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Rate Phil Spencer's tenure

What's your final verdict for Phil Spencer's helm at Xbox

  • Total voters
    407
Hyper_hyper said:
If 14 years ago Reggie and Iwata started Nintendo demise because of Wii U, Tatsumi took over and corrected the Nintendo sinking ship with Switch. If Tatsumi succeeded, Phil Spencer could it too. Blaming Mattrick 13 years later won't cut it, man
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Wii U and Xbox One were completely different situations with a myriad of different variables at play based on their target market and competition. You can't say, "Nintendo bounced back after Wii U so why couldn't Xbox?". Nintendo didn't lose the digital library war that ultimately decided this gen. None of that was relevant for their platform due to their target demo.
 
Esquie said:
Wii U and Xbox One were completely different situations with a myriad of different variables at play based on their target market and competition. You can't say, "Nintendo bounced back after Wii U so why couldn't Xbox?". Nintendo didn't lose the digital library war that ultimately decided this gen. None of that was relevant for their platform due to their target demo.
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Nintendo didn't had any digital library.
Situation were BAD for both, on their own. If Tatsumi succeeded to right the ship because Wii U disaster in few years, Spencer had more than a double of that time. He FAILED. Repeating again, blaming Mattrick 13 years after he departed won't cut it
 
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Esquie said:
Wii U and Xbox One were completely different situations with a myriad of different variables at play based on their target market and competition. You can't say, "Nintendo bounced back after Wii U so why couldn't Xbox?". Nintendo didn't lose the digital library war that ultimately decided this gen. None of that was relevant for their platform due to their target demo.
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WiiU had a hardware problem. Nintendo fixed the hardware with Switch so everything went fine.

XboxOne has a software problem. Microsoft tried to fix it by making better hardware and failed. Then they tried to take games away from their rivals, but failed because they purchased a company that is bigger and more profitable than Xbox, which subsequently UNO reversed them and swallowed Xbox. Their plan failed because all they had was money. And money can't make good games on its own.
 
As a PC gamer - I'd give him a C. A lot better than anyone else that has been in charge of MS gaming, but he couldn't or wouldn't see a bad game coming if it kicked him in the ball (the one not in someone's throat).
 
Hyper_hyper said:
Nintendo didn't had any digital library.
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Exactly.

Situation were BAD for both, on their own.
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The situation for Xbox was FAR more dire. Nintendo caters to a different demographic. They weren't really competing with PlayStation and Xbox. They could flop a gen and reset for the next one fine because there's always going to be new kids growing up.

If Tatsumi succeeded to right the ship because Wii U disaster in few years, Spencer had more than a double of that time. He FAILED. Repeating again, blaming Mattrick 13 years after he departed won't cut it
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Again, completely different situations and variables. I really don't have much else to say beyond that if you insist on the "Nintendo bounced back from Wii U so why couldn't Xbox!!"… it just ignores all the determinative market factors that were at play.
 
Esquie said:
The situation for Xbox was FAR more dire. Nintendo caters to a different demographic. They weren't really competing with PlayStation and Xbox. They could flop a gen and reset for the next one fine because there's always going to be new kids growing up.
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No, situation for Wii U was far more dire. Xbone at least build digital library and sold +55 mil. units. Wii U sold.. What, 13 mil. and had nothing. Phil Spencer had more than half of the Xbone gen to right the ship and especially new opportunity during launch of XSeries. He FAILED tremendously
Nintendo was and still is a competitor.


Esquie said:
Nintendo bounced back from Wii U so why couldn't Xbox!!"
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If Nintendo did with launch of new console, Sony did under PS3 gen, so, Xbox could it. Only Xbox didn't.
 
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Mondays Fail GIF
 
Definitely an F. He literally destroyed the brand and any relevance it may have had left at one point. His Gamepass brainchild cannibalized much needed game sales in favor of subs that didn't lead to much of anything. Putting Xbox exclusives on the biggest competitor they have and getting fuck all in return showed the man clearly didn't give a shit and had no fucking clue. Devalued the hardware by telling potential customers they didn't need to buy a Xbox console to play xbox games. What an utter moron and incompetent clown he was. Just look at the state he left Xbox in til this point. Good riddance.
 
LectureMaster said:
Papa Phil's major legacies as the head of Xbox and MS Gaming CEO:

  • The Game Pass Revolution: Launched Xbox Game Pass in 2017. This "Netflix for games" subscription model fundamentally disrupted traditional game distribution, changing how millions of players access, discover, and pay for games.


  • Studio Acquisitions: Dramatically expanded Microsoft's first-party portfolio by orchestrating some of the largest acquisitions in the history of the entertainment industry. This includes the monumental $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, the acquisition of ZeniMax Media/Bethesda Softworks, and the purchase of Mojang (Minecraft).


  • shifted Xbox from a console-exclusive box to an ecosystem: Pushing PC gaming integration, cross-platform play, and Xbox Cloud Gaming. Launch Xbox first party games on rivalry's consoles.



  • Backward compatibility for Xbox Consoles: Let players carry their older Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One libraries forward onto modern hardware.
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I voted C.
People will blame him for everything wrong that happened but Phil still reported to be above him and ultimately he didn't have free reign of Xbox and is most likely not to blame for a lot of it.

Game Pass and the Acquisitions both could have been great but sometimes things don't end up the way you want/wish them to and were obviously done with the intention of helping the brand or allowing the brand to steer in a better direction.

Also being a CEO of any gaming/electronics company during COVID is not easy in the slightest. Something I would say for Jim Ryan as well.
 
Complete F.

- Ran the Xbox brand and identity into the ground. An Xbox is just a glorified PC with extra dev work at this point.
- Went all in on game pass and lost big time.
- Bought up half the industry and mismanaged the fuck out of every studio. Think about how many games don't exist because of Phil.

Not only did he fuck up all of the above... He burned BILLIONS doing it.

The only positive is that I haven't had to buy an Xbox since the 360 era because there hasn't been an exclusive worth buying for nearly 15 years... Even PlayStation still hooks me with 3-5 exclusive games per gen.
 
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adamsapple said:
Some folks on Gaf attribute Phil to xbox's 'failing', maybe they forgot Phil is the one who convinced Satya to continue Xbox back in 2013, the bald fuck wanted to shut down the Xbox brand altogether back then.
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Knowing when to quit is a skill. Phil just turned Xbox into the Zombie department, kept alive with outside money, until life support was finally pulled a decade too late.
 
Dude killed Xbox

Mattrick was better. Dude was head of Xbox during its golden era. "Always online" XONE fiasco aside, he was there when Gears, Halo and Forza were strong franchises. Announced Metal Gear (Rising) with Kojima on stage and Final Fantasy for Xbox.

Phil was all talk and no action
 
He promissed games, delivered the bullshit of services and features that I don't care.

But he could be an idiot but It was there since the old Gold days. Xbox and Playstation Lost their soul. Now Just c-levels with no connection with the brands.

That is the diff from Nintendo. Myamoto is there since day one managing creative production so the Brand doesn't lose their DNA.
 
In my view, Phil Spencer did a really good job during the early years of his tenure as the head of Xbox.

Xbox's focus on bringing value to its fans through Game Pass, backward compatibility, and an affordable "next-gen" entry point with the Series S positioned it as a strong competitor against PlayStation and Nintendo. Commendable moves were made, such as acquiring talented studios, building a new AAA team (The Initiative), and allowing developers to explore a wide variety of games.

However, the big downturn during his leadership has been Xbox Game Studios' inability to consistently produce impactful games. I can only count a few that are genuinely GOTY-worthy or what I would consider "must-have" titles. Instead, he greenlit awful to mediocre games like Crackdown 3 and Redfall. Furthermore, he failed to grow the Xbox market beyond its US base; Xbox completely stagnated in Asian and European markets, leading to a lot of third-party games skipping the console entirely.

These are just a few of the many reasons the Xbox business has failed to see substantial growth in recent years.

Xbox's decision to acquire massive publishers like ZeniMax/Bethesda and Activision Blizzard put them at serious risk of missing the profitability targets demanded by shareholders. This is especially true since Game Pass potentially cannibalizes software sales, and the cost of maintaining the service with a steady stream of content has blown up. Additionally, his reputation took a hit due to his shifting narratives, which were highlighted by the internal email leaks during the Activision FTC trial.

Overall, I'd give Phil "just four games" Spencer a solid C. Not terrible, but he absolutely should have done better.
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Only a PlayStation fanboy could rate it anything other than F, literally killed Xbox, sure Mattrick started the ball rolling, but Spencer stopped trying to run away from it and let it roll him over.
 
F, Did not make the best games he could of, and made them mid level and try and push gamers onto GP by raising prices too high, then raised GP prices higher, and told too many lies.
 
He took a brand that was in a nosedive and said, "fuck the yoke", did few lines of blow and went full throttle while he hummed Gas Gas Gas.
 
E, I do like some MS decisions to bring back the classic titles like AOE2, AOM with some gradual new content. I enjoyed them more than any other first party by MS and sony in the past 10 years.
 
This is kind of a rare situation.

I like the guy. I think he had the right spirit in a lot of ways. The people pointing out his back compat push are correct.

BUT. He didn't produce results where needed. I think he was bought into the "hire based on immutable characteristics" push. It's unclear to me how much of his lack of results were his hands being tied if at all.

I'll say this for him… I did give him an F. Maybe I should have went D. I'd grade Hulst worse. At least we are getting a Fable and a Forza that both look promising this year.
 
They guy had no vision for the company, fucking MS was always reacting to everything. They had zero instinct for good games, he green lit awful games, with questionable quality, he didn't understand the market. Most of their strategies failed one after the other, he burnt a lot of money, with their 1 dollar subscriptions to gamepass. That was moronic.
All his teammates are really bad at their position. All in all, I'm glad he is gone, and I am not happy with the existence of Xbox game division. They should sell their games division and return the dev teams to the world. And he lied a lot.
 
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Esquie said:
I dunno, you don't feel like the brand was already dying or clearly heading that way by the time he took over? Mattrick and the X1 completely fucked them. Everyone built up their digital library on the PS4 and that was a wrap.
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Phil fully supported the direction Mattrick was going and vocal about it.
 
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