Phil Spencer and the Xbox Team

Well some people see him as this because they cant play Halo this year. Shit happens and always will happen. He has got things right and wrong Like every other Person

As long as you’re happy with his performance, I guess.

Truth is, the xbox brand has been in steep decline since he took over in 2014.

thats just not true. Forza 7 and Forza Horizon 4 were strong showcases of Xbox One X and we also got a lot of additional patches for One and 360 games before Gears 5 launched.

the last two fiscal years were record years for xbox.

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Hardware sales are a terrible metric for assessing financial success. They reported record revenue in 2018 and even though they haven’t matched that yet their revenue has been higher than it ever was before he took over. They even reported a huge increase in revenue in their last fiscal quarter

As i said, as long as he provides a good gaming experience for me, then I’ll be satisfied. Shouldn’t this be the most important thing for everybody? Haha.

Gamepass has really been a game changer for me. Actually reinvigorated my interest in gaming in general. Love that i get to try out and play these lesser known titles, through gamepass. I also got to catch up on older titles that I missed out on previously, due to my busy school/work sched. ( Ehem… Dishonored 2) :))

So if Phil’s big push is to make Gamepass the future, then i’m definitely on board with that vision. :slight_smile:

Because of GamePass, right? Which is great. Right now, its the best value in the industry. Let’s just hope it stays that way.

Only partially. They’ve come out and said that game pass actually isn’t very profitable yet. A big part of that revenue is just purely from software sales.

Hmm… Not sure anyone was saying he’s a friend. Where’d that come from exactly?

Criticism is fine but it needs to come with understanding. COVID has been hell on so many lives and work flows. Xbox and Phil are doing the absolute best they can. I don’t know if many of you are working from home but I can tell you due to living with people that are software developers, it sucks. It’s a ton of phone calls, or slack messages, emails or what have you. It’s also a lot of waiting on others. You do as much as you can then you hit a wall because someone hasn’t responded to a message or pushed their update. Then you move on to other aspects because so,etching hasn’t been fixed yet or you can’t contact this person or…yeah it’s a mess. There’s like no flow. Everyday is a different stress, so I get it. More power to them.

Agreed. I’ve seen a lot of self-entitled nonsense in the past 24 hours (not here!) about how people should be losing their jobs - I mean, how dare they delay a video game while attempting to develop it within a global pandemic! The horror!!! :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

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Nothing wrong with criticism.

I still think the team have done a phenomenal job turning the system around from a services, platform, software and hardware perspective.

We got Game Pass, more than doubling of 1st Party, Series X/S and xCloud. Only thing they seem to have stumbled is execution of software delivery. Delaying Halo was absolutely the correct decision to make.

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First party will take a couple more years but I think they’re on the right path. I do believe marketing could be much better as well. Especially in their communications, too many people talking too much imo. They contradict each other sometimes.

Wait, are you arguing that a decline in the brand after 2014 is due to actions Spencer has taken and not due to the massive tire fire that was 2013/2014 for Xbox? His predecessor literally reduced the system to a meme. Do you think the things Spencer has launched - BC, One X, GamePass - have actually driven the brand down? That seems truly bizarre to me if so.

I think OP has it right. Some stuff hasn’t gone right, that’s obvious. But let’s give a little credit where it’s due and remember that leaders, developers, and teams are humans.

Pull back and grab some perspective - they are launching without any of the 2013 BS around TV and Kinect and used games, with double the first party pipeline, with the strongest console, and with over 10 million Game Pass subs already in place and now available on mobile phones via streaming. Feeling bad that Halo got delayed is reasonable, but the overall progress for Xbox should be obvious.

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The opinion of random internet dwellers doesn’t affect my impression of Microsoft, or the Xbox brand or of the staff supporting it. Phil has done an amazing job of migrating Xbox into a platform that is ready for the future.

The real tell is to see how Satya Nadella and the Microsoft management team and shareholders think. He’s been given budget to buy studios, access to Microsoft devs, engineers and R&D staff, he’s been promoted to the leadership council, a peer among the top dozen or so execs at Microsoft.

All of that tells you that Phil’s on the right track. I think the moves he’s made are creating a gaming platform and ecosystem that will grow, can be sustained and is well beyond just plastic boxes. It’s amazing how vision meets execution, and some rando on Twitter isn’t changing my mind.

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I agree with your assessment.

Personally, im a huge fan of Phil Spencer and have been since he gained total control over Xbox in late 2017 with only Hood and Nadella above him. Anything before then was due to Terry Myerson and Don Mattrick who quite honestly both sucked in regards to Xbox One.

Spencer has added 7 studios and 2 from the ground up. He solved the power/capability issue that was Xbox One with Xbox One X and in three months, Xbox Series X. He did something that no one thought any of the big three would do - put their exclusives on Game Pass at launch. This in of itself is insane in a good way.

I’m a PS4 guy since Spring 2014 but was an Xbox 360 guy and will be an Xbox Series X guy because unlike Xbox One, they aren’t forcing a less powerful and capable console on me for $500 with shitty Kinect. Instead, they’re giving me the most powerful and capable console which will only be showcased more and more as the generation progresses.

As someone who wasn’t going to play Halo Infinite until they added Ray Tracing, the delay doesn’t bother me at all and if anything, it’s better for me and in general for those who actually want a better overall game in 15 months than what we would be getting in 3 months.

Game Pass is excellent and I will have Gears Tactics and Ori and the Will of the Wisps day one and Wasteland 3. And of course, all the future first party games day one.

We’re getting Cyberpunk 2077, AC Valhalla, Outriders, Avengers, Watch Dogs Legion and AA exclusives in The Ascent, The Medium (timed, game pass), Second Extinction and Crossfire X campaign.

Compared to 2013 launch, I don’t see how anyone could not be excited and hyped for Xbox Series X at launch even after the Halo Infinite delay. I just don’t get it. Some gamers are never happy I guess.

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He’s a good salesman. Makes you think he cares about you, when that isn’t necessarily true. He’s a MS suit that just cares about making his number and staying employed. I have to chuckle that he’s held up as some kind of God by the MS faithful on ResetEra.

The difference between someone like Phil and Aaron Greenburg in their personal skills is stark, and highlights what I’m speaking about. I’ve met many like both of them at MS back when I was selling Azure. It’s just sales …

Phil is Alright but he his no Peter Moore

We Wouldn’t have this Launch Problem if Peter was in charge

I don’t think people are as important as Microsoft and the wider priorities. Xbox simply can’t operate how it did when PM was boss. The priorities driven by MS are just different. The mission is no longer to rule the living room…

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Phil has a bigger vision of where gaming is heading and MS has the assets to be at the forefront. Their data centers alone should show that. I see him good for gaming in general. You don’t see Jim Ryan or anyone at Nintendo speak to this, let alone have a social media presence interacting with people. When have you seen any hard hitting interviews with any of them? Phil does plenty and doesn’t mind. This is why it’s easy for gamers to hate on Phil, simply because team Xbox has a presence.

Without Xbox, Sony/Nintendo would have issues down the line from Amazon/Google/Tencent. That’s a fact. So I don’t understand the “doom and gloom” for Xbox or even wanting Xbox to fail. Sony/Nintendo need Xbox for the things they haven’t invested in like MS has. I rather these 3 stick together (the O.G.'s if you will) against the others to move gaming forward.

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