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[Azurro]

Yeah...that's a lot of text... Wow, you are certainly... passionate about this topic.



So, here's my in depth answer based on what I read:

 

[Kenneth Haight]

“I see commentary that if you just built great games everything would turn around. It’s just not true that if we go off and build great games then all of a sudden you’re going to see console share shift in some dramatic way.”

He’s not making me buy an Xbox so yes it is his fault unfortunately. The buck stops with him and the Xbox brand needs to attract me in a major way. The reason I moved from 360 to PS4 was the allure of great games and the simplicity in regards to DRM and Kinect they tried to bundle with Xbox one. That was a big shift but they can still turn it around with great games and I hope they do. I want to be tempted to spend my money on unique experiences but so far from general here say I cannot in good faith give them my cash.

 

[Arsic]

 

[Horseganador]

Poor Phil has only had 10 years and unlimited money to raise Xbox and he has only managed to go last and sell less than 360 and ONE, and there are still people cleaning up his image and defending his management on the forums, amazing.

 

[PectacularOz]

Literally none of these areguments are necessary IF THEY JUST MADE SOME GOOD GAMES

 

[Slicker than your average]

 

[Germuso]

Are you from Xbox era?

 

[VinnyMac]

Calm down bro it's not that serious

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Guys, get real. Phil is not "a gamer like us" he's a company man through and through.

If he wasn't, he wouldn't be in the position where he is today.

I don't agree with this as he is a gamer

 

[Shambala]

 

[DenchDeckard]

What we got just a little over two weeks to see what's been happen9bg for the last few years.

It's time...

Ms needs like 4 to 5 big wins, never mind one in starfield. Show us what we will be playing within the next 18 months and make em big wappers

 

[Cyber_hunter026]

 

[BrutalTruth_]

It is a great theory and argument but you'll get people that won't even read it and just try to stir the pot

 

[Max_Po]

Agree, Phil has been shitting the bed for 9 years.

Another day and another fucking clown writes an essay.

 

[Crayon]

Getting warmer. The problem is that they never had to sink or swim like a real business that must make money. That's why sony and nintendo tear them apart.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

It is a great theory and argument but you'll get people that won't even read it and just try to stir the pot

can you summarize?

 

[Physiognomonics]

He should have being fired with Mattrick

 

[The Stig]

5. Phil isn't doing a good job with Microsoft first party output.

thread over.

 

[Schmendrick]

He's the boss. He gets astronomical sums to be the one responsible. Anyone defending a millionaire CEO needs his head checked.....

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

literally none of these areguments are necessary IF THEY JUST MADE SOME GOOD GAMES

"one and done"

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

And I know you degenerates well, so getting ahead of a few first posts:

"wow that sure is a lot of words to say xbox has no games lol"

"found phil spencer's neogaf account"

Would be nice to have some actual discussion on this instead of the normal meme circlejerk.

ok. buddy. i hope you dont pull the "In cold Blood" tactic:

Once one engage with hi, he answers: "Oh, you are just a troll"

 

[BlackTron]

When I read the title I thought he's charge, that doesn't make any sense! If someone else isn't doing their job, it's his job to figure out why and how to fix that, or replace them with people who can. The buck stops with him.

Then the page loaded and I was like...I'm gonna leave my opinion without reading that

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Seeing a lot of Phil bashing lately

not lately. I think this "Phil bashing" has been a thing since last gen. especially with the release of Crack Down 3 (I remember people having meltdowns) and Scalebound/Fable cancelations .

this youtuber was pro Xbox. And because of this shitshow became Pro PlayStation.

note: listening to the video....yikes. nothing has change

due to unrest within the Xbox fanbase and the flop of Redfall seen by fan lads as an opportunity to dunk on him.

again. no new

The truth is that without Phil’s efforts over the past 10 years, there wouldn’t even be an Xbox Game Studios.

put a in this.

That’s not to say he should be immune to criticism, but the amount and severity of it is overblown. Make no mistake, I am no stan for Phil. This is coming from someone who sees absolutely no point to owning an Xbox since the 360 and who finds PS+ Extra better than Game Pass. Regardless, the amount and kind of criticism being thrown his way is misguided.

imagine that.

Let’s start by looking at Microsoft as a company and their relationship with Xbox Game Studios, this is key because its ultimately what Phil is beholden to in terms of budget and strategy.

put a on this.

People on this board don’t seem to understand what kind of company Microsoft is and what their relationship with gaming is. Microsoft is fundamentally a middle man “platform” company first and foremost. They began this way and it’s their core competency. From Windows to Office, Azure, etc, they almost never make the best software (except for Excel). The reason they are so successful is because they provide a platform that does everything, even if they don’t do it exceptionally well. They are a tech company first, not a toy company like Nintendo, not an electronics or entertainment company like Sony.

bad argument.

If Microsoft/Xbox has been in the console/gaming business industry for 20+ years, they should be measured up to the highest standards of this industry

their internal bullshit shouldn't be an excuse.

It doesn’t matter to Microsoft as a whole if Xbox is in third place so long as they are profitable. And before someone comes in to assert their thesis on their last 10 income statements - it doesn’t matter how much money Xbox has lost Microsoft. Microsoft sees that as an acceptable cost of acquiring market share for future profits. They are so wildly successful that it means nothing, they’re fine with taking a hit for several years in order to build their moat. In particular right now Microsoft’s focus under Nadella is to become THE big player in the SaaS and PaaS markets. They understand services are the way to future profitability in their core markets, and they have taken this approach with the Xbox division too.

again: 20+ years in this industry.

つづく...

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Now take a look at this, the history of Microsoft’s game studio:

Xbox Game Studios - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Xbox Games Studios has historically been a publisher, first and foremost, NOT a development studio. Look at the history and you’ll see how few games have been developed by already-in-house Microsoft teams. Their strategy has ALWAYS been to acquire existing development studios and fold their teams in under the Microsoft brand, acting as a publisher. Take a couple minutes to skim through that wiki, you will see each of their early big franchises like Flight Simulator, MechWarrior, Halo, and Fable were all buyouts of existing teams. With the exception of Forza, almost all of these dev teams are no longer operating under Microsoft (or at all) with much of the institutional knowledge gone elsewhere.


You’ll see that the existing dev teams in XGS today are almost all new acquisitions from the past few years, or have have enough turnover and change to consider themselves brand new teams. Furthermore, these acquisitions historically have been run as independent game shops and were Microsoft brand in name only. Traditionally this is how Microsoft operated their software company acquisitions. That is changing, as of very recently (COVID), and Matt Booty has been transparent about this in a podcast interview with Friends Per Second:

That change looks to be a stronger partnership between XGS and among its dev teams - much like the models that have been in place at Sony and Nintendo for a long time, and often cited as one of the biggest benefits to working with PlayStation from small dev teams - access to their resources and guidance. A change so recent will obviously take time to see the effects of.

put a on this

 

[That Damn Kid]

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Last, we look at Phil Spencer and Xbox division itself. Nadella became CEO in 2014, got rid of Mattrick and put Phil as head of Xbox. Considering the amount of damage already done, Phil’s first major task was to stop the bleeding and return to profitability. Here lies the big disconnect I see on this forum, in that “Phil has had 10 years to fix this and he has failed!” It’s quite the opposite, especially considering just how dominant Sony has been, and Nintendo since 2017.


What people also forget (or never knew to begin with) is that Phil was also responsible for Groove Music, Movies and TV, and Xbox Entertainment Studios. His focus was not solely on gaming! In fact, guess who Phil’s boss was - it was Terry Myerson, the VP of Operating Systems, who at the time was in charge of Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox. In case you didn’t know, Windows was undergoing a huge transformation due to Nadella’s company-wide shift to cloud services and away from their traditional OS market. We also know what happened to Windows Phone. So in 2014 Xbox was neither the focus of Phil’s boss, nor the sole focus of Phil himself.


Still, within Phil’s first year as Xbox head, they acquired notable IPs like Gears and Minecraft (they bought Mojang entirely). I don’t need to explain how big of a win that was in terms of bringing money into Xbox. They also gave Gears to The Coalition, shut down Xbox Entertainment Studios, and had to contend with the unmitigated disaster Xbox One Phil immediately inherited. They also decided to reveal Ori and the Blind Forest, while it was an indie game it had the backing of Xbox as publisher which helped make the game a huge success (which it surpassed in its follow up, Will of the Wisps).

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

It took Microsoft until 2017 to consider Xbox an important part of their future strategy, likely due to the company’s pivot toward cloud computing and services with Game Pass. Finally Phil was promoted to executive VP and given a seat at the table, reporting directly to CEO Nadella and with Matt Booty from Mojang filling the role of head of XGS development. This is probably the most important part in this post, because it’s clear that until 2017 Xbox was not given clout by Microsoft. Given the company’s history and organizational structure, I am not surprised it's taking a long time to turn Xbox around. 2017 and beyond is the period where Phil actually has a real voice and pull within Microsoft as a whole, and what he should be judged for is overall direction of Xbox. Matt Booty is in the hotseat in terms of first-party output, which has been the biggest criticism of Xbox as a platform.

Oh....the " I wasn't even trying" excuse.

Still, if you look at what Xbox has done during this timeframe, you will see a lot of positives. Aside from the name, Xbox Series X is great hardware and has excellent features.

as the original Xbox. and aside from the RROD, the 360 was cheaper, came out one year early and it was easier to develop for.

Game Pass has been wildly successful.

Mmm. is more complicated than that.

Although I don't like the precedent set due to the scope of industry consolidation, Microsoft's acquisitions of Zenimax and their pending Activision-Blizzard look to be huge positives for the Xbox brand. I haven't played it but from what I understand, critically, Halo Infinite's single player campaign was great and finally has the series back on track. Forza Horizon 5 was GOTY material. These are all signs that what Xbox is doing under Phil is working. Microsoft is happy with the results as Phil just got promoted to CEO of Xbox in 2022 and is now calling all of the shots for Microsoft's gaming segment with minimal oversight from Nadella.

we went from 16 years of " we are not trying anyway'

to 6 years of "now xbox is serious business"

to 2 years of "Now Phil is calling all of the shots".

 

[ZehDon]

Poor Phil has only had 10 years and unlimited money to raise Xbox and he has only managed to go last and sell less than 360 and ONE, and there are still people cleaning up his image and defending his management on the forums, amazing.

Unfortunately, Xbox wasn't it's own division with its own budget until (I believe) 2018, when Spencer was given his own Xbox money to spend. Until then, it was a sub-department and Phil was on a leash. His first move with his new money was buying up five smaller studios to bolster Xbox's output. There's an argument to be made that Spencer kept Xbox running on life support when Microsoft was trying to pull the plug.

With all of that said, 2018 to 2023 is five years. Most AAA games today take about five or six years to bring to market. Even if we presume there was some magical curse preventing their studios from making good games before 2018 (there wasn't), right now would be the time their new projects should start landing or be close enough to show off. If we're not blown away in next month's Xbox showcase with the future of Xbox, I think it's fair to say Spencer's had enough time to right the ship and needs to step down. Microsoft gave 343i 10 years with Halo, before they finally gutted it after Halo Infinite was DOA and the brand was basically worthless. How much more time does Spencer get to actually deliver on all the promises?

 

[gothmog]

If he was the only problem with Xbox he would be gone.

 

[Kumomeme]

agree. Phil Spencer not in the wrong here. he just a victim.

this is all evil Sony fault. this is all because of Jim Ryan!

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

after reading all of that LavitzSlambert .





00:43:50 - 00:59:00


Phil has been in positions of power from the executive point of view for a long ass time now. (since the beginning)

He should be a fucking master at Game Development Management.

and should have the experience to choose the correct people.

the " MS really didn't care about Xbox" is fucking bullshit. the Read Ring of Death mistake was super expensive

so...it wasn't about the money.

The issue lies with the leadership at Xbox, particularly with Phil Spencer (the captain of this ship for enough time), who recently conducted one of the most disastrous PR interviews in history.

 

[Clear]

I don't agree with this as he is a gamer

I'm not throwing shade at the guy, just pointing out the obvious fact that Phil's been a senior executive at MS for many years. Meaning that he knows how to play the corporate game, something that is inarguably evidenced by him getting his bosses to sign off on BILLIONS of dollars for investment in his division.

Given that level of responsibility its pretty obvious who's bidding he's going to be doing! Moreso, who he has to make happy...

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Oh.My.Toad.

You've found the courage to answer

I TRUELY ADMIRE YOU BUDDY

BE STRONG

not lately. I think this "Phil bashing" has been a thing since last gen. especially with the release of Crack Down 3 (I remember people having meltdowns) and Scalebound/Fable cancelations .

this youtuber was pro Xbox. And because of this shitshow became Pro PlayStation.

note: listening to the video....yikes. nothing has change

again. no new


put a in this.


imagine that.



put a on this.



bad argument.

If Microsoft/Xbox has been in the console/gaming business industry for 20+ years, they should be measured up to the highest standards of this industry

their internal bullshit shouldn't be an excuse.






again: 20+ years in this industry.

つづく...

put a on this

Oh....the " I wasn't even trying" excuse.

as the original Xbox. and aside from the RROD, the 360 was cheaper, came out one year early and it was easier to develop for.


Mmm. is more complicated than that.


we went from 16 years of " we are not trying anyway'

to 6 years of "now xbox is serious business"

to 2 years of "Now Phil is calling all of the shots".

 

[Arsic]

Let’s look at it this way: what complaints do we have about Sony or Nintendo execs or the direction for the brand ?

For Nintendo I want new hardware. AKA I want to give them $; and I keep throwing money at them for software. It’s a non issue for them.

Sony….???? I got nothing.

Xbox list of problems runs a mile god damn long. When your only true saving grace is just gamepass, and the benefits it provides the PC players like me, then you aren’t out to compete in the console space anymore anyway, so why make hardware? And if you aren’t driven to make exclusive titles folks can’t play anywhere else, then why give you $ if I can play it elsewhere plus other benefits.

Gamepass is the only thing holding this together, and if their showcase isn’t a banger with release dates and gameplay trailers, along with starfield being a 85+ banger game, then the “fruits of his labor” will all be total donkey shit.

There’s a handful of apes still defending him but after his recent PR tour you’d have to personally be gobbling his nuts to buy his shtick anymore.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

OP is nuts.

If you can't see that Phil is the problem, him being the guy running the ship, then you're just not capable of objective thought and I worry for you.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Well he is the man in charge so he literally is part of the problem. But it’s still been a huge net positive since he took over.

But this thread will be mostly shit posting and laugh emojis, Phil Spencer drives the Sony warriors crazy for some reason.

 

[Nico_D]

"Discussion forums" is a weird concept. People admit they don't read what someone else has written, pretty thoroughly, and yet take part in the discussion of the topic without knowing what was said.

I read 80-90% percent. I mostly agree. Blaming any one person of businesses problems is childish. They are responsible, of course, but thinking that a CEO is hands on with every game developed, sitting next to devs, testing the games etc. is just foolish. But internet lives on blame.

And I agree with Danjin: why care about CEOs one way or another.

 

[solidus12]

edit: wrong thread. Sorry.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

"Discussion forums" is a weird concept. People admit they don't read what someone else has written, pretty thoroughly, and yet take part in the discussion of the topic without knowing what was said.

I read 80-90% percent. I mostly agree. Blaming any one person of businesses problems is childish. They are responsible, of course, but thinking that a CEO is hands on with every game developed, sitting next to devs, testing the games etc. is just foolish. But internet lives on blame.

And I agree with Danjin: why care about CEOs one way or another.

His job is literally to create a plan and put the right people in place to ensure his plan is executed correctly.

Of course he is going to take most if not all the blame because it’s his job to put the right people in place to prevent issues like Redfall from happening.

 

[Nico_D]

His job is literally to create a plan and put the right people in place to ensure his plan is executed correctly.

Of course he is going to take most if not all the blame because it’s his job to put the right people in place to prevent issues like Redfall from happening.

Doesn't that take away the responsibility of the employees? No one can be responsible if someone else does a bad job - they can be responsible of the consequences but not of the job quality itself. That is more the studio supervisor's job and not the CEO. CEO can take care the studio head knows what they are doing but even there, if they fuck up, what can you do?

I'm not talking particularly about Phil, I just find weird this whole childish blame game like no one on this forum has ever failed. Or maybe they haven't if the thinking is that their faults are always a fault of someone above them.

 

[Three]

Unfortunately, Xbox wasn't it's own division with its own budget until (I believe) 2018, when Spencer was given his own Xbox money to spend. Until then, it was a sub-department and Phil was on a leash. His first move with his new money was buying up five smaller studios to bolster Xbox's output. There's an argument to be made that Spencer kept Xbox running on life support when Microsoft was trying to pull the plug.

What are you talking about? Xbox is less of an operating segment now than it was before and Phil has been in charge of xbox for nearly a decade.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

Doesn't that take away the responsibility of the employees? No one can be responsible if someone else does a bad job - they can be responsible of the consequences but not of the job quality itself. That is more the studio supervisor's job and not the CEO. CEO can take care the studio head knows what they are doing but even there, if they fuck up, what can you do?

I'm not talking particularly about Phil, I just find weird this whole childish blame game like no one on this forum has ever failed. Or maybe they haven't if the thinking is that their faults are always a fault of someone above them.

Your correct in that Phil isn’t to blame for creating Redfall. But it was his decision to push big marketing behind the game even though it was a bad game and the game should not of been released in the state it was in under his watch.

This isn’t the first issue Xbox has had under Phil and I think that might be the point your missing.

No one is getting mad at Phil just because of Redfall, that game is apart of other issues that Xbox has had under Phil and it was basically the “last straw” for a lot of people.

Every one makes mistakes that’s not a big deal but making mistakes over and over again when you have the knowledge and resources to prevent it is the issue.

 

[coffinbirth]

Phil didn't get daddy Nadella's credit card until 2018, and we're just NOW starting to see those investments yield games.

Relax.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

never go full fanboy.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Wow this did not turn out like op thought.....or maybe it did.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Phil didn't get daddy Nadella's credit card until 2018, and we're just NOW starting to see those investments yield games.

Relax.

(1) Are we really seeing the yields? Their first AAA exclusive coming out of those investments is Redfall.
(2) Are you saying that Phil's only and greatest achievement is getting access to Nadella's credit card? Without that credit card, Phil couldn't do anything? Why?None of his competitors has access to a credit card like that either.

 

[Alan Wake]

He's the boss, he's responsible. There are lots of people under him who are to blame for the situation Xbox is in. But we've talked about lacklustr first party output for just about TEN YEARS now. First he was head of gaming, which makes him responsible on that level when Xbox One launched, and now he's the head of Xbox as a whole, which makes him responsible for everything.

I like Phil, I think he's a good force for the entire industry. But it is time to deliver on all the promises made since at least 2018. If he can't we need to ask why he's still there.

 

[coffinbirth]

(1) Are we really seeing the yields? Their first AAA exclusive coming out of those investments is Redfall.
(2) Are you saying that Phil's only and greatest achievement is getting access to Nadella's credit card? Without that credit card, Phil couldn't do anything? Why?None of his competitors has access to a credit card like that either.

That's a lot of salt and goofy deductions for a throwaway comment, brave warrior.

 

[CLW]

Phil Spencer burner account or paid shill?

 

[Moonjt9]

I actually went ahead and asked ChatGPT just that

Holy shit. This is frightening. It’s too real. AI must be stopped.