But it should be worth it first and foremost. Buying Bethesda for 7.5b is a choice that MSFT would do, but I don’t see them paying hundreds of millions for Game Pass deal of Starfield.
3 Likes
This is a very unrealistic way of looking at things.
2 Likes
Hes bought some amszing japanese gsmes and series to xbox so 9/10.
So Sony will keep grabbing 3rd party games
I mean, your three quoted third party exclusives are all from Square Enix. At this stage, I’m inclined to believe there’s more going on behind the scenes there than MS short-changing.
This is especially so when you consider how they’ve changed the narrative on franchises formerly associated with PlayStation like Yakuza and Persona. If anything, Phil and Xbox have taken two steps forward on the third party multiplatform release front (even if Final Fantasy represents one step back)
He’s been absolute epic and honestly any other answer means that someone is disregarding circumstances and history.
It’s like say a football manager taking over a team who have just been relegated and are in administration due to bankruptcy. Taking said team getting them promoted and the winning the league. But people being unhappy they’ve not won the champions league too.
Sure you might be unhappy about that if you were a team in the high reaches of the league with top players and money and resources….but Xbox weren’t.
He’s had to effectively reconstruct Xbox since 2018 ish. And that’s 4 years. With a pandemic. From an almost non existent base. Because his earlier years were simply about keeping the brand alive. It wasn’t till 17/18 that he could really build Xbox again. And he did so more or less from scratch.
12 Likes
Thank you for the compliments. Appreciate it.
I do believe that there wasn’t anything that Phil could do once the delays happened but my issue is that he doesn’t plan things out in advance for if/when he needs to delay a game or two like he did with Starfield and Redfall.
It’s just at times, it feels like he has no backup plan whatsoever in case shit goes bad. Thus far, this has happened two out of three years. What if in 2025, same shit happens? I can be fine with once, twice is borderline WTF and third, is like, okay, there’s an issue here, period.
There’s nothing wrong with depending on timed exclusivity or a day one Game Pass deal. For example, I would have called WB and been like, how much to get Gotham as a timed exclusive or day one on Game Pass? Granted, not the best game obviously but it has a name attached to it, has done pretty well and most people have enjoyed it more than the critics did.
I agree completely. A lot of stuff didn’t go Microsoft’s way in 2022 and yes, I do wish Phil was more aggressive and cut throat to be honest especially now in regards to the ABK deal seeming like it’s going to take another two years or some shit.
I do believe that if Phil was more aggressive, my issue with him at times seemingly not have a backup plan or two would probably be lessened or perhaps even eliminated.
Agreed. Only way I see a “third party” exclusive is if it’s like Contraband meaning fully funded, marketed and published by Microsoft. Other than that, I don’t see a Final Fantasy or Forspoken or something to that affect where they’ll pay for exclusivity but it’s the respective third party publisher that’s funding, marketing and publishing the game.
I agree. I’ve seen enough deals done that have caused backlash and a lot of noise around it for nothing to really effect anything.
Take the World Cup being awarded to Qatar, for 13 years all we heard was the issues with human rights Etc but once the tournament got going the noise stopped & now it’s all about the football.
They call it sports washing.
You just have to be brave make those exclusive deals take the noise on the chin, if it’s a good game those moaning will end up buying an Xbox if playing it means that much to them.
Just have to be strong enough to not listen to the noise
the biggest things Phil has done during his tenure as someone who has real power at Microsoft under Xbox has been to tie the brand to cloud/services with Nadella as CEO, and restructuring the brand away from Windows to reduce internal politics. Gaming being not really under its own control was a big roadblock in terms of ambition and budget. I don’t think this happened until maybe 2018, but it is for sure how it is now with a Microsoft Gaming subdivision from the start of this year.
That is hugely positive for the brand, as well as the refocus on the core of the audience, BC, hardware innovation, game pass, first party investment, etc. Overall a B, only dinged for the lack of output
Love the football manager analogy
Phil is Xbox answer to Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds united
Took over a fallen giant that had was ruined by bad ownership and turned the tanker round brought us back to the promised land.
If only Microsoft could have an investment arm that bought into sports teams that could somehow push the technology side of things by using some sort of cloud tech to show games to people in VR and using the team to push the marketing. Rebuild a state of the art. Name it elland road xbox stadium. invest in the team so you get world wide recognition. Like Man City have been sports washed. Have Xbox or MS sponsor it and then use it as the vehicle to sell their cloud tech or whatever for the future of viewing sports interactively.
& phil in the unlikely event you ever read this as I believe you’re a member of this forum. It would cost you less than if you were to walk away from the ABK deal so hit sataya up. 
Haha that’s the dream anyway back on topic
If we get some good games that will differentiate Xbox from PlayStation in the coming years 1st 2nd or 3rd party then it’ll be an A+ from me.
1 Like
Mostly successful although the first party output is still mostly no where near good enough. Lots of potential in the future but the stumble with Halo and all the turmoil in development right now (yes COVID is a big issue). They definitely need to get a handle on it although Gamepass has definitely bought them time. Games like Grounded and Pentiment are good examples of what their first party can do.
I think 2022 will definitely be a major thing for Phil. If you have Starfield and Redfall nail the landing and review well it’ll be huge. If they whiff or stumble like Halo it’s going to be magnified by the year they had.
I like what Phil has done for the most part but the next year is incredibly important.
1 Like
Usually for the third party I think about multiplats that went exclusive. Fully funded games becom first party essentially.
1 Like
For whatever it’s worth, Xbox DOES do a lot of timed exclusive third party games. It’s just stuff like Stalker 2, High on Life, Somerville, Scorn and isn’t the biggest AAA stuff ever.
I’d say a B overall. Xbox has most of the pieces lined up, just a matter of getting them out the door, so to speak. I can’t say I’m that bothered by the delays of things like Starfield, it’s actually a blessing due to my backlog, even though it’s my most anticipated title from them. It might cop them some flak in the meantime, but it’s definitely preferable to releasing games that clearly would benefit from having more time in the oven.
One thing I’d definitely like to see them do, and is definitely in their control, is to sort out the options/pricing of the expansion cards. Having it locked to one provider was a terrible decision and needs to be reversed asap.
I have more high quality games to choose from than i can realistically ever play. Series X hardware is very nice, Play Anywhere on my laptop and xCloud works seamingly. So on the games and platform front its an A. But closing Lionhead will forever be a big fat minus for me so Phil Spencer gets a B.
Restart the backwards compatibility program with Activisions catalog and make Xbox Live on the OG Xbox work again and we could talk about A- though 
1 Like
He’s done way much more than what was expected from him when he took the reins after the Xbox One and 2013 fiasco.
He really brought back the passion into the Xbox team, trusted his engineers and build with them some crazy innovative projects like Backward Compatibility, that would have probably been buried if that was someone else decision, or Game Pass, which is an insane idea that shouldn’t have worked as well as it did. And by convincing the higher ups, he really turned things up for the better. He did something that many companies would have dreamed of.
Of course, there’s MS money involved, but Xbox as a branch was in trouble and he managed that money aspect really well too. He really took Xbox out of that ditch… as 2013 was a really bad year for fans… We were there so we should all at least respect him for not letting us down and try new stuff, even if Xbox is still not quite in the position where it should be… yet.
1 Like
This. 2023 NEEDS to be the breakout year. If they can for sure release atleast 2 AAA games that do well, that’s a good start.
I know some people are predicting delays again. Saying forza is spring, red fall is summer, and starfield is fall. If this happens, then I lost all faith in his management. It would flat out be unacceptable for them not to hit their “all these games will release before June 2023” promise from last E3.
1 Like
5 Likes