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[No BBC=Anger]

Just pull the plug. It's fkn dead man.

When you're out driving in some backwoods and hit an animal in the middle of the road, you get out of the car and end its life quickly if needed. If Spencer was behind the wheel (probably distracted from playing Vampire Survivors) he'd ring everyone and have a video conference on what to do.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

Gaming community views this different than MS as a whole. MS shutters teams/projects as a standard practice. Business as usual. They only need a few things to take off, the rest they throw at walls, doesn't stick, they throw it elsewhere.

 

[ZehDon]

I was happy to give Spencer the benefit of the doubt because of the fuck ups Mattrick left him with and the leash Microsoft had on Xbox. But, Spencer's had eight years since Microsoft handed him the cheque book and... yeah, not much has happened. Looking ahead, Xbox's biggest names are Halo, Gears, Forza, and Fable... which is right where Mattrick left the brand when he killed it. Spencer and his team simply don't know what a good game looks like before it's released, and it's absolutely killed them.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Phil has overseen a massive improvement in their studios and games, and he was there when GamePass came about, so imho his tenure is not as horrific as a lot of people make it out to be. But I do agree that it's time for Xbox to have a new voice and lead, assuming Xbox is even going to remain a household thing.

Fatty Fatkins on PR can go, too. He should have been taken out back when that other douche nugget Major Nelson was.

 

[Unfortunatecookie]

I'm guessing it's a combination of Microsoft making almost all of their money outside of Xbox (i.e., Xbox can die and Microsoft will keep making zillions), Phil Spencer being close to Nadella behind the scenes, and nobody else in the company wanting the responsibility of unfucking the Xbox business.

It's impressive that Phil Spencer and Aaron Greenberg still have executive and VP positions. The two of them have done a measurably abysmal job of growing the Xbox business for 12 straight years.

 

[PatientGamer]

Microsoft has serious sunk cost fallacy with regards to Xbox... there were in the perfect position in 2009 and they shit the bed so hard, there is zero chance of coming back from it. They don't want to kill the division because of how much money they've sunk into it. Billions and billions.

Especially those acquisitions.

 

[ProtoByte]

I say they're basically out of the game before 2035.

 

[ReasonBeing]

CEO's love a good layoff. I'm not sure why people expect Phil to be on his naughty list because of the firings.

 

[Syphon Filter]

GamePass is the future.

Hardware/consoles remains to be seen.

its not the future, growth stagnated and nobody cares about it.

 

[Astray]

The underlying assumption that the head of Xbox paid to be the head of Xbox is the one making all the decisions? I wonder why? Nadella doesn't have time to waste managing an inconsequential part of their portfolio like Xbox. We've seen the email exchanges and he was utterly uninterested while Phil was an active participant and obviously running the show. Nadella just approves or disapproves. He isn't running Xbox. It's Phil.

I mean back then Xbox was a rounding error, 100bn spent later and it's top of mind, especially now that the mothership has found its next all-in product (AI).

 

[Xbox 360 slim]

Just how long is this circus supposed to last? Phil Spencer's tenure has been an abject failure. His only credit is having bought out big companies using Microsoft's infinite pile of money. The whole top brass needs to get canned. Phil, Matt Booty, Greenberg, and that hot black milf whose name escapes me.

But nah, in a year, everything will be forgotten when he'll have acquired another studio that Xbox will run to the ground 5 years later.

If Xbox was honest, they'd get rid of all the xbox branding and just call themselves "microsoft gamepass".

 

[simpatico]

How are we feeling about first party PC games yall? Delisting concerns abound, and there's a Steam sale going on right now. As a guy who owns nearly every desirable delisted Steam game, I'm a lot more cognizant about buying stuff I get the feeling is about to go away. I just had to pay a slight premium on a FH4 key, and I'd like to avoid that in the future. So what should we grab while we can?

Forza Motorsport - yes (honestly grab 7 from a key seller too)
Forza Horizon 5 - yes
Halo Infinite? Campaign is still a good way to scratch a little Halo SP urge on PC. $20 is kinda high for what you get though.
Avowed? nah. Happy to let that one die.
Dark Ages? Not at any price you can find it at right now. I'd be down for $20 at most. Even then...

What are you guys thinking? What are some other MS titles that we could swoop up on Steam. I'm not even confident about the games I only own on the Xbox PC app. So we're talking Steam only here.

 

[A.Romero]

Whoever thinks what is happening with Xbox right now is a surprise for Microsoft is just delusional.

I don't see any indication of anything being different to what they have been planning for years. These guys are not idiots, they are just not doing whatever people think they should be doing but it doesn't mean is wrong.

These guys have everything they could need to make the best decisions possible. Microsoft has been on a high for a while and they are getting results.

This article is from a few months ago: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/30...s-revenue-profits-windows-xbox-gaming-surface

From the article:

The company says that its Xbox content and services revenue grew 61 percent year over year from the previous quarter — a figure driven by "53 points of net impact from the Activision acquisition," according to the company's press release. But hardware revenues again declined, down 29 percent this quarter, which may be influenced by Microsoft's continued strategy to make its games available more widely than just Xbox consoles.

During the quarter, Microsoft introduced its new Xbox Game Pass "Standard" tier and a price hike for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Q1 also saw the arrival of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III on Xbox Game Pass, but this quarter doesn't include the impact of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which launched last week. (Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on its earnings call that the game was the "biggest Call of Duty release ever.")

If you are interested and look deeper in what actually matters to them (profits!) you will see they are producing results. Also, as others have said, it's not like Spencer works on it's own and reports to Nadella every quarter. I'm sure the CEO, which is the best Microsoft has ever had and probably one of the best in the industry, knows exactly what he is doing.

 

[Artistic]

its not the future, growth stagnated and nobody cares about it.

Agree to disagree.

 

[powder]

There's sort of this underlying assumption that Phil is the one making all the decisions around Xbox. I don't really think that's the case. It seems more likely Nadella is the one laying out a vision and Phil is the one tasked with doing the management work to bring those ideas to life. If that's the case, it's not obvious anyone else could have done a better job.

This. I don't think Phil has as much sway in all of this as people think. He's a good punching bag, though.

I'm not saying he's not responsible for WHO gets cut in the layoffs, he might be involved in some part of that decision making, but the overall call to cut always comes from up high or at the CFO level.

 

[Esca]

No way I want Phill to run the entire Microsoft corporation and run it all into the ground. Give him another decade and we could be there with his slick ideas

 

[Pasta la Vista]

Nobody from "the top" is getting chopped unless it leads to some catastrophic loss of profits / revenue. Even if that were to happen, do you really believe you would get the change you want? MS is in a unique position where they can blunder their way to success because so much of the world depends on Windows and there is NOTHING (not Apple, not Linux) that can take their place.

Like it or not, MS has its roots so far deep into modern human civilization, that even if there was a threat, they would absorb that and continue as they do.

They are literally too big to fail. I would love to be proven wrong, I want more than anything to be free from their grasp but the time where they could have been dethroned is long gone. It is the present and the future as long as the earth remains and humans reside on it.

 

[Matsuchezz]

Kojima's game cancellation for Xbox, will be the straw that will break the camel's back. He and his group will be canned.

 

[Windle Poons]

Watch Phil and pals get a bonus for laying off all these people.

Oh guaranteed.

 

[scydrex]

Phil has overseen a massive improvement in their studios and games, and he was there when GamePass came about, so imho his tenure is not as horrific as a lot of people make it out to be. But I do agree that it's time for Xbox to have a new voice and lead, assuming Xbox is even going to remain a household thing.

Fatty Fatkins on PR can go, too. He should have been taken out back when that other douche nugget Major Nelson was.

What games are you taking about?
What are the GOTY games of MS or Xbox?
The games that MS has release from couple of years back to today are worse than before. Like Doom Dark Ages. Starfield worse than Fallout 3 and 4 or New Vegas. Redfall. Forza is dead. Bad management of 343, Rare, Initiative, Arkane Austin, Tango and others.
What are the improvements? Cancelling games? Firing people? Closing Studios?