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[Reaseru]

A guy who wasted billions of dollars of money in constant aquisitions, is now blaming that the very same money owners (the stockholders) want continuous expectations of growth in profits. Don Mattrick has done a lot more (gave Xbox its best generation) with a lot less money from MS.

Why don't they just fire this guy? If I was a MS stockholder i would demanded his ass gone a long time ago...

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Next Phil Spencer interview: "You know, when I look to the sky and see the Sun, I just, you know, it just kind of makes you realize how bad things are in the industry. If we could just get rid of it [the Sun], so many things with these game budgets, development times...it'd just all be improved you know?"

Making that career switch from CEO to philosopher in real-time.

yep. is not like they spent 100B in order to "compete".

This feels like naive Phill was just bamboozled by nadella

I think it was the other way around

Blame everyone.

But himself.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Next Phil Spencer interview: "You know, when I look to the sky and see the Sun, I just, you know, it just kind of makes you realize how bad things are in the industry. If we could just get rid of it [the Sun], so many things with these game budgets, development times...it'd just all be improved you know?"

Making that career switch from CEO to philosopher in real-time.



I think it was the other way around

Phil is not that smart

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

So really capitalism is not the issue, rather publically traded companies whose shares are treated as investment instruments to accumulate perpetual growth value forever.

Capitalism neither necessitates publically owned companies or share trading on stock exchanges.

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

Dude

 

[AJUMP23]

It's unsustainable to expect constant growth.

Maybe in one business unit.

 

[Jigsaah]

I do feel that people who have no passion for gaming have far too much sway over the creatives.

 

[Quasicat]

I don't hear him blaming capitalism. I hear him saying he can't run an unprofitable business -- which is just, duh, of course you can't. He's just stating the obvious reality.

Agreed. He sounds more like someone that is concerned about being replaced…which I imagine is a real possibility when the Xbox division is losing money. What we are seeing here is a company desperate to keep making money whether it’s distancing itself from GamePass to getting titles on other hardware.
Microsoft did the same thing with Office and Teams. I use these on a Windows Surface at work, but in a Mac and iPad at home.

 

[Crayon]

Pretending like whatever they are doing atm is an inevitable future of the whole industry is the mo over there. In this case, failing.

Do you see the continuity of the message he's been belching out for a few months? What a nice story for the hardcore base. Phil bravely leading the whole industry gracefully into the sunset.

 

[Kacho]

(FYI) Jez Corden has heard that Microsoft had an all-hands meeting recently with Phil Spencer.

They discussed what the future of Xbox looks like, and discussed the rumors of going third-party.

Phil said The decisions we take today, are about ensuring Xbox's future not for years but for decades to come and Xbox will be stronger in the years/decades to come and he specifically said that includes hardware.

Also, an Xbox higher-up recently DM Jez saying “There's a lot of things that we do wrong at Microsoft, and there's a lot of things I would change and there a lot of things that maybe I understand people being worried about. But there's one thing you shouldn't worry about and that is, the commitment to gaming.”

According to Jez, there has been a disruption in the brand, and part of that disruption is how costs have grown in recent years. Everything has gotten more expensive and that's why they put Sea of Thieves on the PlayStation. Rare has no cash flow apart from SoT, and with expenses going up, especially in the UK (Brexit/COVID), adding another revenue stream to SoT is crucial!

Microsoft wants each division to stand on its own two feet. Every team needs to stand on their own two feet eventually.

Same old tired shit.

"We mess up a lot guys. But our heart is in the right place. We are committed™ to gaming. Trust us."

I'm no fan of Mike Ybarra, but you can at least tell he cares about gaming. I can't say the same for anyone over at Xbox right now. There's a reason Ybarra left that shit show. They've been in a tailspin for 10 years and it's too late to pull up.

 

[mnkl13]

omg.... everytime i see a Phil Spencer thread about something he said or did or thinking about doing, i am about to comment how the hell is a communist the head of a business such as xbox, but i never do. until now. it's just the way he's been. it's never been about competing, being the better company, having the best games. it's been about how do i turn everything into xbox or xbox into everything, and there'll be nothing but it and everyone will be happy with it. he's been so all over the place, there's not a clear path.

 

[RoboFu]

Maybe don't spend multi-billions of dollars on publishers?

 

[dragonyeuw]

Phil realizes capitalism also allowed Microsoft to become a trillion dollar company, yeah? Can't have it both ways bucko.

 

[Valedix]

Dude acts like he isn't part of the problem, spending 70b on a fucking company doesn't help.

 

[Interfectum]

It’s everyone’s fault but Phil’s.

 

[violence]

We must have infinite growth.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

Is he not allowed to speak his mind? I'm not seeing the issue, here. He is stating a fact. If videogames & platforms were no longer a profitable business, every company will cut it loose and do something that makes them money. Nintendo would abandon it, too. Console gaming doesn't exist as this thing that can't go away, that we just deserve to have. Console gaming happened and grew into what it is now, because it made lots of money. If that ever stops happening, it will go away. Nintendo started as a playing card manufacturer. They pivoted into console games because it's lucrative and they saw this opportunity to make a lot of money.

None of this stuff exists without commercial success and profits. Welcome to Earth! Capitalism is how new industries and products are created and come about. People are naturally incentivized to create something new if there's an incentive to do it (money).

 

[Kataploom]

I still struggle to see where he is "blaming" capitalism. He just explains why MS is currently restructuring. It's not like he's suggesting MS should be seized by the government, lol

IDK pal I just responded to thread title because it was like 7 am here and I was coding all night lol

 

[Team Andromeda]

We must have infinite growth.

Or do an Atari, SNK, NEC and SEGA.

 

[violence]

In all seriousness, I’m sure they’ll just do what all the companies are doing and except investor money with strings attached. Before the end anyway.

 

[Moriarty1889]

I would argue Ybarra would have done a MUCH better job running Xbox than Phil. What he says there is absolute 1000% TRUTH.

 

[VolticArchangel]

Ah, yes.

The great socialist utopian revolutionary, Phil Castro, and the dream corporate nation, Microsoftuela, are not happy that a fucking 70 billion acquisition's closing year and the next fiscal year, are not going to generate internal business growth targets, or even operating profits.

Not to be confused with contract work, abusing/exploiting H1B Visas from 3rd world countries for skilled "contractors", but conveniently blame the industry and everyone else for layoffs, than looking at the fucking mirror, because moral superiority and PR bullshit.

 

[Raven117]

Lol. Xbox was far from saturating the market.

Phil failed as a CEO. That’s all there is to it

 

[Crayon]

He has had "the luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business". And yet he says it as if his competitors have.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Shots fire

Your boy trowing some truth bombs HeisenbergFX4

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

I would argue Ybarra would have done a MUCH better job running Xbox than Phil. What he says there is absolute 1000% TRUTH.

well, it's too late now. and it seems Phil and Mike didn't like each other

 

[violence]

Lol. Xbox was far from saturating the market.

Phil failed as a CEO. That’s all there is to it

It’s very hard to reclaim the audience once you lose them. Just look at WCW Monday night Nitro.

Don Mattrick poisoned the well so bad there’s only so much a human like Phil can do.

 

[HeWhoWalks]

It’s very hard to reclaim the audience once you lose them. Just look at WCW Monday night Nitro.

Don Mattrick poisoned the well so bad there’s only so much a human like Phil can do.

This issue goes far beyond Don Mattrick. If he was the poison, Phil was the enhancement.

 

[BlackTron]

It all unfolds like a parody of itself.

 

[MisterXDTV]

Don Mattrick poisoned the well so bad there’s only so much a human like Phil can do.

10 years, 3 consoles and 83 billions later, are we still talking about Mattrick????

Come on, it's getting pathetic at this point

When is Spencer gonna be held responsible for his failures? 2040 maybe?

 

[Raven117]

It’s very hard to reclaim the audience once you lose them. Just look at WCW Monday night Nitro.

Don Mattrick poisoned the well so bad there’s only so much a human like Phil can do.

But brilliant CEOs pull it off. They paid him a fortune, and achieved nothing but middling results

 

[darthkarki]

So really capitalism is not the issue, rather publically traded companies whose shares are treated as investment instruments to accumulate perpetual growth value forever.

Capitalism neither necessitates publically owned companies or share trading on stock exchanges.

This is kind of what it seems like to me. Maybe someone smarter than me can explain. He says:

publicly traded companies that are in the industry that have to show their investors growth—because why else does somebody own a share of someone’s stock if it’s not going to grow?

Well, the other reason would be dividends, right? Obviously, there is no unlimited growth, but a stable business can provide dividends. If the industry isn't growing, shouldn't the companies share dividends instead of rely on growth potential? I feel like we hear about "record revenue and profit" frequently, is there a reason they are not doing that?

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

long past time to can this guy

give him a gold-plated kinect and send him on his way

 

[Varteras]

No consumer should give even one fuck for the excuses. If you're an Xbox supporter, in Phil's time of being in charge, you bought into not one, but two generations of consoles. In that time, you were given far fewer games to choose from than the competitors were offering. When games did come, they were nowhere near as impressive.

You got told again and again to just wait. Great times were coming. You got sold on an idea of a subscription service that would provide you all those upcoming amazing games for cheap. So you kept waiting and waiting for the flood of great exclusive games on that service. They didn't materialize.

You looked on in excited anticipation as they spent absurd amounts of money to buy two major publishers. Being given the impression that this was how they were finally going to achieve it. Making you feel like your support over the years was finally going to pay off.

Only to now be essentially told that you're a fool and you should have been investing in the competitors the whole time. That you wasted your time, energy, and money. That all those games you thought you were going to get, only with that box of theirs you bought, are going to inevitably be found on the ones who weren't failing their customers for years on end.

There is no excuse from him that should satisfy you. There is no excuse you should be making on his behalf. He made you believe, so it was on him to deliver. He got paid big money over 10 years to fail to deliver to his customers the satisfaction that Nintendo and PlayStation delivered to theirs. If you are still not just telling him to shut the fuck up and just go away, you need to look in the mirror and realize that you are a tool. A tool being used to ease his landing at your expense.

 

[Clear]

You could also interpret his words as meaning that from here on out, any studio that isn't turning a profit is potentially getting downsized.

Seems evident that Satya wants to start seeing dividends on that ABK purchase immediately.

 

[semiconscious]

as always, great hearing from Phil, given how rare his interviews / public statements've been of late...

 

[StueyDuck]

Phil Spencer blames capitalism for games industry woes: 'I don't get [the] luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business'

Spencer said publicly traded companies have to show constant growth or else nobody will give them money.

www.pcgamer.com

The problem, according to Spencer, is a "lack of growth" across the videogame industry as a whole. "When you have an industry that is projected to be smaller next year in terms of players and dollars, and you get a lot of publicly traded companies that are in the industry that have to show their investors growth—because why else does somebody own a share of someone’s stock if it’s not going to grow?—the side of the business that then gets scrutinized is the cost side," Spencer said. "Because if you’re not going to grow the revenue side, then the cost side becomes challenged."

If you can't grow by making more money, in other words, then you can "grow"—in terms of profits, share price, EBITDA, and all those other metrics that Wall Street types care about— by spending less. The obvious question is, why are you bringing in all these new people if you can't afford to pay them? Of course, Microsoft can afford to pay those people, it just doesn't want to, because, that's right, growth.

(My edit tools are 'greyed out' for some reason, so cant mark these are quotes, apologies)

Hmmmm so first women will be made to look like men, then the head of marketing is sexist towards men and now capitalism is bad ...

How long till they expect us to be goosestepping

 

[ProtoByte]

So really capitalism is not the issue, rather publically traded companies whose shares are treated as investment instruments to accumulate perpetual growth value forever.

Capitalism neither necessitates publically owned companies or share trading on stock exchanges.

Capitalism doesn't necessitate it, but certain industries do. Gaming as it is now is certainly one of them.

I know a lot of people think that they're saying something smart when they pull out the forever growth argument, but it's a fundamental misunderstanding of marker finances and economics in general. Stagnation is never a good thing, because it inevitably leads to decline - and there's always ways to improve.

Another thing, why are we blaming shareholders for this as far as Xbox is concerned? They couldn't give two shits.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

I do feel that people who have no passion for gaming have far too much sway over the creatives.

Most creatives don't want to end up penniless like Rembrandt. They'll whore themselves out for the Spencer's of the world.

 

[Klayzer]

No consumer should give even one fuck for the excuses. If you're an Xbox supporter, in Phil's time of being in charge, you bought into not one, but two generations of consoles. In that time, you were given far fewer games to choose from than the competitors were offering. When games did come, they were nowhere near as impressive.

You got told again and again to just wait. Great times were coming. You got sold on an idea of a subscription service that would provide you all those upcoming amazing games for cheap. So you kept waiting and waiting for the flood of great exclusive games on that service. They didn't materialize.

You looked on in excited anticipation as they spent absurd amounts of money to buy two major publishers. Being given the impression that this was how they were finally going to achieve it. Making you feel like your support over the years was finally going to pay off.

Only to now be essentially told that you're a fool and you should have been investing in the competitors the whole time. That you wasted your time, energy, and money. That all those games you thought you were going to get, only with that box of theirs you bought, are going to inevitably be found on the ones who weren't failing their customers for years on end.

There is no excuse from him that should satisfy you. There is no excuse you should be making on his behalf. He made you believe, so it was on him to deliver. He got paid big money over 10 years to fail to deliver to his customers the satisfaction that Nintendo and PlayStation delivered to theirs. If you are still not just telling him to shut the fuck up and just go away, you need to look in the mirror and realize that you are a tool. A tool being used to ease his landing at your expense.

 

[GHG]

He's not saying anything remotely controversial, people on here just like to REEEEEEEEEEEE

Bring out the burner accounts.

All hands to the pump.

 

[spawn]

No where in Phil's statement is the word capitalism. OP and PC gamer are reaching here for some drama

 

[Jigsaah]

Most creatives don't want to end up penniless like Rembrandt. They'll whore themselves out for the Spencer's of the world.

I hear what you're saying but I was referring to the investors. Spencer is not the boogie man here.

 

[Moriarty1889]

well, it's too late now. and it seems Phil and Mike didn't like each other

They didn’t like each other because Phil believes the exact opposite of what Mike said…….makes sense when you look at how badly Phil has run Xbox with its lack of quality AAA exclusives.

 

[Nydius]

He's not saying anything remotely controversial, people on here just like to REEEEEEEEEEEE

Phil is doing what Phil does: Saying a lot of words to try and change the narrative so he seems blameless. He’s trying to paint the entire industry with a broad brush so he can turn around and pretend Xbox is a victim of outside forces rather than their own ineptitude.

The problems Phil complains about in the industry seem to be almost uniquely affecting Xbox the worst. Wonder why that is…

Yes, triple-A budgets are problematic but that hasn’t stopped Sony or Nintendo from dropping massive successes that turn a profit nor has it caused either of them to flop around like a fish out of water trying to figure new market strategies. Sony porting games to PC isn’t a complete shift in strategy like Microsoft’s constant floundering.

 

[Ozriel]

That is not "blaming capitalism". That's blaming stockholders and their continuous expectations of growth in profits.

Yeah. He’s saying what a lot of people here say anytime their favorite company lays people off or cancels games.

ironic to see the response here

 

[Edmund]

You don't have to talk so much and explain your failures if you're in first place, Phil.

 

[Yoboman]

He is right about capitalism in its modern stage

The system isnt working when making hundreds of millions or billions in profit isn't enough to keep people in jobs

It's become less about having a great product that results in a customer and business exchange and more about appeasing the stock market with its infinite growth expectations.

You aren't the customer, you dont matter. You don't matter as the worker. Increasing share price is what matters, and who can be shocked by that when the US stock market is like 25 times the size of the US currency in circulation. Sitting in a house of cards

 

[Braag]

I mean there's this thing called diminishing returns. Growth is the only thing that matters in a publicly traded company. If you don't keep growing year after after year and instead dip one year, the investors think your business is no longer profitable, thus they want you to focus on cost reduction to maintain profitability. 90% of the time this leads to lay offs.

 

[tr1p1ex]

But Spencer has the luxury of not really making a profit. HE works for MSFT.

The sign they aren't making a profit is when they don't break out the numbers. They just casually say uh yeah we're making a profit. But by what measure? So many companies think EBITDA or adjusted earnings are profit when they aren't. And there are other (accounting) ways to declare we're profitable.

I think what Phil is saying lately there is pressure now to start showing a profit. That's been the trend lately to get more profitable or finally be profitable. META same thing. Zuckerberg cut the deadwood and boosted profits. OF course it's funny it's a trend to run a lean organization. Should always be the case. They wouldn't have to lay off people nearly as much if companies were more prudent about hiring in the first place.