there, I notice the amount of diversity they are promoting with Indies on gamepass is similar to early PS4 days where Sony was courting anything indie.

Now they seem more selective, and I prefer that, thats called curation. Indies there are too many, its hard to find the diamonds you know?
Yoshida literally finds nothing in my opinion but mostly Diamonds. Thats XBox's issue to me in a nuttshell. They need to find diamonds and put them on their service/Platform.

Either they be internally developers or externally.

 

[nominedomine]

Xbox 1st party output sucks.

That's about all I care to think about Phil Spencer; feel like this thread is just taking the cult of personality thing in the opposite direction making drama out of jack shit lol Oh no Phil said he enjoyed Voodoo Vince with his daughters, he must have terrible taste!

I was just thinking about it, lets compare the more significant first party games available on Gamepass that released after the new consoles launched vs first party games from Sony that also released this gen:

Psychonauts 2 (also available on PS5)
Age of Empires IV (PC only)
Forza Horizon 5
Halo Infinite (single player part only, multiplayer is F2P)
Microsoft Flight Simulator and Gears Tactics (ports from games previously released on PC)

Spider-man Miles Morales
Demon's Souls Remake
Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut
Death Stranding Director's Cut
Returnal

It could be said that I picked an arbitrary date but if we got back even further it becomes even worse for MS because Sony PS4 library is much better, once games like Spider-man, God of War, Bloodborne, TLoU, etc, start to show up MS got nothing to compete with that. The entire day one narrative, goes down the drain when you look at how few big games MS releases.

Where I think they got Sony beat right now is with the 360 native emulation (since I have gamepass on PC I have no idea of what games are actually there but I'll assume it's a good selection) the PS3 streaming only solution sucks. Sony could easily make up for that since they have the PS1/PS2/PSP library but so far they have done a really shit job at curating that and providing a good emulation (a lot of room to improve I guess).

Xbox 1st party output sucks.

That's about all I care to think about Phil Spencer; feel like this thread is just taking the cult of personality thing in the opposite direction making drama out of jack shit lol Oh no Phil said he enjoyed Voodoo Vince with his daughters, he must have terrible taste!

The intent is to just bring up something that everyone just seem to ignore, the fact that the guy that has being promise stuff for so long has actually a ridiculous long history of not being able to put out successful games. I got banned on the other forum once for even bringing this up. Dude was in the same position Hermen Huls is today almost 15 years ago. Shuhei Yoshida became head of what is today PlayStation Studios in the same year I think, look at everything that he was able to do.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Xbox 1st party output sucks.

That's about all I care to think about Phil Spencer; feel like this thread is just taking the cult of personality thing in the opposite direction making drama out of jack shit lol Oh no Phil said he enjoyed Voodoo Vince with his daughters, he must have terrible taste!

Well to be fair if the xbox studios output is bad under his watch it may just be because he has terrible tastes and takes them in a bad direction.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Now I feel the veil is starting to slowly come off Phil Spencer, and his team. This fall is not going to be good for them. It';s going to be a slaughter. I say this without even mentioning anything first party.
All big Third party titles Minus Assassins Creed, have Sony marketing, MW2, Hogwarts legacy have Sony marketing. On top of 2 super high profile titles.

This was all Phil spencer looking after all the issues we saw articles drummed up late last year, and not calling Booty and saying what do we need to sign for 2022 to phil out the Slate in build up to fall?
They thought MLB the show, guardians, and Shredders revenge were enough to battle early on GT7, Forbidden west, Elden Ring? What moves did he make with Booty to really make gamepass shine this year? Fucking nothing.

Like I'm still feeling like a deer in headlights on how different this year feels compared to what they did last year? I mean was their antitrust laws saying they cant sign any big games for 6 month deal to have day one gamepass games? Its not like it would not release on PC/PS4/SWITCH.

Phil loves games, but he doesnt come from entertainment, so to me he's a guy that got into games because he was a gamer but not a developer.



Get some ex-Sega of America to run Xbox, i think unless every game is a banger next year fingers are going to start being pointed internally with CEO's and investors.

Agreed, I'm absolutely stunned that they've done literally nothing to buffer their software slate for 2022. If they really had no plans to delay Starfield & RedFall until May, then their communication pipeline along upper management is 100% broken; they should have been able to communicate a delay for RedFall, especially one by half a full year, by February or March of this year at latest, given realistic developer expectations.

And, that should have given them enough time to try working something, ANYTHING, out for getting a couple big 3P releases in GamePass. Between that and more than a few 1P games being shown too early (Perfect Dark, Everwild, Fable etc.), the more it feels like MS was not prepared for this generation and if they hadn't purchased Zenimax, they'd have little to no AAA releases for the first three years for Xbox outside of more Halo and Forza (I guess Flight Sim counts but it's a year-old port from PC, and Pentiment & Grounded are simply not AAA games at all). That's completely inexcusable.

My gut tells me Sony likely locked down contracts for a lot of these major 3P releases, from Gotham Knights, Hogwarts, and Avatar to Street Fighter 6, Calistro Protocol & RE4 Remake, years ago, even before 2020 in some cases, and MS were likely too busy R&D'ing Xbox Series (IIRC there was a period where Xbox division had massive budget cuts, around 2016 & 2017. Maybe it was earlier; whenever they did that they probably also delayed work on their 9th-gen systems if they were considering shutting Xbox down altogether) and picking up teams like Ninja Theory, to really try signing similar exclusivity and marketing deals with 3Ps. It's not like they'd of have the branding power or budget allocations to do such, anyway.

As for the Sega stuff, well at one point Sega literally proposed the OG Xbox be a Dreamcast 2, with full native DC BC, but it was MS who shut them down. Probably from the enterprise side. That was a missed opportunity; an OG Xbox with DC BC, being led by Ed Fries, Seamus Blackley, Peter Moore, even Bernie Stolar (he might've helped bury Saturn in America but he also helped the Dreamcast have a very successful USA launch after SOJ botched it in 1998), with MS money backing them, would've been quite big. Bigger than what the OG Xbox managed sales-wise, tho still very far away from PS2.

Still though, it probably could've done well enough to where MS could've held off on 360 for a year, avoided the RROD catastrophe, and maybe plan out some parts of the 360's setup better (built-in wifi, built-in native HD-DVD support, non-proprietary HDD). That maybe would've increased the MSRP by some, but the later release would've made sure it wasn't by too much. This would've helped out PS3 to a degree, but still hurt it because it's still the same easier-to-program-for 360, same fully-unified RAM, still a bit cheaper (maybe $499 for the top model instead of $399) too.

Even if that would've resulted in a 360 that sold a bit less (say, 75 million LTD vs. 90 million LTD for PS3), it would've gone a long way towards ensuring a stronger core gaming focus in the twilight years, and maybe would've helped prevent the bad design choices of the XBO.

The Xbox itself was never that good of an idea to begin with, it seems like the biggest fails of Xbox comes from them trying to be Sony and it just doesn't seem to suit MS.

While they were having a hard time competing with Sony they were getting even more outclased on the PC space by Valve and to this day their store is still a joke, (even with Gamepass they still have to put their games on Steam). Just look at what Valve did with the Steam Deck, how didn't MS do something like that first? They had this big advantage over Valve with Windows and over Sony with Sony's library of games requiring specific hardware.

With that said, Phil at least does seem to have a better feel for PC games and seem to find more success with games that are aimed more at the PC audience.

With how big MS Studios became after the acquisition of Bethesda, Activision and Blizzard I think insisting with Xbox makes less sense than ever for them, that's probably why they are focusing so much on xCloud.

You present a possibility for a very interesting alternate timeline tbh. What if Microsoft simply doubled-down on PC gaming instead of trying to get into the console gaming space? I think we'd of eventually gotten Steam Machines from Microsoft, but actually supported fully, and a Steam-like counterpart from them rather than Valve. I think that could've been very successful for them tbh.

Similarly I have thoughts here and there of what if Sega doubled-down on arcades in the mid '90s and released a comprehensive Neptune (with CD-ROM support built-in) instead of the Saturn, and essentially focused on Neptune as their main, lower-end 32-bit entry from '94 - '98 while doing select ports to systems like the PS1 a year or two after the Neptune? Maybe they could've helped save arcades from fading away and built up a bigger console gaming audience even earlier.

And PS2 got Virtua Fighter 4, Gamecube got Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, and every franchise that went to Xbox died never to bee seen or heard from again (JSRF, Crazy Taxi, Panzer Draggon Orta, etc).

The Xbox-Sega association was always a stretch. Beyond Peter Moore there's not much there. Sega also launhced valkyria chronicles, Virtua Fighter 5, and all the Yakuza's as PS2/3 exclusives. By the PS3 gen they had pretty much given up on xbox.

Actually, VF5 came out first for the 360. I remember because the first gameplay vids for VF5 I scoped from Gamespot were the 360 version, and there was a big deal back then because the 360 release was the only one with online play. It took a few years for the PS3 port to get online enabled play (and for the graphics to get patched up to look as good as the 360 version).

But the (at the time) final version, Final Tuned I believe, PS3 was the only system that got that version of VF5. It was definitive console port for a while until Ultimate Showdown last year for the PS4. That all said, I think VF's fanbase post-Saturn/Dreamcase, console-wise, was always PlayStation. VF4, 'nuff said. VF5, vast majority of console fanbase was on PS3 since VF itself was always an IP much more popular in Japan/Asian than the West (VF4 helped to start change that, but VF5 regressed some of that progress), so most of that audience was on PS3. I wouldn't be surprised if VF6 is PS5 console-exclusive, or if that version is the lead platform with marketing rights to it.

 

[LightBolt]

XGS was formed back in 2018 and where are the GOW and Uncharted and TLOU level AAA exclusives that isn't Halo or Forza? I get Xbox has bought a crap ton of studios since then but where are the goods..

 

[Killer_Sakoman]

XGS was formed back in 2018 and where are the GOW and Uncharted and TLOU level AAA exclusives that isn't Halo or Forza? I get Xbox has bought a crap ton of studios since then but where are the goods..

They invested blindly. They clearly don't know what to do with all of these studios they bought.
Phil also introduced a confusing definition of "platform" and mixed the fuck out of the term " exclusive".
All he does is fucking people minds and disrupting the media.
At night he is against fanboys and games should be played on every platform, then few hours in the morning he is in a famous fanboy podcast. What the fuck?